One note about What's My Line? and the death of Fred Allen. This one comes from Elie Harriett, former music teacher, current jazz aficionado, and lifelong Groo fan. (Well, two out of three and all that…) Elie is writing about the episode which aired one day after Mr. Allen passed away while not walking a dog…
The last guest of the evening was a very young Toshiko Akiyoshi: one of the most celebrated female jazz composers in the past forty years. She and her husband: Tonight Show Band's (Doc Severinsen's era) tenor saxophonist Lew Tabackin formed a jazz group in the 1970's which gained worldwide recognition for Ms. Akiyoshi for her style of merging traditional Japanese musical ideas with modern American jazz. She has numerous compositions and arrangements to her name, several albums have been released with her band, and there are a couple of solo piano albums out. If I am not mistaken, within the past couple years she also received a major award by the City of New York for improving the general quality of life for New Yorkers with her music (sorry, the name of the award escapes me at the moment).
I especially enjoyed watching her on the show sign her name in Japanese and see a shyness about her that inevitably went away over the years though constant performance.
I did a search and found this bio of her, which says she received New York City's Liberty Award. I'm not sure what that is but she sure has come a long way from being the "extra" What's My Line? contestant — the one who only gets on if the show's running short. Thanks, Elie.