While there have been a few Japanese bassists who moved to the United States, Kitagawa was the most successful of them all. He was a cheerful guy from the Kansai region (Japan has regional differences too; in American terms, he was sort of like someone from Chicago). He wasn’t even 70 yet, so it was a tragic death. RIP.

Revisiting a seminal moment from my early encounters with Ellington after a friend recommended this then-recent release: