Jazz tenor saxophonist and bandleader Nobuo Hara was born Nobuo Tsukahara in Toyama, Japan on November 19, 1926. After studying brass instruments in school, he joined the Japanese Navy Military Band and continued to play in the group until the end of World War II. By 1950, he moved to Shinagawa, where he began using his stage name of Nobuo Hara and joined a band called Moonlight. Once he took over leadership of the band in 1951, he changed the name of the ensemble to Nubuo Hara and His Sharps & Flats. A 10-member ensemble, the group grew into a big band with the addition of several members including trombonist Kei Tani. The group was in their prime in the mid-to-late 1950s and became extremely popular in their homeland. Nubuo Hara and His Sharps & Flats’ recording debut was the album High Color Club- Sandy Jazz Concert (1956), which was followed by albums such as Drum Scope (1957), The Sharps and Flats Recital (1959), and Soul (1960). From 1963 until 1969, the band would perform on the annual New Year’s Eve talent show NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen. Nubuo Hara and His Sharps & Flats continued to release albums including Big Band Operation (1961), Operation Glenn Miller (1962), Operation Benny Goodman (1963), Dancing with the Sharps and Flats (1967), Sharps and Flats in Newport (1967), Dynamic Brass (1969), Sharps and Flats and 12 Great Composers (1972), Smashing (1978), and Active Volcano (1979). Nobuo Hara led the band for many decades, finally bringing the band’s long career to an end after a final show on February 11, 2010. Over the course of their career, they released reissues and live albums as well as compilations including The Glory of Sharps and Flats (2008), Sharps and Flats Plays Standards (2015), and many others. Nobuo Hara died of pneumonia on June 21, 2021, at the age of 94.
