Cobi Narita, tireless jazz promoter and benefactor, dies at the age of 97

“They were like magnets from the beginning, man,” her son Robert said. “Soulmates.”

Nobuko Emoto was born on March 3, 1926 in San Pedro, California. Her father, Kazumasa Emoto, was a farmer who brought fresh vegetables to the Los Angeles markets. Her mother, Kimiko (Hamamoto) Emoto, was a housewife.

Nobuko, her parents, her two sisters and her two brothers were among the estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated to internment camps during World War II, mainly in Western states. Mr. Emoto lost his trucks, his equipment and his land.

During her confinement in the Gila River Moving Center in Arizona, Nobuko wrote a newsletter about the goings-on in the camp.

She and her family were released in 1945 and she completed high school. She soon married Masao Narita, with whom she would have seven children. She entered Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania in 1948 and studied theater there, but left after a year.

After Mrs. Narita and her husband divorced in the mid-1950s, she worked at various jobs in the Long Beach, California area. Looking for a better career opportunity, she moved to New York City in 1969, where she worked at the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Shortly after moving, she was walking through Central Park when she heard jazz playing. One of the musicians, bassist Gene Taylor, urged her to volunteer for the famed jazz ministry at St. Peter’s Church, on Lexington Avenue near East 54th Street. (In later years, the church would be the site of her annual birthday party, with live jazz.)