Akira Miyazawa (宮沢昭) was born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, on December 6, 1927, and learned his craft inside the army. In 1944 he enlisted in the Army Toyama School military band as a clarinetist, and once the war was over he took up the tenor saxophone. The American military clubs of the occupation years were where Japanese jazz found its first working audience, and he spent his early years in the pickup bands that played them, musicians being hired on the spot at the Yaesu exit of Tokyo Station. His band was ranked in the top class and worked the officers' clubs.

Out of that circuit he joined the pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi's Cozy Quartet, and when she passed the group on to Sadao Watanabe, Miyazawa and Watanabe ran a twin-saxophone band together. On July 27 and 28, 1954, he was one of the horn players at the all-night jam session at the Mocambo club in Isezakicho, Yokohama, where pianists Shotaro Moriyasu and Toshiko Akiyoshi and altoist Sadao Watanabe were among the musicians. The tapes were issued in 1975 as The Historic Mocambo Session '54 and collected in 1998 as a three-CD complete edition; the Discogs credits for that edition place him on twelve of its tracks, including "I Want To Be Happy," "Out Of Nowhere" and "Donna Lee." In December 1957 he was one of the tenors on Modern Jazz by the Modern Jazz All Stars for King, recorded on the 16th and 23rd with Watanabe on alto, and in March 1961 he was the tenor on Akiyoshi's Toshiko Meets Her Old Pals, recorded at Suginami Public Hall and Bunkyo Public Hall in Tokyo with Watanabe, bassists Masanaga Harada and Hachiro Kurita, and Masahiko Togashi among the drummers.

His first record as a leader came on May 7 and 14, 1962, at Nippon Toshi Center Hall in Tokyo. Yamame (King Records KC 20) takes its title from a mountain trout, and the title and a track called "Fly Casting" announce what his Japanese-language biography calls his hobby: stream fishing. The rhythm section was Masahiko Satoh on piano, Masanaga Harada on bass and Takeshi Inomata and Kanji Harada on drums, and the second side adds a horn section with Watanabe on alto saxophone and flute, Akira Nakano on trumpet, and trombonists, a bass trombonist and a baritone saxophonist. The same year he joined Hidehiko Matsumoto and Jiro Inagaki on the three-tenor 7-inch Saxophone Fantasy for Kodama Press, and in 1967 he and Matsumoto split the stereo image on Operation Sam Taylor for King, one tenor on the left channel and one on the right.

Now's The Time (Takt, 1967) is a set of standards and bop themes, "Oleo," "I Remember Clifford" and "Love For Sale" among them, recorded in 1966 and 1967 and shared on the sleeve with George Otsuka's trio. Then came the three years that carry his reputation. In April 1969 he cut Four Units at Teichiku Kaikan Studio with Satoh, Masahiko Togashi and the bassist Yasuo Arakawa, a record that sets a ten-minute title piece and a nine-minute "Dull Slumber" beside "Scarborough Fair." In June and July he recorded Bull Trout (Iwana) for Victor at Azabu Aoi Studio with the same three musicians and Yonosuke Segami on percussion. On March 17, 1970, with Satoh, Arakawa and Takeo Moriyama on drums, he recorded Kiso at Nippon Victor's No. 2 Studio: four pieces named for places in the Japanese Alps and the country around them (Kiso, Asama, Hakuba and Hida), all written by him. The Columbia EP Nijimasu (Rainbow Trout), issued in 1970 in the label's Essence Of Jazz series, has the same four musicians.

The 1970s took him largely out of the jazz catalogue. He recorded flute method records for CBS/Sony and Columbia, sat in the studio on many tenor-sax mood and kayokyoku instrumental albums for Crown, Victor, King and others, and, according to a Japanese saxophone-history profile, led the studio backing band for the chanson singer Fubuki Koshiji for thirteen years. In the 2004 Yumi Arai 1972-1976 box set he is credited on flute on "Kumori Zora," from her 1973 debut, and in 1971 he is the flautist on one track of Terumasa Hino's double-LP Hino Story. Koshiji passed away in November 1980, and in 1981 he came back to leading jazz records.

My Piccolo was recorded live at the Nagoya Yamaha Jazz Club, Studio Wing, on March 21, 1981 (Next Wave 28PJ-1003), with Satoh, bassists Nobuyoshi Ino and Kunimitsu Inaba, and Motohiko Hino on drums. All the compositions are his, and its titles ("After The Storm," "King Salmon," "Dandy Fisherman") keep the river. On Green Dolphin Street (Union Jazz, recorded October 17, 1982) used Satoh, Ino and Hino again, with Miyazawa on soprano as well as tenor. In between, on January 13, 1982, he joined vibraphonist Ichiro Masuda's all-star swing session with Teddy Wilson and Eiji Kitamura, and on April 23 of that year he sat in with Mal Waldron and Isao Suzuki on In Retrospect, playing tenor and flute.

The later records are quieter. 'Round Midnight - Amazing Jazz Ballad (Paddle Wheel, King Studio, February 6 and 7, 1985) is a ballad album with strings arranged by Masao Yagi. Noyuri (Eastworld, 1992) is a duo with the pianist Takeshi Shibuya recorded in 1991, produced by the singer Maki Asakawa. A quartet concert recorded live at the Grand Hotel Hamamatsu on December 21, 1989 was not released until 2002, when M & I issued it as Sea Horse. Miyazawa passed away on July 6, 2000, of acute pneumonia, at the age of 72.

Miyazawa's records divide into two kinds. The standards sessions, Now's The Time, On Green Dolphin Street, 'Round Midnight and Sea Horse, are tenor-led mainstream jazz built on songs such as "Green Dolphin Street," "In A Sentimental Mood," "Poor Butterfly" and "I Can't Get Started." Yamame mixes standards ("Out Of Nowhere," "Like Someone In Love") with originals, one of which is titled "Like Sonny." The live Sea Horse stretches several of its tracks past seven minutes and one past ten.

The 1969 and 1970 records are the other Miyazawa. With Satoh, Togashi and Arakawa he plays long, open pieces on Four Units, Bull Trout and Kiso, which Discogs files under avant-garde jazz, free jazz and post-bop. Kiso is written entirely by him and organised around regional place names rather than song forms.

Fishing runs through the discography: Yamame, "Fly Casting," Bull Trout, "Brown Trout," "Rainbow Trout" (Nijimasu), "Ayu," "Black Bass," "King Salmon," "Cat Fish" and "Dandy Fisherman" are all titles of his. His Japanese biography lists it as his hobby, and he put it on his sleeves.

He played flute as well as tenor, soprano saxophone on at least one record, and clarinet from his army band days. An instrument-focused profile lists his tenor as a Selmer Mark VI with an Otto Link mouthpiece in hard rubber and metal, which he reworked himself by scraping the baffle and bore with an oak stick. His discography runs from the Mocambo tapes of 1954 to a live set recorded in 1989, through the studio trade of the 1970s, and covers hard bop, tenor ballads and the open quartet music of 1969 and 1970.