Keiko Matsui

Keiko Matsui (松居慶子) born as Keiko Doi on July 26, 1961, is a Japanese smooth jazz/new age music pianist and composer whose piano playing (influenced by Chick Corea

Keiko Matsui (松居慶子) born as Keiko Doi on July 26, 1961, is a Japanese smooth jazz/new age music pianist and composer whose piano playing (influenced by Chick Corea), along with her sophisticated elegance, gave her a cult following among her fans. Born in Tokyo, Doi took up the piano after her 5th birthday. She went to the Yamaha Music Foundation after graduating from Japan Woman's University. She later formed the Japanese jazz fusion group The Cosmos. One of the band members was her future husband, Kazu Matsui, a musician and composer in his own right. In 1987, she recorded her debut LP A Drop of Water using money from her honeymoon. The album's title, the name of a song by Carl Anderson, was in memory of those who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster the year before. Its success led to a record deal with MCA Records. By the mid-1990s, Matsui was one the most successful musicians in smooth jazz. She had discovered saxophonist Paul Taylor, who appeared on her mid to late 1990s recordings. Matsui also recorded with a studio group called Soul Ballad. The year 2000 marks her leaving behind her smooth jazz roots and moving more towards a new age-style of music with Whisper From the Mirror. This album and those that succeed it (she was by now recording with Narada Productions) have a love-it or hate-it relationship with her fans (most of them are in the former of the two) although her most recent LP (as of 2005), Walls of Akendora is a throwback of such to her smooth jazz days.nl:Keiko Matsui