Shigemichi Domoto (堂本重道) is a Japanese trombonist who also played bass trombone and tuba, and whose documented recording career runs from 1970 to 1978. All of it is as a sideman, apart from one arranger credit. No album carries his name as leader, and the Discogs profile for him reads, in full, "Trombone player." No source found gives his date or place of birth, his training, or whether he is living, so none of those is stated here. What can be stated is the credit trail: Discogs lists 21 releases for him, the Jazz Shiryokan database lists six jazz albums under the instrument line "Trombone, Bass Trombone, Tuba," and Nippon Columbia's own pages for three of the records print his name.

The kanji 堂本重道 comes from those Columbia pages and from Discogs, which carries it as a name variation taken from sleeve credits. Individual sleeves also print the name as Shigemichi Dohmoto, Shigemichi Doumoto and S. Domoto. Every release he is credited on is a Japanese issue on a Japanese label, and the recording venues that are documented, among them Tokyo Studio Centre, CBS/Sony's No. 1 Studio, Shibuya Kokaido and the Hibiya open-air hall, are in Tokyo. That is the basis for describing him as a Japanese musician of the Tokyo studios of the 1970s, although his birthplace is not documented.

His earliest recorded work is for the drummer Takeshi Inomata's band Sound Limited. The notes that accompany Nippon Columbia's reissue of its debut say Inomata formed the band at the end of the 1960s under the influence of brass rock, aiming to fuse jazz and rock with a large, energetic ensemble of young players. That debut, Sounds of Sound L.T.D., was recorded at Tokyo Studio Centre on 25 to 27 March 1970 and issued by Columbia that August. Domoto and Takashi Imai make up its two-man trombone section, beside the trumpeters Shunzo Ohno and Takashi Kumagai, the tenor saxophonist Takao Uematsu, the flutist Toshiaki Yokota, the guitarists Ryo Kawasaki and Shigenori Kamiya, the organist Yusuke Hoguchi and the bassist Jun Suzuki. Nippon Columbia now describes the record as a landmark of Japanese jazz rock, says it appeared on the cover of the guide 和ジャズ・ディスク・ガイド, and reissued it on LP in 2014 in a run of 500 copies. Domoto is credited on three more Sound Limited albums, Sound Ltd. (recorded in April 1970), New Rock In Europe: Sound Ltd. 2 (recorded 22 June 1970 in co-operation with the TBS television programme Young 720, with Domoto credited on bass trombone as well as trombone) and Innocent Canon (recorded 21 February 1971, trombone and vibraphone). He is also on the live compilation Sensational Jazz '70, recorded at Shibuya Public Hall on 30 April 1970, where Sound Limited's "Mustache" is one of the eight sets.

He played with Jiro Inagaki's Soul Media that summer as well. On 21 July 1970 he and Imai were the trombones at the Hibiya Amphitheater concert that Columbia issued in November as Jazz & Rock "Out" (the album bills the band as Soul Big Media), and Nippon Columbia's page for the CD reissue calls it a standout example of early Japanese jazz rock. In April 1973 he was one of the three trombonists, with Kazuo Usui and Tadataka Nakazawa, on Hiromasa Suzuki's By The Red Stream, a composition for Inagaki's Big Soul Media that the reissue notes describe as an anti-war concept album blending jazz rock and free jazz.

Norio Maeda's arrangements carry the rest of the Inomata work. Domoto is on Jazz Rock in Stravinsky (Liberty, 1970), Maeda's version of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, one ballet to a side, and on Fantastic Sounds In Shino Flute, recorded 4 and 5 November 1970 with the shino-bue player 藤舎推峰. Then came The Third, the big band that Discogs credits Inomata with leading and Maeda with arranging and conducting. He is one of four trombonists on Hare Krishna / The Third First Album (recorded 6 and 10 April 1971) and on Morning Glory / The Third 2 (recorded 20 and 26 December 1971 at Mouri Studio), where he is also credited on tuba. The concert of 4 December 1974 at Shibuya Kokaido was issued by RCA as two LPs, Dedicated To Duke Ellington and The Third Concert / Original Compositions By Norio Maeda, and on both Discogs lists him on tuba and bass trombone. The last credit with the band that Discogs lists is Take The "A" Train, recorded at Toshiba EMI No. 1 Studio on 13 September 1977.

The credit furthest from the Inomata circle is not a trombone part. On 10 May 1972 King Records issued Akira Fuse's single 愛すれど切なく / マイ・ウェイ, whose B-side is Fuse's Japanese-language "My Way," with lyrics by Jun Nakajima and accompaniment credited to Allstars Leon. Discogs credits the arrangement to Domoto, on the single and on King's four-track EP デラックス4. Japanese Wikipedia repeats the credit (arrangement 堂本重道) and says Fuse has sung the song on NHK's Kohaku Uta Gassen four times, in 1972, 2004, 2009 and 2025. It does not say which arrangement was used on those occasions.

The remaining credits are session work. He plays trombone on two tracks of guitarist Yoshiaki Masuo's 24 (CBS/Sony, recorded 12 and 19 October 1970), one of them a piece credited to Masuo and Sadao Watanabe together; on Isao Eto's 1972 Polydor album with the Kenny Wood Orchestra, again arranged by Maeda; on two tracks of Saori Yuki's 1973 album ルーム・ライト; in a five-trombone section on Tadao Hayashi's harp album Finger Trip (Zen, 1978), with Inomata on drums; and as bass trombonist on Yumi Sato's ロンリーガール (Invitation, released 25 February 1978), whose horn section also has Shigeharu Mukai. The two 1978 albums are the latest releases carrying his name, and nothing found under it is dated later.

One further credit is in print but cannot be tied to him. Japanese Wikipedia's track listing for the group Lemon Pie's 1975 album 旅のスケッチ〜愛と冒険の旅〜 (Elec Records, AIL-13) credits arrangements on five tracks to a 堂本重道. The name is identical, but the listing does not say whether this is the trombonist, so it is left out of his credits.

What is not known is most of a life. No interview with him was found, and no birth date, birthplace, teacher or obituary. He has no article of his own on English or Japanese Wikipedia, which name him only in the personnel lists of other articles (Jiro Inagaki, the drummer Sadakazu Tabata and the song "My Way"), and no entry on Wikidata or MusicBrainz turned up. Whether he kept playing after 1978 is not documented.

What the sources allow is a description of the chairs he held, not of a personal style. In Sound Limited he is one of two trombones in a front line of two trombones, two trumpets, tenor saxophone and flute, with two electric guitars, organ, electric bass and drums behind them, the large jazz-rock ensemble that the reissue notes describe. In The Third he is one of four trombonists in a big band playing Maeda's arrangements, and on the Duke Ellington tribute concert of 1974 he takes the low parts, tuba and bass trombone. He adds vibraphone on Innocent Canon, which Discogs tags Jazz-Rock, Free Jazz and Soul-Jazz, and bass trombone on New Rock In Europe.

Across the 21 Discogs releases the styles listed are Jazz-Rock, Jazz-Funk, Free Jazz, Soul-Jazz, Post Bop, Hard Bop, Big Band, Contemporary Jazz and, on the Tadao Hayashi album, Easy Listening. Discogs lists Jazz among the genres of 18 of the 21; the other three are Akira Fuse's two 1972 King releases and Saori Yuki's 1973 album, which it files under Pop. His one arranger credit, the Fuse "My Way," therefore sits outside the jazz work. No statement by him about influences, teachers or approach was found, so none is asserted here.