Born in 1948 on the Japanese island of Niigata, Yamamoto started playing the piano in elementary school. He was drawn to jazz after hearing the soundtrack to the 1959 French movie, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which featured music by the renowned American hard bop group, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. His professional career began in 1967 when he toured with Mickey Curtis, a noted Japanese actor and musician. In 1974, he began recording for Takeshi Fujii’s iconic Three Blind Mice label and via a series of acclaimed albums, quickly established himself as one of Japan’s leading jazz musicians. A highly respected international figure who has played with US jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones, and Carmen McRae, Yamamoto was the house pianist for many years at the Tokyo club Misty and was also the musical director for the popular Japanese TV talk show Ryu's Bar, which ran during the 1980s and ‘90s.