Sumi Tonooka

Born October 3, 1956, in Philadelphia, modern mainstream jazz pianist Sumi Tonooka launched her formal training at seven through the Settlement Music School, studying with Ester Cinberg and Gary Goldschneider. Raised in a household blending African-American and Japanese-American heritage, she absorbed varied cultural influences alongside a steady supply of contemporary jazz recordings. A pivotal live encounter with Thelonious Monk at age thirteen ignited her deeper engagement with the music, while Duke Ellington’s work exerted a lasting pull and a close association developed with Kenny Barron. At fifteen she ventured briefly to Boston, soon abandoning institutional schooling yet continuing private classical study with Madame Margaret Chaloff—mother of baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff—and exploring jazz and composition under Charlie Banacos. From there she moved to Detroit, joining Marcus Belgrave in the mid-seventies and immersing herself in that city’s vibrant yet unsettled jazz community. Returning to Philadelphia, she completed a B.A. in music at the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts under Bernard Peiffer, then secured a professional berth with Le Grand Prix, the ensemble led by Philly Joe Jones that also featured Odean Pope. Concurrently she directed her own groups, which included Robin Eubanks and Willie Williams. Relocating to New York, she pursued further lessons with Mary Lou Williams, Dennis Sandole, and Stanley Cowell. Over subsequent years she collaborated intermittently with Kenny Burrell, Little Jimmy Scott, Sonny Fortune, Craig Handy, and David “Fathead” Newman. During this period enduring partnerships formed with bassist Rufus Reid and violinist John Blake, both extending beyond two decades. She has composed scores for more than a dozen films, several broadcast on PBS, among them Lise Yasui’s Academy Award–nominated Family Gathering and Martha Lubell’s Daring to Resist. Her trajectory appears in Royal Stokes’s Living the Jazz Life, Francis Davis’s In the Moment, and Leslie Gourse’s Madame Jazz, all issued by Oxford University Press. Tonooka currently instructs piano at Bard College and Dutchess Community College in New York’s Hudson Valley and has substituted for Kenny Barron at Rutgers University.