Jonathan Katz

Long Island, New York native Jonathan took up piano at six and French horn at nine. He discovered jazz at 11 and played with Frank Foster and other jazz giants in his teens. He studied music at Yale University and the Eastman School of Music. After studying Japanese at Sophia University, he moved to Tokyo in 1991. Jonathan has worked with famed jazz artists Ray Brown, Kenny Burrell, Lew Tabackin, Tom Harrell and Eddie Henderson, and performed with the NHK Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, and enka superstar Itsuki Hiroshi. He has released one solo piano CD and 3 trio CDs, and toured and recorded with several groups in various genres. In 2008, Jonathan assembled Tokyo Big Band, a 19-piece ensemble of top Tokyo area musicians who perform his over 90 compositions and arrangements of Japanese traditional songs. Since 2019, Jonathan has been pianist and occasional arranger for Disney World Beat, which performs hall concerts all over Japan each year. He has received numerous composing and arranging commissions, including from the Taipei Jazz Orchestra, violinist Narimichi Kawabata, and concert pianist Yuko Mifune, and was bandleader and arranger for bossa nova singer Lisa Ono’s nonet (2019) and quintet (2020). Jonathan is also an avid music educator who has given clinics and guest performances at universities and high schools in Japan, the US, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and teaches private lessons as well as clinics in jazz piano, improvisation, composition, arranging, and big band.