Senri Oe

Having established a lengthy career as a hitmaking figure in Japanese pop, Senri Oe later redirected his energies toward jazz piano on a sequence of well-received recordings. Between the 1980s and the 1990s he issued multiple Top 40 pop albums, among them tracks such as “Wallabee Shoes” and “10 People, 10 Colors,” and received honors that included the 1989 Gold Disc Award for Best Male Pop Artist. After completing jazz studies at the New School in New York, he issued a succession of acclaimed piano-led projects—Boys Mature Slow in 2012, Spooky Hotel in 2013, and the Grammy-nominated Answer July in 2016—before returning to his earlier catalog on the 2018 collection Boys & Girls, spotlighting his trio on 2019’s Hmmm, and investigating 1970s-style fusion on 2021’s Letter to N.Y.

Born in Fujiidera, Osaka, Japan, in 1960, Oe began studying piano near the age of three. While in junior high he took private lessons from singer/pianist Yumi Nara, who subsequently gained recognition as an opera singer; Nara was the first to urge him to improvise and to write original material. Early influences included Gilbert O’Sullivan and the Carpenters, followed by an immersion in jazz figures such as Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Although he experienced a brief brush with wider notice after entering the 1975 Yamaha Popular Song Contest POPCON, Oe continued to hone his craft. He pursued an economics degree at Kwansei Gakuin University while performing with his band, eventually attracting the interest of an executive who placed him with Epic/Sony Japan. His first release, the 1983 album Waku Waku, contained the Top Ten single “Wallabee Shoes.” The following year his second album, Miseinen, reached number five on the Oricon Albums Chart, propelled by “10 People, 10 Colors.”

Further recognition arrived when 1988’s 1234 earned Album of the Year in the Pop Male Solo Artist category at Japan’s Gold Disc Awards. In 1991 he recorded Apollo in New York City; the set topped the Oricon Albums Chart and supported a large-scale stadium tour across Japan. Around this time he established his own Station Kids Records and began scoring films such as Noto No Hanayome and Doraemon: Nobita’s Great Adventure in the South Seas.

In 2007 Oe made the decisive move to enroll at the New School in New York City for formal jazz training. Upon graduating in 2012 he founded the Peace Never Die label, named for his dachshund Peace, and issued his debut small-group jazz recording, Boys Mature Slow. The next year he followed with Spooky Hotel, scored for big band. On his third outing, 2015’s Collective Scribble, he reduced the ensemble to a drummer-less trio featuring saxophonist Yacine Boulares and bassist Jim Roberston.

Answer July appeared in 2016 and paired Oe with vocalists Sheila Jordan, Jon Hendricks, Theo Bleckmann, and Lauren Kinhan, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Album. A year later he merged his pop and jazz approaches on Boys & Girls by recasting several of his major hits in a jazz setting. In 2019 he released Hmmm, documenting his trio alongside bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Ari Hoenig. His seventh album, Letter to N.Y., arrived in 2021 and reflected the 1970s and 1980s fusion of Miles Davis, Jaco Pastorius, and related artists.