Chick Corea & Makoto Ozone
Biographie Chick Corea & Makoto Ozone
Chick Corea
An NEA Jazz Master, 16-time Grammy® winner, prolific composer and undisputed keyboard virtuoso, Chick Corea has attained living legend status after four decades of unparalleled creativity and an artistic output that is simply staggering.
From straight ahead to avant-garde, bebop to fusion, children’s songs to chamber music, along with some far-reaching forays into symphonic works, Chick Corea has touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his illustrious career while maintaining a standard of excellence that is awe-inspiring. A tirelessly creative spirit, Chick Corea continues to forge ahead, continually reinventing himself in the process.
Chick Corea began his career with apprenticeships with the likes of Stan Getz, Sarah Vaughan and Miles Davis’s band, where he participated in such landmark sessions as In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Embarking on a solo career in 1966, Chick Corea has been at the forefront of jazz, both as a renowned pianist forging new ground with his acoustic jazz bands and as an innovative electric keyboardist with Return to Forever and the Elektric Band. His extensive discography boasts numerous essential albums, beginning with his 1968 classic, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs.
Chick Corea continues to make a significant impact on the scene, as evidenced by 2007’s Grammy®-winning The Enchantment (duets with banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck), 2008’s The New Crystal Silence (duets with long-standing collaborator Gary Burton), 2009’s Returns (documenting Return To Forever’s 2008 reunion tour) and 2009’s Grammy®-winning Five Peace Band Live (with John McLaughlin, Christian McBride, Kenny Garrett and Vinnie Colaiuta).
2011 demonstrated Chick Corea’s virtuosity in all its forms: he mounted a hugely successful world tour with Return to Forever IV, received a Latin Grammy® for the Corea, Clarke & White album Forever, released the acclaimed piano duet album Orvieto with Stefano Bollani, recorded his second concerto, The Continents, with a 30-piece orchestra (due for release on Deutsche Grammophon in February 2012) and capped the year with a month-long, career-spanning residency at New York’s Blue Note, featuring ten bands, including John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock and Bobby McFerrin.
Makoto Ozone
taught himself to play the organ while very young, made his first television appearance at age six, began performing regularly on Osaka Mainichi Broadcasting, and, after attending an Oscar Peterson concert at 12, turned his attention toward jazz piano. He moved to the United States in 1980 to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music; in 1983 he graduated at the top of his class and gave a solo recital at Carnegie Hall. He became the first Japanese musician to sign an exclusive contract with CBS.
Mr. Ozone has recently explored classical repertoire with conductors including Charles Dutoit, Thomas Zehetmair, Joseph Swensen, Alexandre Rabinovitch, Arie van Beek, Francois-Xavier Roth, Tadaaki Otaka, Eiji Oue, and Michiyoshi Inoue. He has played works by Gershwin, Bernstein, Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich with the NDR and NHK symphony orchestras, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Orchestre d’Auvergne, Sinfonia Varsovia, and others. He made his New York Philharmonic debut on the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour, performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, led by Alan Gilbert, and was immediately engaged to reprise the work with them in New York two months later. The same year he gave the World Premiere of his own jazz arrangement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, Jeunehomme, with Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, and appeared with NDR Radio Philharmonic and São Paulo Symphony Orchestra.
He also toured Japan with his big band, No Name Horses, and celebrated its tenth anniversary with a new recording. Mr. Ozone has collaborated with numerous other jazz artists including Gary Burton, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, Branford Marsalis, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Christian McBride, Dave Weckl, and Mike Stern. He is a regular guest of classical music festivals including the Festival de la Roque d’Anthéron in France and La Folle Journée in Nantes and Japan. In 2016 he joined Chick Corea for the Piano Duo Plays “Acoustic” tour throughout Japan, including two performances of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the NHK Symphony Orchestra led by Tadaaki Otaka.
