Johnny Todd commenced his career at age 16, winning a national talent contest in his native Australia. His professional career began thereafter with Johnny appearing regularly on radio, television and concert stages throughout Australia. In his early 20's, he was appointed Musical Director of the famous Latin Quarter in Sydney where he spent 5 years composing, arranging, conducting and backing up such artists as Sammy Davis Jr., Nancy Wilson, The Bee Gees, Helen Reddy etc.

It was here that Johnny met and performed with jazz singer Ethel Azama, who came to appear at the Latin Quarter following a successful engagement in Las Vegas as a double act with Mel Torme. A romance soon blossomed and following their marriage, Johnny and Ethel decide to move to her native Hawaii. Here Johnny soon found himself backing up such artists as Anita O'Day, James Darren, Joey Heatherton, Kenny Rankin and Tommy Sands.

In 1969, Johnny was offered the job of Musical Director for the Don Ho Show, a position which he has occupied for the last 30 years, arranging and conducting for Don and his guest artists on television and stage throughout the the U.S., Canada and Japan. Johnny has found time also to devote himself to his first love, jazz piano, appearing internationally in numerous jazz festivals and concerts as soloist, with his trio and in collaboration with such jazz greats as Buddy DiFranco, Paquito di Reviera, Steve Turre and Bill Watrous.

December of 1999 found Johnny on the road with Don Ho, appearing at the "Riverside Hotel and Casino" in Laughlin, Nevada. (December 7th through the 16th). From there it was on to Las Vegas, appearing at the "Orleans" December 17, 18 and 19. On the 20th it was back to Honolulu and then on to Japan on the 21st. On the 23rd and 24th Johnny performed jazz concerts in Tokyo, backed by Japanese musicians Isamu Nara on bass and Yuji Ishida on drums. During the Christmas and New Year period while giving several jazz piano workshops in Tokyo and Saitama, Johnny took the opportunity to attend some of daughter Mika's concerts in Tokyo as part of the "Hello Project 2000", ( 14 sold out performances in two weeks). As an interesting side light, Mika subsequently recorded with other members of "Project 2000", "Morning Musume" and "Taiyo and Cisco Moon". The resulting three singles sold 1.5 million copies on March 8, the day they were released.

I was thinking recently about jazz as an art form and what it has meant to me since first discovering it at the age of 15. It was quite a revelation to realize that it has been almost 100 years since jazz took roots in New Orleans in the early part of the 20 th century. And since it has been such an important part of my life for 50 years, my love of jazz spans half of it's history.

Much against the advice of my parents at the time, music has been my career since my first professional job at 16 years of age, and I have been very fortunate to have worked in some nice situations and with some great talents. Of course, I can't say that all of it was playing jazz, but no matter what I was doing at the time, solo piano, accompanying, groups or shows, for me, my jazz background was what made it all work.
Jazz of course shares many features with any other genres of music, melody, harmony and rhythm among others, but its one unique feature is in the art of improvisation. Of course many of the now famous classical composers were great improvisers, and the written music we know so well by Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, etc. is probably a fraction of that which flowed through their fingers during their lifetimes. In fact I believe that improvisation is in itself nothing other than “instant composition”.
Purely jazz performance have been interspersed with my other musical activities throughout my life but in basing my career in Japan for the last 3 or 4 years I have been fortunate to be able to make it the center of my attention. For this reason, I was so happy to discover two musicians with who I knew I could form an exciting jazz trio. I wanted this group to be a communion of three equal partners engaging in interesting “jazz conversations” and I think we've been able to realize that.

Japanese bassist Masatoshi Emori spent several years working on the scene in Los Angeles and on his return to Japan, used that experience to become a much sought after player on both acoustic and electric basses, performing in many genres from jazz to ethnic Japanese music.
Detroit born drummer Lorenzo Braceful moved to Japan around the same time as I did, following a busy musical life in the United States , backing artists like Aretha Franklin, Earl Klugh, 112 etc.
Needless to say, in Japan he continued his success, where his powerful and imaginative drumming style has kept him in constant demand.
Our first CD release is “Encantado” which in Spanish means “delighted”. That's how I feel about meeting and working with these two great musicians and “enchanted” with the possibility of our future projects.