Ayumi Ishito

Ayumi Ishito was born and raised in Ishikawa, Japan. At the age of 19, she began playing tenor saxophone in a college big band at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. In 2007, Ayumi received a scholarship to attend Berkee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She spent three years there studying performance and composition. At Berklee, she studied with George Garzone, Hal Crook, and Frank Tiberi. After graduating from Berklee, Ayumi moved to New York in 2010. Currently, Ayumi is a regular member of The Jazz Thieves, GADADU, The Eighty-pound Pug, Platypus Revenge and Big Squid performing and recording for numerous projects. As a member of the Jazz Thieves, she performed at renowned music festivals around east coast such as Burlington Discover Jazz Festival (VT ‘18), River Jazz Festival (PA ’17, ’19), and Sowebo Arts and Music Festival (MD ’17). In 2017, Ayumi joined Marc Edwards & Slipstream Time Travel led by Marc Edwards, former drummer of the Cecil Taylor’s band. She has also worked with several renowned musicians and artists in New York’s creative music scene such as Daniel Carter, Dave Sewelson, Elliott Levin and Steve Dalachinsky. Ayumi has been leading her own group since 2011. She released two albums, “View From A Little Cave” (2016) and “Midnite Cinema” (2019), that consist of all her original compositions. The albums are receiving a lot of attention from home and abroad and have been featured on national and international music blogs including Jazz Trail, Bandcamp Daily, Divide and Conquer, The Family Review, Left Bank Magazine, Odd Creative, and Disk Union, just to name a few. In December 2019, Ayumi was invited to WFMU-FM’s radio program “Give the Drummer Radio” as a guest musician and talked about her music and performed live with the host saxophonist Dave Sewelson.

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