AN APPRECIATION | JASON OLAINE
Kaz Kajimura’s passing marks the end of one of the most notable eras in all of jazz history, and not just Bay Area jazz history.
When jazz clubs across the country were struggling in the ’70s and ’80s, Kaz and his partners Yoshie Akiba and Hiro Hori were growing a small Japanese restaurant on Claremont Avenue in Berkeley, one that featured a high school pianist named Benny Green playing dinner jazz. It would become, arguably, the greatest West Coast jazz club of all time. Yoshi’s became known globally for presenting legendary masters (Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente and many others) — but also for presenting rising stars playing their first U.S. gigs (Diana Krall, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Vijay Iyer) — and for sparking musical relationships that would last a lifetime and beyond (McCoy Tyner with Michael Brecker, for one).
Kaz was the hardest worker you will ever encounter. He was nonstop all the time: building and fixing up the restaurant, and the club, and the offices; repairing the roof and the tables and chairs; ordering and negotiating food and beverage prices; reviewing and signing all artist, media and hotel contracts; handling administrative and banking duties; reviewing print ads and marketing assets; driving the van to pick up artists at the airport; even selling and taking tickets at the door. You name it, he was blurring past you to get it all done.
Because he was, and felt he was, a one-man show in many respects, he wasn’t always the easiest boss. And yet he was generous and trusted his employees to get the job done. He truly served artists, audiences and the music with integrity.
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Kaz made me artistic director of Yoshi’s shortly after I began my stint as publicist towards the end of 1993. It was only months after I’d started interning there — and it was partly because he was desperate. He had no other viable options once Todd Barkan and Keystone Korner split from their brief early ’90s marriage.
Chuck LaPaglia, a wizened Navy vet, ex-Milwaukee club owner and amateur saxophonist, was my mentor at Yoshi’s. He’d stayed on after Todd left and was booking the shows. One night back in ’93, the soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy came to the club with his partner Irene Aebi, a singer, violinist and spoken word artist, in what would be a multinight, eight-set run of duets. One night, with 13 people in the audience, I went outside the club and found Chuck chewing on his signature stogie. “It’s a little rough in there,” I said, meaning there weren’t many people, and we had to cut some wait staff. He looked up and said: “I always knew love was blind, but I didn’t know it was deaf.” It was classic Chuck, and a great line I’ve used a number of times over the years.
One day Kaz gave Chuck and me and our small team pink slips. He thanked us for our service and said that we all gave it our best shot. But he had just sold the property on Claremont Avenue and everything in it to Dreyer’s Ice Cream. We were going to ride out our last shows of the year with Betty Carter and then we’d hang it up.
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That was the beginning of Yoshi’s comeback. Kaz didn’t give up. A sold out week with Betty Carter and a national broadcast on NPR on New Year’s Eve led into two sold out weeks with McCoy Tyner — first with Michael Brecker, then an Afro Cuban All-Star run with special guests Mongo Santamaria, Paquito D’Rivera, Steve Turre, Claudio Roditi, Orestes Vilato and others. That two-week run became a staple of Yoshi’s programming for well over a decade, becoming McCoy’s favorite time of year, he told me years later. It kept Yoshi’s in business.
Soon after that, with Yoshi’s riding a hot streak, city leaders in Oakland realized that if Kaz and Yoshie and Hiro weren’t giving up, then neither should the city. They made the co-owners a generous offer to move to Jack London Square. We did just that, in our own newly designed club in the same spot where it sits today. The reborn Yoshi’s opened in 1997 with a weekend featuring Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and (Berkeley’s own) Craig Handy on one night, John Lee Hooker on another, and George Shearing on the third. That Yoshi’s is alive and thriving to this day is a testament to Kaz’s never-give-up attitude and scrappy work ethic.
Kaz Kajimura (right) during the construction of Yoshi’s on Fillmore.
The last time I spoke with Kaz was in late 2023. I was unaware he had some dementia and asked if I could visit while I was back in the Bay Area. He declined. So I thanked him for the faith and trust he gave me way back when, giving me my first real job in the jazz business — a big one. Later he brought me back to run Yoshi’s San Francisco for a few years, when I also started booking the Fillmore Jazz Festival.
I have so much gratitude and so many fond memories — even the episodes where I took the brunt of his ire for not booking enough artists whose audiences should be “buying more soft shell crab!” Thank you, Kaz. Audiences and musicians across so many genres, particularly jazz artists, owe you a great debt of gratitude. So do I.
Jason Olaine (above) was artistic director of Yoshi’s from 1993 to 1999, artistic director of Yoshi’s San Francisco from 2009 to 2011 and, since 2012, has been vice president of programming at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. He continues to program the annual Fillmore Jazz Festival.
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