User:Calvinbarber/Taeko Fukao

Taeko Fukao is a Japanese Jazz singer from Shiga, Japan. Taeko is currently based in New York City, but travels extensively through out the US and Japan performing in Jazz Festivals and Jazz Club venues. In between national and local appearances she has recorded two albums for Flat Nine Records.

Career
Taeko started her professional singing career as an R&B singer while studying law at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Her interest in Black Music such as Soul and Jazz brought her to New York City in 1998. After six months of study in the US, Taeko went back to Japan where she continued to pursue her music career. Taeko won a grand prize at the 1999 Satin Dall Jazz Competition in Kobe, Japan. Although she found the Japanese Jazz scene interesting, Taeko knew that in order to fully understand Jazz, she would have to return to New York City . Taeko came back to New York City in 2000, and started to work in small venues such Carpo's Cafe, San Marco, New Tokyo in Downtown Manhattan. In mid 2003, she became a featured artist at Mobay Uptown in Harlem, which continues to this day. Taeko made her first appearance at the Blue Note Jazz Club, located in New York, in late 2003.

After a few years of regular jazz club appearances between the US and Japan such as Zinc Bar, Lenox Lounge, Saint Nick's Pub in New York, J in Tokyo, and Mister Kelly's in Osaka, Taeko has released her first album with Flat Nine Records in New York in late 2007, titled One Love. In the same year, Taeko won a finalist position at the Jazz Vocal Competition presented by Jazzmobile, Inc. held in New York City. Taeko has first appeared at; the Women in Jazz Festival in New York in 2009 along with Annie Ross and Cynthia Scott, presented by the International Women in Jazz, Inc.; the Hartford Jazz Society's Monday Night Jazz Concert Series at the Bushnell Park in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009; the Biwako Jazz Festival in Shiga, Japan in 2010; the Okazaki Jazz Street in Aichi, Japanin 2010; and the Cape May Jazz Festival in New Jersey, USA in November 2010.

Taeko recorded her second album with Flat Nine Records in 2010, titled Voice. She recorded compositions by various American and Japanese artists such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Duke Ellington, Sly and the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, Ryoichi Hattori, and Taro Oguchi, among whom is Doug Carn, a Florida-based American jazz pianist who is best known for a series of his recordings for Black Jazz Records in 1970's. Taeko was hired for Doug Carn's group in early 2011 and is currently touring the US.

Discography

 * 2010: Voice       Released by Flat Nine Records (USA)
 * 2007: One Love         Released by Flat Nine Records (USA)
 * 2004: You Taught My Heart To Sing   Self Release
 * 2002: Stories Of Life   Self Release
 * 1999: Taeko   Self Release