1970s Yoshigaki began playing drums in his final year of high school, encouraged by a friend. After entering
Kwansei Gakuin University, he started performing jazz, inspired by
Weather Report’s
Black Market and
Jaco Pastorius’s
Jaco Pastorius. While still a student he performed at live houses and jazz clubs in the Kansai region.
1980s From 1984 for three years he served as a regular drummer at the Osaka jazz club Royal Horse. Seeking to start a band he wanted to hear on the local scene, Yoshigaki conceived the ensemble
First Edition in 1985 and launched it in 1986. The original members included Yutaka Ohara (tb), Itayuki Shioya (as), Eiichiro Arasaki (ts), Makoto Aoyagi (p, as), and Yosuke Inoue (b; later replaced by Osamu Mihara). The group combined arranged material with open forms; later
Kazuhisa Uchihashi (g) joined and activities expanded to Tokyo and Nagoya. As an offshoot, he co-founded
Altered States around 1990; early sets included rock-like and vocal numbers, moving toward fully improvised performances by
Mosaic (1994). He also formed the improvising trio
SIGHTS with
Yutaka Ohara and
Hiroshi Funato; in 1995 the trio recorded
Tatta and toured.
1990s He pursued further projects, including a duo with Sam Bennett; the large-ensemble
Brass Chant (up to twelve players); prompter for the Kansai edition of
John Zorn’s
Cobra; and the acoustic trio
Hōrakuya with Yuji Katsui and Yoshinori Motoki. Performing more frequently in Tokyo, he met
Otomo Yoshihide (leading to
Ground Zero), Daisuke Fuwa (
Shibusashirazu), and Yuji Katsui (
Rovo). Following the 1995 Great Hanshin–Awaji Earthquake, he relocated to Tokyo in 1997. By 1999 he had joined Otomo's ONJQ and Naruyoshi Kikuchi's
Date Course Pentagon Royal Garden (DCPRG), and launched his leader band
Vincent Atmicus.
2000s In the 2000s he recorded and performed with
Otomo Yoshihide and
Bill Laswell under the name
Soup, issuing live and studio recordings. He also continued to lead multiple ensembles, including
Vincent Atmicus and the percussion-focused
Orquesta Nudge! Nudge!.
2010s His large ensemble
Vincent Atmicus continued to appear live, including documented concerts at Shinjuku Pit Inn on 12 June 2010 (official archive) and 9 December 2010 (independent review). He also launched and led the large-ensemble project
Orquesta Libre (active since 2011), which reinterprets familiar repertoire. In July 2012 the group issued two debut albums and performed in Europe (including the Copenhagen Jazz Festival) and at FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL ’12. A precursor
iKnoW project—centered on Thelonious Monk's music (the name "iKNOW" reads "MONK" in reverse)—is documented in a 2012 guide to Japanese jazz (p.166). His project
MoGoToYoYo appeared at the Aarhus Jazz Festival and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in July 2017, as documented by festival listings and a review.
2020s Yoshigaki remains active with
Rovo and other ensembles and continues to perform in Japan and abroad. He leads the live unit
iKnoW Electric Re-Bop Double Band, developed in the 2020s as a continuation of his iKnoW concept. ==Gallery==