Kaz Kajimura, founder of Bay Area jazz club Yoshi's, dies at 81
He passed away Sunday, June 15, according to a family statement, after a battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 81.
Kajimura, a Tokyo native, was a relentless dreamer who helped shape the Bay Area's jazz scene over five decades.
A graduate of Waseda University, with advanced degrees from institutions in China, U.C. Berkeley and Stanford, Kajimura arrived in the East Bay with a reporter's eye and an entrepreneur's spirit.
In 1972, he co-founded Yoshi's with Yoshie Akiba and Hugh 'Hiro' Hori, launching it as a modest Japanese restaurant near UC Berkeley.
But it was Kajimura who expanded the business into one of the country's most revered jazz venues.
The club's move to Oakland's Claremont Avenue in 1979 introduced live music, and by 1997, Yoshi's had relocated to its now-renowned Jack London Square location.
The 310-seat jazz venue welcomed giants like Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis and Pharoah Sanders. A brief expansion to San Francisco's Fillmore District began in 2007 but was eventually scaled back in 2014 amid financial strains.
'Kaz invested his whole life and his whole family inheritance to navigate Yoshi's through both different locations, and really tough times,' the family said in a statement. 'Yoshi's Oakland wouldn't exist without him.'
Beyond his business ventures, Kajimura was an avid harmonica player, pilot, speedboat racer and scuba diver, with a zest for adventure matched only by his devotion to community and music.
'Yoshi's is like no other place on Earth,' he once said.
He also leaves behind a devoted protégé and successor, Hal Campos, whom he called 'his only son.'
'The show must go on,' Kaz would say, according to his family.
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