Pianist Makoto Ozone has been one of Japan's most prolific jazz musicians since delighting international audiences in the early '80s while a student of vibraphonist Gary Burton at the Berklee College of Music. An early brush with the work of pianist Oscar Peterson set Ozone's sights on jazz, although he still sprinkles in bits of the classical repertoire he first studied. But it's his fluency in modern jazz, encompassing the rhapsodic beauty of Bill Evans and the inventive flair of Chick Corea, that has defined his work and invited fruitful collaborations with the likes of saxophonist Branford Marsalis and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera.