Nobuko “Cobi” Narita
03.20.2024
03.03.1926 – 11.08.2023
Nobuko “Cobi” Narita, producer, director, philanthropist, and founder of Cobi’s Place, a gathering for jazz tap dancers, has had a tireless devotion to the jazz community that has spanned more than forty years. Every artist she has presented or assisted becomes part of her jazz family, which means that her extended family has thousands of members. The California-born Japanese American remembers always listening to jazz: “I have always listened to the music we call jazz. It just fit me. And I fit it. I could appreciate different kinds of music—folk, country, hip hop, but I loved jazz music.” In California there was a music station that played jazz and Cobi listened to it all the time. She began volunteering at a club called Memory Lane, where such emerging artists as Harry Sweets Edison, Houston Pearson, and Etta Jones performed.
