The Chamber Jazz Society Of Baltimore Presents The Gary Burton/Makoto Ozone Duo Only East Coast appearance for Duo

The Chamber Jazz Society of Baltimore concludes its fifteenth season of exceptional jazz concerts at the Baltimore Museum of Art with its Premium Concert featuring The Gary Burton/Makoto Ozone Duo on Sunday, April 23, 2006 at 5 pm. One of Baltimore's premiere jazz concert series, CJS continues to program the finest artists in jazz today. All concerts take place at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore. Tickets for this concert are $35 general admission, $33 for BMA Members and Senior Citizens, and $10 for students with ID at the door. For more information, please call the Chamber Jazz Society at (410) 385-5888.

There is no better way to wrap up CJS's 15th season than with something really special: Five-time Grammy winner vibraphonist Gary Burton and his longtime collaborator pianist Makoto Ozone in a concert of the sublime.

Beginning in 1984, Burton and Ozone played together as part of larger group settings and continued doing so until 1990, when Ozone returned to Japan. But Ozone's departure didn't end Burton and Ozone's musical alliance - it strengthened it. Though each now called a different continent home, Burton and Ozone began devoting a part of each year to a new partnership: the duet. The pair had integrated duet segments into their earlier group efforts, and they realized early on that they shared a unique rapport. With an innate camaraderie between their instruments - the vibraphone is conceptually similar to the piano - the two often conceive music similarly. But the dynamic that the two have developed over the years runs much deeper than instrumental overlap. Often they seem to read each other's minds, the result of which is a performance as symbiotic as virtuosic.

Gary Burton was the first player of the vibraphone to create a new and wholly original musical style. His extensive simultaneous use of four mallets gave him a less percussive sound, allowing him to develop more complex ideas in a manner usually available only to pianists and players of wind instruments. Since retiring as Executive Vice-President of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Burton has devoted himself anew to performance, including 2005 tours of Europe and Japan, as well as hosting a weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio. In addition to his jazz performances, Ozone is widely recognized in Japan for his classical concerts, particularly his Gershwin concerts. Whether they are tackling a standard, a tango, or even exploring classical music in the jazz idiom, the music Burton and Ozone make is fused with passion, impeccable technique, lush harmonies, and graceful exchanges between the two.