Tsuyoshi Yamamoto grew up on Sado Island, in Niigata, and came to the piano largely on his own. He had some formal lessons as a child, then studied at Nihon University while working as a professional accompanist for pop singer Micky Curtis, touring Europe with him in 1967. Jazz took over from there.

In 1974, Yamamoto signed with Three Blind Mice and became house pianist at Misty, a jazz listening bar in Tokyo. That year produced his recording debut twice over: Midnight Sugar (recorded March 1, 1974, at Aoi Studio, with bassist Isoo Fukui and drummer Tetsujiro Obara) and Misty (recorded August 7, 1974, at the same studio, with the same trio). Both are now foundational titles in the global Japanese jazz reissue and crate-digging scene; Midnight Sugar got a 45rpm audiophile vinyl reissue from Impex Records in 2017, more than forty years after its original TBM-23 pressing.

The Misty residency became a recurring thread through his catalog rather than a one-time credit. Live At The Misty, The In Crowd, and Blues For Tee were all recorded from the same December 25, 1974 live session at the club. Live At Misty '77 and Live At Misty '77 Vol. Two followed in 1977 and 1978, both featuring American bassist Sam Jones and drummer Billy Higgins, who also backed Yamamoto on the studio album Life (East Wind, recorded April 16, 1976). The pattern continued decades later with Misty - Live At Jazz Is (2020) and Misty For Direct Cutting (2021).

Beyond Sam Jones and Billy Higgins, Yamamoto recorded with a run of major American rhythm players on his own Japanese sessions: bassist Ray Brown on Smoke A Moto's Blues (1979) and bassist Red Mitchell alongside fellow Three Blind Mice artist Isao Suzuki on Bass Club (1980). He also spent roughly a year in New York in the late 1970s, sharing stages with Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae, Elvin Jones, and Sonny Stitt; a 1978 studio credit with Stitt himself, on The Shadow Of Your Smile, is documented on Discogs.

Through the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Yamamoto kept recording steadily, moving across labels including Philips, Paddle Wheel, Concord Jazz, and Warner Bros. He has continued as an active bandleader for the whole of the following four decades under the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio banner, releasing studio and live albums on Venus Records and other Japanese labels through the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. The trio released a new studio album, A Shade of Blue, in 2023, and Discogs lists further live releases dated into 2026. Fifty-two years after his first session, Yamamoto is still an active recording artist.

Yamamoto's trio recordings sit in the hard bop and soul-jazz tradition that defined Three Blind Mice's catalog in the 1970s: blues-rooted originals paired with standards, played with a direct, groove-forward touch suited to a late-night listening bar rather than a concert hall. His catalog leans heavily on trio interplay over the decades, with the same working format (piano, bass, drums) carried from Midnight Sugar in 1974 through A Shade of Blue in 2023. Recording repeatedly with American rhythm-section players (Sam Jones, Billy Higgins, Ray Brown, Red Mitchell) throughout the 1970s and 1980s put his sound in direct contact with the American hard-bop and standards tradition those musicians carried with them.