Shigeko Toya (戸谷重子) is a Japanese jazz singer and pianist who recorded for Tokyo labels in the 1970s. She was born in Chiba. Four of her five albums came out on Three Blind Mice, the label founded in June 1970 as a showcase for Japan's emerging jazz players, and all five were made within six years, between October 1972 and November 1978. Tom Lord's Jazz Discography lists six recording sessions with her, all between 1972 and 1978.

Her first album, issued in Japan as Toya, Shigeko with the Imada, Masaru Trio (Three Blind Mice, TBM-11), was recorded on October 17 and 18, 1972, with the trio of Masaru Imada: Imada on piano and organ, Isoo Fukui on bass and Shoji Nagashiba on drums. Takeshi Fujii produced it. She sings six of the eight tracks, among them "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Georgia on My Mind", "My Funny Valentine" and the Beatles' "Yesterday", and plays piano herself on "My Funny Valentine" and "Yesterday"; the trio takes Imada's "Tadd's Blues" and Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom" on its own. The promotional obi on the Japanese release described it as the debut of a much-talked-about jazz vocalist.

Fine And Mellow (TBM-16) followed in 1973, recorded on May 17, 18 and 24 and listed on the label's catalogue as Shigeko Toya and Her Jazz Friends. Imada again plays piano, with Takashi Mizuhashi on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums, and two guests complete the band: Akitoshi Igarashi on alto saxophone on three tracks and the guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, on acoustic guitar for two tracks and electric guitar for three. The program mixes Billie Holiday's title song and "Body and Soul" with "Willow Weep for Me" and "Angel Eyes", plus two songs from outside the jazz repertoire, "Unchain My Heart" and "Green Green Grass of Home", and on the latter she accompanies herself on piano.

On June 21, 1973, she appeared with Imada's trio at the Kanagawa Prefectural Concert Hall in Yokohama, and the concert came out as Yokohama Concert (TBM-22), billed to the Masaru Imada Trio and Shigeko Toya. Side A is the trio alone, in three Imada originals, one of them the twelve-minute "Ascent", with Isoo Fukui on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums. On side B she sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "Call Me Irresponsible", "Willow Weep for Me" and "Fine And Mellow", takes the piano for "I'll Be Seeing You", and is joined by the alto saxophonist Kenji Mori on two tracks.

Shigeko & Mari (TBM-71, 1976) is a live split LP recorded on May 25, 1976 at Ginza Yamaha Hall in Tokyo as part of the "5 Days in Jazz '76" series. Side A is hers: "Greensleeves", "The Blues Ain't Nothin' But a Woman Cryin' for Her Man", "Hey There" and "That Lucky Old Sun", with vocals and piano the only credits listed for the side. Side B belongs to the singer Mari Nakamoto, accompanied by the trio of Tsuyoshi Yamamoto with Akira Daiyoshi on bass and Takuji Kusumoto on drums.

Her last record was She Cries (Yupiteru Records, YJ25-7020), recorded on November 22, 23 and 24, 1978 at Teichiku Suginami Studio and billed to Shigeko Toya and Masaru Imada. It is the one album built mainly on new songs rather than standards. Imada produced it with Tadao Shimo and wrote the music for five original songs, four with English lyrics by Casey Rankin and one, "Mr. Now (The Funny Man)", with lyrics by Toya herself. The band is electric: Imada on piano, electric piano and celesta, Masaoki Terakawa on electric bass, Yoshinori Kanari on electric and acoustic guitars, Akira Ishikawa on drums, Yuji Imamura on percussion, and Jake H. Concepcion on flute and alto saxophone. Standards such as "When I Fall in Love", "The Breeze and I" and "I'm Beginning to See the Light" fill out the program.

Her Three Blind Mice albums have returned several times as Japanese reissues. Toya, Shigeko with the Imada, Masaru Trio came out as a hybrid SACD in 2006, Fine And Mellow and Shigeko & Mari on Think! Records in 2014, and Craftman Records reissued all four of the Three Blind Mice albums in 2020 and 2021. Two Fine And Mellow tracks, "Green Green Grass of Home" and "The Very Thought of You", were also chosen for the audiophile compilation Jazz Vocal Audiophile Collection (Master Music, 2019).

Toya's repertoire is the American songbook as a Japanese rhythm section of the early 1970s would play it. Her first two albums are built from standards by Rodgers and Hart, Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, Hoagy Carmichael, Jerome Kern and Billie Holiday, with a few pop and country songs ("Yesterday", "Green Green Grass of Home", "Unchain My Heart") brought into the same setting. She is also a working pianist, and on all four Three Blind Mice albums she takes the keyboard herself for at least one song.

The Japanese promotional copy for her debut describes the singing as dark and soulful in feeling, with a highly individual way of phrasing. A Japanese listener's review of Fine And Mellow is more specific: it hears a straight, clear voice that does not try to swing and sounds like neither Ella Fitzgerald nor Sarah Vaughan.

The accompanists change the character of each record. The 1972 debut and the 1973 live set sit inside Masaru Imada's mainstream trio language, while Fine And Mellow adds an alto saxophone and the guitar of Masayuki Takayanagi, and the album stretches its title track to more than eight minutes. She Cries in 1978 moves to an electric rhythm section and a fusion-era studio band, with original songs written for her.