Makoto Ozone

Born in Kobe in 1961, Makoto Ozone was raised in a musical environment connected to jazz by his father, who was a pianist and club manager. He moved early from organ to piano after discovering Oscar Peterson. In the early 1980s Ozone went to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he recorded Live!! At The Berklee Performance Center with Phil Wilson in 1983, before developing a career split between Japan and the international stage. His playing belongs to a precise, fluid acoustic jazz, nourished by swing, bop and standards, with regular attention to duo, trio and large-ensemble forms. He has collaborated repeatedly with Gary Burton — notably on Face to Face (1995), Virtuosi (2003) and Time Thread (2013) — and has also worked with vocalist Kimiko Itoh, with whom he performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival. His discography alternates between personal repertory and tributes, from Makoto Ozone (1984) to Breakout (1994), Dear Oscar (1998), Road to Chopin (2010), Resonance with Chick Corea (2021) and Trinfinity (2024). Ozone also leads the large ensemble No Name Horses, another facet of a career that links jazz mainstream, orchestral writing and dialogue with the classical tradition.