This saxophone player made jazz popular in Japan by making bossa nova and jazz fusion accessible. He plays the alto and soprano sax, as well as the flute, and collaborates with his friends and renowned jazzmen Lee Ritenour, Dave Grusin and Hank Jones. Born in 1933, he studied jazz in the United States at Boston's prestigious Berkley College in the early 1960s. But he was homesick for Japan and returned there in 1965 to make his mark. Since 2005, his project known as Share the World-easily a watchword for his own career-brings together every year over 400 young people from various countries to sing and play jazz instruments.