Tetsujiro Obara, born March 23, 1941, in Fukushima, was the drummer on Midnight Sugar (1974), pianist Tsuyoshi Yamamoto's award-winning debut album and one of the foundational records of the Three Blind Mice label, sitting alongside bassist Isoo Fukui as the rhythm section that shaped it. He recorded the trio's second album, Misty, the same year, and remained the group's drummer for years afterward, including a 1979 appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival — genuine evidence of international standing beyond Japan.

He also led a side project of his own, Yama & Jiro's Wave, a trio with guitarist Akira Daiyoshi and Yamamoto himself, recording Girl Talk for Three Blind Mice in 1975. A more unusual entry in his catalog: a concert recorded August 23, 1975, at the Yoshijima Heritage House in Hida-Takayama, which sat unreleased for over four decades before finally appearing as the Hida-Takayama Jazz Session in 2018.

Like Fukui, Obara spent much of the 1970s as a fixture of the Masaru Imada Trio — Ascent (1974), Green Caterpillar and One for Duke (both 1975), Planets (1977), Blue Eyes (1979) — and recorded with visiting American musicians passing through Tokyo, including vocalist Abbey Lincoln (Live in Misty, 1973) and guitarist Barney Kessel (Live at Sometime and Shiny Stockings, both 1977). His earliest documented credit in this project's scope is on Kimiko Kasai's 1970 debut, Just Friends, and he was also a member of the Kosuke Mine Quintet.

He died on December 13, 2016, at 75.

Obara's playing is defined by the same qualities that made him indispensable to the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio for years: a supportive, listening rhythm-section approach suited to piano-trio jazz, capable of adapting to the more soul-inflected feel of the Masaru Imada Trio and to backing visiting American soloists in a session-player context.