LINCOLN CENTER

Avery Fisher Hall
New York Philharmonic

Gershwin & Bernstein
Makoto Ozone - Piano

The pianist is both a jazz and classically trained artist.  He regularly performs at jazz clubs in New York.  This is a one-performance concert and it cold out quickly.

After Rhapsody in Blue, the pianist called up a bass viol, trombone, and tenor sax player and they played some cocktail room jazz.  Big Hoot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUYaxMFy2e8

"In this special non-subscription concert, Alan Gilbert leads a salute to two of New York’s finest composers, featuring the remarkable jazz virtuoso Makoto Ozone and his very personal take on Rhapsody in Blue. 

“The evening’s highlight was Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Makoto Ozone.… Ozone’s crystal sound was perfect for the Rhapsody in Blue, evoking New York City skyscrapers at night…. The Philharmonic deeply understands the hybrid charms Gershwin’s music has: the impressive jazz part for trumpet, musical comedy–style dance, and the gorgeous, Rachmaninoff-like intertwining of orchestra and pianist.” — Nikkei, reviewing a concert on our recent ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour."

From Japan, a Jazzy Interpretation of Gershwin

Makoto Ozone Plays With the New York Philharmonic

By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIMAPRIL 23, 2014

        

 

New York Philharmonic Standing from left, Joseph Alessi, on trombone; Allen Won, on saxophone; and the bassist David J. Grossman joined Makoto Ozone on piano in a concert Tuesday at Avery Fisher Hall. Mr. Ozone had played with the Philharmonic on its Asian tour in February.

Here’s something you don’t see every night at Avery Fisher Hall: the members of the New York Philharmonic tapping their feet and nodding their heads, smiling, during a concerto’s cadenza. And here’s another: the orchestra’s principal trombonist, Joseph Alessi; its bassist David J. Grossman; and the saxophonist Allen Won coming to the front of the stage to join the soloist in a Thelonious Monk encore.

The cause for this unusual behavior was Makoto Ozone, the Japanese jazz pianist known for his collaborations with Gary Burton, Chick Corea and Branford Marsalis. In February, he joined the Philharmonic on its Asian tour in performances of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” that were so successful — and evidently, fun — that the orchestra’s music director, Alan Gilbert, arranged for an out-of-series concert with Mr. Ozone in New York.

On Tuesday evening, Mr. Ozone gave a thrilling, virtuosic and unabashedly personal rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue” that was the highlight of a Gershwin and Bernstein program. The orchestra, whose members donated their services to the Philharmonic’s general fund for the occasion, played with palpable enthusiasm.

Putting a jazz pianist in charge of Gershwin’s solo part makes sense: Much of the work’s appeal comes from the way the luscious orchestral texture meshes with the free-sounding, bluesy piano part. But the work also requires a familiarity with the language of classical Romanticism. In a series of dazzling, improvised cadenzas, Mr. Ozone showed how much classically grounded technique can expand a jazz pianist’s freedom: It opens that many more musical worlds to roam.

There was Mozartean wit in one impishly off-kilter passage and milky Impressionist colors in another. One improvisation saw Mr. Ozone, hands crossed, adding tufted offbeat accents to the robustly voiced melody. In another, his voicing was so nuanced that it created a spatial effect, as if two pianos were playing with one gradually moving away from the other.

Mr. Ozone’s first encore was his own “Mo’s Nap” for piano and orchestra, a limpid reverie that features a halting and tender clarinet solo. In “Blue Monk,” joined by Messrs. Alessi, Grossman and Won, he showed how deep stylistic versatility runs in the orchestra.

That was also evident in the confident and exuberant performances Mr. Gilbert drew from the orchestra in Bernstein’s “Candide” Overture — dispatched with brisk cheer — and his Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story,” which featured a memorably wild Mambo. A vivid rendition of Gershwin’s “American in Paris” closed the evening.