From J-Pop to Jazz to Dazzle: Senri Oe Discusses Storied Career

When he was in his early forties, Senri Oe decided to begin again. The Japanese pop star stepped off a plane in 2008 with little but the clothes on his back and his small Dachshund, named Peace. His destination was the New School's School of Jazz in New York City, where he resides to this day. Replacing his well-worn shirt with a touristy graphic tee he found in a souvenir shop, he ventured into a sea of students shouldering acoustic basses, saxophone cases and heads full of melodies. A household name in his birthplace of Osaka, Japan, Oe was a nameless pupil in Manhattan, where there's a jazz musician on every block.

Now, some twenty years later, Oe is in his mid-fifties and is a well-established composer and pianist in the New York jazz scene. After graduating from the New School in 2012, he released eight jazz albums on his label PND — an acronym including his pup’s name, Peace Never Die. His records cover a wide range of styles, from solo piano — his instrument since he was three — to big-band and small-group trios. Oe’s latest LP, Class of ’88, revisits the tunes from his iconic pop career in the 1980s and ’90s, namely his 1988 album, 1234.

“Nineteen eighty-eight is a very meaningful, important year for me, when I was consciously awaking as a professional musician,” Oe says, adding, “Maybe there are two meanings. ... A lot of my Japanese listeners feel reminiscent about that time, remembering love and music in a new style of jazz arrangement. The second meaning is that, for my jazz audience, it is an entrance. From there, they can enter to unlock the door of ’88 and return back to my pop music.”

In Japan, 1234 won Album of the Year at the Golden Disc Awards, comparable to the Grammys in the United States. On Class of ’88, the melodies of tracks derived from 1234 are maintained as a jumping-off point for improvisation. The recent album follows the pattern of Boys & Girls, Oe’s seventh jazz album, which covered a selection of the most popular hits from his pop era on solo piano, topping the Billboard charts for jazz in Japan.

On “My Glory Days” — the fifth track on Class of ’88, covering “Glory Days” from 1234 — the pulsing power chords of an electric guitar and a bouncy synth are transformed into pensive, tumbling piano arpeggios. The melody is recognizable, but jazz harmonies and improvisational breaks bring new life to the 35-year-old track, just as they do to Oe’s storied musical orbit.

The switch to jazz after a 25-year, highly successful career in pop might seem out of the blue, but for Oe, blue notes were always calling. When he was younger, his high school piano teacher, Yumi Nara, encouraged him to improvise upon the tunes he learned. At fifteen, he picked up a copy of Stone Flower, by Antônio Carlos Jobim, opening his eyes to jazz improvisation and the work of his other inspirations: Wynton Marsalis, Chick Corea and Charlie Parker, whom he deems “the king of jazz.”

However, Oe's musical interest in jazz was put on hold for years from a desire to “make something of himself,” he says. When approached by a Sony Music executive at 21, he realized that a career in pop could give him notoriety, but prompted by the loss of his mother, several peers and two pets, Oe was forced to consider whether his pop career was truly what he wanted or merely a matter of time, place and opportunity.

"I started to think about how short life is, and limited — one time — so I made the decision: What I want to do is learn again, to learn jazz theory," he says.

Though such albums as Class of ’88 and Boys & Girls demonstrate an affinity for his past compositions, Oe doesn’t see a return to pop as likely. “My passion for jazz music is still spreading and growing. I understand it as a pie,” he jokes, "a pizza pie. And I'm gonna taste this pie ’til the end of my life as a pianist and composer.”

The transition was hardly an easy one, according to Oe. He remembers the trepidation of starting over well: sitting, weeping in the hall of the New School after missing the first day of auditions; the loneliness he felt as a forty-year-old man challenged to learn alongside students half his age. However, he says he also remembers the elation of the experience, as if he had opened the “closet door” of his deepest wish, allowing long-held passion to manifest in his artistry.

In the first orientation session, "I got lost, " Oe says. "I was always alone, because people avoid to be friend of me. But little by little, I kept on learning jazz. ... And after graduation, I made the decision, I'm gonna stay in New York and try to be someone. ... My dream come true."

Oe will be in Denver for two sets at Dazzle on Thursday, October 5, accompanied by Matt Clohesy (acoustic bass) and Ross Pederson (drums), who recently released his own album, Identity. The duo will accompany him for the majority, playing music from Class of ’88, except for a short portion of the set that will see Oe on solo piano.

It is possible, as well, to see the small Dachshund, mostly blind and on nine medications, who has accompanied Oe through it all. "Peace is always with me," Oe says. "Now she's getting much older, and I became a little bit older, but still we support each other."

Senri Oe Trio, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Thursday, October 5, Dazzle Denver, 1080 14th Street. Get tickets, $20-$30, here.