Yoshiyuki Yamanaka first started seriously playing the tenor saxophone while in college. He did well enough in his informal studies that he soon got his first series of gigs as a professional jazz musician with Osamu Ichikawa's quartet and Satoshi Inoue's quartet.

Over the past several years, he has played with some finest jazz musicians--e.g.Keiko Lee, Barry Harris,Jimmie Smith, Jimmy Scott, Harman Foster,Earl May and others--and has toured NYC('78,'98,and'99'01) with gigs at some jazz clubs. His releases on album/CD from King Records and Origin Record include the much respected "Blue Rouse","Here's the Song" and the better known "Dreamin'",and "Great Time" which was selected as the fourth best album in the reader's popularity vote for Swing Journal '97. He was selected as the third best tenor saxophonist in the same vote in '99.