French saxophonist Christophe Monniot and Hungarian master of keyboards, Emil Spányi, living in France, created Ozone in 2006 with the resolute idea to offer very personal readings of jazz standards from Duke Ellington to Antonio Carlos Jobim, as it can be heard on the duo’s critically acclaimed debut album issued on French label Ames.

As both musicians, though separately, were already featured on some previous BMC Records releases, the two friends started a co-operation with the label, though this time not as a duo but with a septet, Monio Mania, including beside them guitarists Manu Codjia and Marc Ducret, among others. The resulting album Monio Mania 2 earned great international success and received highest ranks from both of the two leading French jazz monthly, Jazzman and Jazz Magazine, as well as appraisal in the international jazz press.

To continue the story of Ozone, soon Monniot and Spányi transformed it to a trio, with Joe Quitzke on drums, adding stability to the fragile balance of their instruments. The latter being also a long-time fellow musician of one of BMC’s key artists, guitarist Gábor Gadó, it’s no wonder that in 2010 the trio released their second album This is C'est la vie also on the Hungarian label specialized in European improvised music. Using their former ingredients of humour and electronic oddities, plus featuring cimbalom player Miklós Lukács as guest, the result was a dense material with “a clever rhythmic, relevant electronic breaks and an entanglement of mallets and strings hard to recognize whether they are attributable to the cimbalom or the piano.” (Franpi Barriaux, Citizenjazz)

The latest news in the Ozone-story is that the outstanding Hungarian double bass player, Mátyás Szandai, living also in France since a while, joined forces with the trio, thus rechristened to Ozone Acoustyle Quartet. This new lineup of well-known partners boards the MOL-Train arriving to their destination, Opus Jazz Club, exactly on the same day which one year before, on 29th November 2013, featured the concert of the Gábor Gadó Trio, with guest musician Christophe Monniot, earning standing ovation. Those who were there can confirm: we should prepare ourselves to a special event again...