Getting to Know Izumi “Mimi” Kobayashi’s Elegant Jazz and Bossa Nova Music of the 1970s and ’80s

By the time she was a teenager, Izumi “Mimi” Kobayashi was already a skilled jazz and bossa nova pianist with a love of the Hammond organ, Astrud Gilberto and Herbie Hancock. Born to a single mother and into a family of doctors, Kobayashi’s preternatural skills and passion for music drove her into Tokyo clubs instead of med school, “in part because she could earn a living immediately to support her mother and put herself through high school,” according to the brief but fascinating liner notes for Choice Cuts 1978-1983, a new collection of her work that we’re currently offering in our shop. Within a few years she was an in-demand recording artist working with some of her idols.

“It was just pure luck,” she says in the liner notes. “I met the right people and good musicians, so I didn’t struggle with anything, it just happened. One thing, then the next, then the next.”

One story in the notes captures the way the musician casually took control of her career, which for Japanese women in the 1970s meant fitting into very neat musical boxes. At the time, Kobiyashi was a member of a jazz band called ASOCA, and at her first meeting about a solo deal with Sony, she arrived with wet hair and flip-flops; she’d just been swimming.

Per the notes:

“I was just smiling and giggling,” she remembers, also now smiling and giggling. “But my manager was sharp and he recognised that this girl couldn’t be a pop star because I didn’t care about my clothes and my fashion.” When an album deal was offered, Mimi insisted on recording with ASOCA, and thus the Flying Mimi Band, led by Izumi ‘Mimi’ Kobayashi, was born.

The Flying Mimi Band’s first of three albums, Orange Sky, is a buoyant samba-disco album that was a commercial success on the Japanese charts, and afforded her the opportunity to compose commercial music and anime scores, and to travel. She learned to surf in Hawaii and, in 1981, starting planning to record her first solo album. It was called Coconut High, and drew on some amazing fusion players.

Notes:

Once again given free reign, Mimi decided to go to LA to record the album that would become Coconuts High, floating around the city’s jazz-funk circuit, cherry-picking her new backing band along the way. Drummers Alex Acuña (Weather Report) and Harvey Mason (The Headhunters), and bassists Abraham Laboriel and Freddie Washington were recruited with minimum fuss, as were the Tower of Power horn section, all of whom read Mimi’s charts, played them through twice and hit record on the third.

While in Los Angeles, Kobayashi saw a reggae band called the Babylon Warriors play in a club. As the notes recount, “Before the gig was up, she had charmed her way backstage and asked them to record too.”

Kobayashi’s is a fascinating story, and Choice Cuts is a perfect introduction. It also illuminates her explorations of reggae and dub — her “Lazy Dub” is featured on Tokyo Riddim 1976​-​1985, Time Capsule’s essential recent collection of Japanese reggae. (Tokyo Riddim 1979-​1986 Volume 2 comes out on Oct. 25.)

A few days ago, Time Capsule uploaded a recent hour-long conversation with Kobayashi, who remains active in London, where she lives. Hosted by Anton Spice, the former editor of The Vinyl Factory Magazine, it’s a revelatory conversation about her life in music.

The vinyl version of Choice Cuts will likely go fast. You can snag one at our shop.