Norio Maeda
Maeda learned piano as a young child, and moved to Tokyo to play and arrange jazz professionally in 1955. There he played with Shungo Sawada's ensemble and founded a group called the Wind Breakers. He joined the West Liners, led by Konosuke Saijo, as a pianist and arranger in 1959. Known as a composer, he penned pieces for The Blue Coats, Tatsuya Takahashi, Nobuo Hara, and Toshiyuki Miyama. He also founded We 3 with and Takeshi Inomata, and later worked with Inomata again in a trio with .