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Kanji Ohta

Ohta became a professional jazz pianist when he was 18 years old because of Hideto Kanai (bass) who convinced him to become a full time performing professional pianist.  After He joined Mr. Kanai’s band, he played with Fumio Watanabe (drums) who is the younger brother of Sadao Watanabe, Kunimitsu Inaba (bass) Trio, and Akira Omori (alto sax)‘s group. In 1981, his first solo album Blue Highland was released with critical acclaim.  He was playing not only with Japanese musicians but also American musicians for his collaborations including: Art Taylor (drums), Joe Jones Jr (drums), and Evelyn Blakey (vocal).  He performed at Jazz Yatra in India with Toshiko Kiryu (piano) to enthusiastic audiences.  In 2003, He released the album If You Could See Me Know with Earl May (bass) and Jimmy Lovelace (drums).   In New York, he has enjoyed performances at University of the Street, Lenox Lounge, and Showman’s.  Now with the release of his latest endeavor Our Jazz Family  featuring the luminary Jimmy Heath (tenor sax), Earl May (bass) and Jimmy Lovelace (drums).  This album is the live recording of a concert in 2002 and after 10 years the music still stands the test of time as a timeless moment, it was for this reason Ohta decided to release this indelible recording as his debut album in the United States.The newest album is released spring 2015 and It's called "This Is No Laughing Matter".

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Album Review

Kanji Ohta & The Jazz Family with Jimmy Heath: Our Jazz Family

Read "Our Jazz Family" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


The music that appears on Our Jazz Family was meant to serve as an aural commemorative keepsake-of-sorts. Pianists Kanji Ohta and Toshiko Kiryu celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary by putting on a concert with their family and friends in 2002. The concert was recorded and kept as a private memento at first, but ten years later, as the couple celebrated their silver anniversary, they decided to share what they had made a decade earlier. The music that ...

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