FIT!: Fumio Itabashi (piano), Takashi Seo (b), Ittetsu Takemura (ds)

Fumio Itabashi is the top of Japanese jazz pianist. His music is real intelligent serious jazz. His music is listened to enthusiastically now in Europe.

Fumio Itabashi (March 8, 1949, Tochigi) is a Japanese pianist and composer.

Itabashi began playing piano when he was eight years old, and studied music formally at Kunitachi College of Music, where he first started playing jazz. In the 1970s he worked with Terumasa Hino, Takeo Moriyama, and Sadao Watanabe, in addition to leading his own small ensembles. In the 1980s he did several international tours as a sideman with Ray Anderson and Elvin Jones, and in the 1990s worked with Leo Etoh in a traditional Japanese percussion ensemble called Wa Daiko.

In addition to his work in jazz, Itabashi also works as a film score composer, and has done soundtracks for Chinese and Japanese motion pictures.