# Masahiko Satoh

Masahiko Satoh (佐藤 允彦, Satō Masahiko, born 6 October 1941) is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer and arranger.

## Early life

Satoh was born in Tokyo on 6 October 1941. His mother was Setsu and his father, who owned small businesses, was Yoshiaki Satoh. The house that his family moved into in 1944 contained a piano; Masahiko started playing it at the age of five. He began playing the piano professionally at the age of 17, "accompanying singers, magicians and strippers at a cabaret in the Ginza district".

## Later life and career

By 1959 Satoh was playing in Georgie Kawaguchi's band, together with alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and tenor saxophonist Akira Miyazawa. Satoh graduated from Keio University.
At the age of 26, Satoh moved to the United States to study at the Berklee College of Music. He stayed for two years, during which he read about composing and arranging. He earned money working in a food shop and playing the piano in a hotel. In 1968 he wrote the music for, and conducted, a series of pieces that were combined with dance and performed in New York. After returning to Japan, he recorded Palladium, his first album as leader, and appeared on a Helen Merrill album.
In his early career in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Satoh played in a free, percussive style. Satoh played at the 1971 Berlin Jazz Festival as part of a trio; he used a then-unusual ring modulator to alter the sound. Also in the early 1970s, he recorded with Attila Zoller, Karl Berger, and Albert Mangelsdorff. He wrote the psychedelic music for the 1973 anime film Belladonna of Sadness.
Satoh has written arrangements for recordings led by, among others, Merrill, Kimiko Itoh, and Nancy Wilson. He also arranged for strings and quartet on Art Farmer's 1983 album Maiden Voyage.
In 1990 Satoh formed a large group, named Rantooga, that combined various forms of folk musics from around the world. In the early 1990s he composed music for a choir of 1,000 Buddhist monks. In the early 1990s he was reported as stating that 70% of his time was spent on arranging and composing, and the rest on playing and recording.

## Compositions

Satoh has composed for film, television and advertisements. For instance, he made the music of Kanashimi no Belladonna, a film in which the sound is very important; all the songs of this movie are performed by his wife, Chinatsu Nakayama.
Some of his compositions are influenced by the space in the works of composer Toru Takemitsu. Satoh has also composed for traditional Japanese instruments, including the shakuhachi and biwa.

## Discography

An asterisk (*) after the year indicates that it is the year of release.

### As leader/co-leader

| Year recorded | Title | Label | Notes |
| 1969* | Palladium | Express | Trio, with Yasuo Arakawa (bass), Masahiko Togashi (drums) |
| 1970 | Holography | Nippon Columbia | Solo |
| 1970 | Astrorama | Liberty | Co-led with Jean-Luc Ponty. Quintet, with Ponty (keyboards, vocals), Yoshiaki Masuo (guitar), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bass), Motohiko Hino (drums) |
| 1970 | Kayobi No Onna (火曜日の女) | Toho | with Yoshiko Goto (vocals), Kiyoshi Sugimoto (guitar), Kunimitsu Inaba (bass), Yasuo Arakawa (bass), Akira Ishikawa (drums) |
| 1970 | Piano Deluxe Album | Polydor | Solo |
| 1985 | Amorphism | Epic Sony | Trio, with Eddie Gomez (bass), Steve Gadd (drums) |
| 1985 | As If... | Nippon Columbia | Trio, with Eddie Gomez (bass), Steve Gadd (drums) |
| 1988 | Double Exposure | Epic Sony | Trio, with Eddie Gomez (bass), Steve Gadd (drums) |
| 1990 | Lunar Cruise | Epic Sony | Duo, with Midori Takada (percussion) |
| 1990 | Randooga: Select Live Under The Sky'90 | Epic Sony | Live at the Yomiuriland open theatre East in July 1990. Special guest: Wayne Shorter. |
| 2002–03 | Masahiko Plays Masahiko | Ewe | Solo piano |
| 2005 | Voyages | BAJ | Co-led with Joelle Leandre (bass); in concert |
| 2007 | Nyozegamon | Ohrai | Solo piano |
| 2007 | Rocking Chair | BAJ | Solo piano |
| 2009 | Summer Night | Studio Songs | Solo piano |
| 2010 | Afterimages | BAJ | Duo, with Je Chun Park (percussion) |
| 2011 | Edo Gigaku | BAJ | Trio, with Shinichi Kotoh (bass), Hiroshi Murakami (drums) |
| 2011 | Yatagarasu | Not Two | Co-led with Peter Brötzmann (alto sax, tenor sax, tárogató, clarinet), Takeo Moriyama (drums); in concert |
| 2013 | Spring Snow | PNL | Co-led with Paal Nilssen-Love (drums, percussion); in concert |
| 2013 | Doushin Gigaku | BAJ | Trio, with Shinichi Kotoh (bass), Hiroshi Murakami (drums) |
| 2013 | Serendip | BAJ | Duo, with Pradeep Ratnayake (sitar) |
| 2017 | Miku Hatsune sings Osamu Tezuka and Isao Tomita | Nippon Columbia | A series of arrangements and remixes of Isao Tomita's compositions for Osamu Tezuka's works sung by Miku Hatsune |

### As sideman

| Year recorded | Leader | Title | Label |
| 1971 | Helen Merrill | S'posin | Storyville |
| 1973 | Anthony Braxton | Four Compositions (1973) | Denon |
| 1985 | Eddie Gómez | Mezgo | Epic |
| 2003 | Joëlle Léandre | Signature | Red Toucan |
| 2011 | Peter Brötzmann | Long Story Short | Trost |
| 2012 | Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love | Extended Duos | Audio Graphic |

## In popular culture

A fictionalized version of Masahiko Satoh appears in Izumi Suzuki's short story "Hey, It's a Love Psychedelic!" as the narrator's love interest.