Makoto Ozone

Makoto Ozone, the Japanese pianist celebrated worldwide for his command of both jazz and classical idioms, issued his CBS debut under his own name in 1984 and watched it climb into the jazz albums Top Ten. Two years later his trio set Spring Is Here climbed to the number-two slot. After moving to Verve in 1994, he achieved global success with the solo-piano collection Breakout. Frequently sought for duo projects, he cut several records with vibraphonist Gary Burton, among them the widely praised Face to Face of 1995. He later assembled the Japanese big band No Name Horses, whose first album appeared in 2006 under the same name. The best-selling solo-piano release Falling in Love Again in 2008 preceded his initial classical foray, Road to Chopin, the following year. In 2011 he paired with Polish singer Anna Maria Jopek for the duet project Haiku and simultaneously watched No Name Horses issue the international best-seller Jungle. During 2017 he performed as soloist with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra on Jeunehomme - Mozart: Piano Concerto; the same ensemble reunited with him for Peter and the Wolf in 2019. That year No Name Horses also delivered the worldwide-charting Until We Vanish 15×15. Verve marked his sixtieth birthday in March 2021 by releasing the double-disc set Ozone 60, his first unaccompanied piano recording in thirteen years and one that juxtaposed classical and jazz selections. September of the same year brought Resonance, documenting a 2019 live duo performance with Chick Corea.

Born in Kobe in 1961, Ozone began organ lessons at four under the guidance of his father, a jazz organist, and was already improvising the blues before his fifth birthday. An Oscar Peterson album he heard at twelve ignited his passion for jazz and prompted him to switch to piano. At nineteen he enrolled at Berklee College of Music to study composition and arranging; there Gary Burton took notice, became his mentor, and eventually welcomed him into his own group. Following graduation, Ozone gave a solo recital at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1983 that startled the jazz community and quickly led to a Columbia contract. His 1984 self-titled debut featured Burton and bassist Eddie Gomez and drew acclaim for its comprehensive grasp of jazz-piano history. Subsequent Columbia releases included the 1986 quintet date After, the 1987 solo outing Now You Know, and the trio standards album Spring Is Here with drummer Roy Haynes and bassist George Mraz, after which he left the label. Between tours with his own ensembles he contributed to recordings by Paquito D’Rivera, Marc Johnson, Chuck Loeb, and Burton.

From 1989 onward Ozone issued one-off projects for various companies, among them Starlight on JVC in 1990, Breakout on Verve in 1994, the 1995 GRP duet Face to Face with Burton, and Nature Boys with drummer Peter Erskine and bassist John Patitucci. By then he had appeared repeatedly at the North Sea and Montreux festivals; in 1997 he documented one of those visits on the live album At Montreux Jazz Festival with vocalist Kimiko Itoh and also released the studio trio date featuring bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Clarence Penn, which earned Swing Journal’s Best Jazz of Japan award. Impressed by their rapport, he retained the same rhythm section for Three Wishes, a set of originals, and Dear Oscar, a tribute to Peterson that captured the same prize in 1998.

After relocating to New York City in 1999, Ozone issued No Strings Attached with the Kitagawa-Penn trio and kept the group busy on club and festival circuits while also supporting guest soloists and vocalists. That year he composed a piano concerto premiered in Mexico by his trio and a seventy-piece orchestra. Additional collaborations included guitarist Kazumi Watanabe’s Dandyism and two further trio albums, Pandora and So Many Colors, followed in 2002 by another Burton duet set, Virtuosi. Also in 2002 he assembled the quintet session Treasure with bassist James Genus, drummer Penn, pianist Chick Corea, saxophonist Michael Brecker, Burton, and vocalist Jon Hendricks. Constantly touring with Genus, he documented the trio on the 2003 Verve release Reborn and received a commission from playwright Hisashi Inoue to compose and conduct the piano concerto Mogami. Invited to the Chopin and His Europe International Festival in Warsaw in 2006 and to the Schleswig-Holstein Festival with the NDR Sinfonieorchester in 2008, Ozone had already formed No Name Horses in 2004 to explore expanded tonal, harmonic, and rhythmic resources. Their debut arrived that year, followed by No Name Horses II in 2008 and Jungle in 2009, a collection juxtaposing Latin-jazz traditions with forward-looking textures. The ensemble has since toured France, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Japan, captured on Alive!! Live at Blue Note Tokyo. Marking Chopin’s bicentennial in 2010, Ozone released the solo-piano Road to Chopin and, the next year, reunited with Anna Maria Jopek for Haiku. In 2012 his trio—now with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts—toured Japan and issued My Witch’s Blue; he also collaborated with Branford and Ellis Marsalis on Pure Pleasure for Piano. The thirtieth anniversary of his international debut prompted a month-long 2013 tour of Japan with Burton, while additional 2013–2014 activities encompassed the third Burton duet album Time Thread, a jazz arrangement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 Jeunehomme premiered with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, performances with the NDR Radiophilharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony, and a Japanese tour with No Name Horses that yielded the tenth-anniversary album Road. He also appeared as soloist with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in October 2013 and has remained a frequent guest at classical festivals across Europe and Asia.

Further projects included 2015 appearances on Dave Weckl’s Of the Same Mind and Lee Ritenour’s A Twist of Rit. In 2017 he again recorded Jeunehomme - Mozart: Piano Concerto with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and rejoined them for Peter and the Wolf in 2019, the same year No Name Horses released Until We Vanish 15×15. Verve celebrated his sixtieth birthday with the March 2021 double album Ozone 60, pairing solo classical and jazz performances for his first unaccompanied outing in thirteen years. September brought Resonance, a live duo recording with Chick Corea captured two years earlier at Blue Note Tokyo and issued by Universal Japan after Corea’s death the preceding February. Beyond performing and recording, Ozone hosts a popular jazz radio program and composes for theater and television.