THE POWER OF THREE
BEN NICHOLLS
FRIDAY 23 JANUARY 2026
Photos: Takumi Saitoh
For Makoto Ozone, good things happen in threes. His 1983 debut at Carnegie Hall was a breakout success, his 2003 album with Gary Burton was nominated for a GRAMMY, and in 2023 he formed TRiNFiNiTY. This new jazz trio features two exceptional artists a generation younger than Ozone: the bass player Shimpei Ogawa and the drummer Kunito Kitai. Ozone is grateful to all the young musicians he performs with, especially Ogawa and Kitai, and he has a lot to share. He challenges them: 'to be alert all the time. Don’t put yourself on automatic pilot because I don’t know what the heck I’m going to play next bar. I might stop. I might slow down. I may play completely pianissimo. So just expect that I will probably do a completely different thing from what we rehearsed.’ Like his career, Ozone’s performances are never metronomic, but his timing is always just right. He found a phrase for this in Clarence Penn’s mantra,‘don't take the next beat for granted.’
Speaking with Intermusica, Ozone described how he came to play his first piano concerto in 2003. He had agreed to perform with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra and the conductor Tadaaki Otaka. As a jazz pianist, Ozone assumed he would be playing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, but when his agent called to confirm the repertoire they found that Otaka only wanted Mozart. Ozone was at least able to choose which concerto he would play. After ten days immersed in Mozart’s 27 (33) piano concertos, he chose No. 9 (32). He chose it for three (31) reasons. First, he liked the middle movement. Second, he was surprised by the minuet in the finale. Third, he was relieved that the piano joined the orchestra at once as he was nervous about waiting to play. The success of that performance, and Otaka’s endorsement, opened other doors for Ozone. He eventually performed the Gershwin that he first expected.
Since 2018, Rhapsody in Blue has become a signature piece in Ozone’s repertoire, and his recording with the New York Philharmonic warrants close listening (if you can find a copy). It runs a little longer than most other performances but not because the tempo drags. Instead, Ozone expands the cadenzas with more recent jazz techniques and styles.He also performed it with the LA Philharmonic in 2023 and for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival in 2024 (among others). Limelight praised this Australian performance for ‘bringing to the work renewed vigour and stretching its melodic and rhythmic possibilities.’
This idea of stretching musical possibilities resonates with Ozone’s broader outlook. On this, he has shared an idea that Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts had about improvised music: ‘if you had a night that you felt really great playing, you weren’t really improvising.’ This sounds like a harsh truth, but Ozone laughs as he repeats it. For him, this is cause for playing and teaching. ‘The journey continues,’ he says, ‘and I am so happy that I’m sharing my journey with the younger generations.’ TRiNFiNiTY are not taking the next beat for granted.