MALTA (丸田良昭, Maruta Yoshiaki, billed as Malta on many releases) is an alto and soprano saxophonist born on September 19, 1949, in Kurayoshi, in Tottori Prefecture. He started on the saxophone at 13 and, according to his official history, studied with Michiya Sasaki, Riki Yamamoto and Arata Sakaguchi before entering the Tokyo University of the Arts, from which he graduated in 1973. He then went to Boston and graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 1976, teaching there for about a year and a half. The same history says he took lessons in 1975 with Joe Viola and Joe Allard and with the saxophonists Charlie Mariano and Phil Woods.

In 1977 he moved to New York, studied with Steve Grossman and joined Paul Jeffrey's octet. His history places him in 1978 with Mercer Ellington's version of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with Charles Mingus and with the organist Jack McDuff. The Mingus work is on record. On January 23, 1978, at Atlantic Studios in New York, he played alto saxophone on three pieces later released on Me, Myself an Eye ("Devil Woman", "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" and "Carolyn 'Keki' Mingus"), in a section that also included Lee Konitz, and alto and soprano on "Farewell Farwell", which closes Something Like a Bird. Mingus is credited as composer and supervisor of the arrangements; Paul Jeffrey conducted, and Mingus, by then too ill with ALS to play, passed away in January 1979.

In 1979, his history says, he joined the orchestra of Lionel Hampton as lead alto saxophonist and concertmaster. The Discogs credits show him in Hampton's saxophone section on the festival record Aurex Jazz Festival '81, on The Boogie Woogie Album with the pianist Axel Zwingenberger (1982), on the live collection Ambassador at Large and on Made in Japan, taped in Tokyo on June 1 and 3, 1982. He is also credited as assistant director on Big 2, Hampton's March 1982 session with the drummer George Kawaguchi, though he does not play on it.

He signed with JVC and released his debut album, Malta, in November 1983. Masahiko Satoh arranged the strings and played piano, the New York guitarist Eric Gale is credited as a special guest, and the rhythm section drew on Akira Okazawa, Masaki Matsubara, Jun Fukamachi and Soichi Noriki. Sweet Magic (1984) added Katsutoshi Morizono, Kiyotsugu Amano, Tsunehide Matsuki, Mikio Masuda and, on drums for three tracks, Shuichi "Ponta" Murakami. Sparkling (1986), with Satoh, Okazawa, Matsubara, Fukamachi and Noriki again in the band, entered the Oricon CD top ten on release according to his official history and in 1987 won the first Japan Gold Disc Award in the jazz and fusion category. "Scramble Avenue" from that album was issued as a 12-inch single titled "Theme for Cabin Racing", and Japanese Wikipedia says his compositions were used in cigarette commercials in the late 1980s. His official history reports that he ranked first among Japanese saxophonists in the readers' polls of ADLIB and Player magazines from 1987 to 1990.

The late 1980s took him abroad. High Pressure (1987) was, by his official history, his first album recorded in Los Angeles; on My Ballads (1987), tracks 2 and 5 feature the drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, the bassist Nathan East, the pianist Don Grusin, the guitarist Dann Huff and the percussionist Paulinho Da Costa, with strings by Bill Holman, while the other tracks use Tokyo players with Satoh arranging and conducting the strings. He plays alto on the Brazilian guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves's Brazilian Scandals (JVC, 1987). In 1989 he founded the Atlam label, which released his standards album My Favorites that December, with Makoto Ozone guesting on acoustic piano. He produced Ozone's Starlight (1990), on which he also wrote "I Love To Be Face To Face", and Discogs credits him as producer of Ozone's Paradise Wings (1991) as well. His own Excelsior (1991) was his first album recorded in New York, with the keyboardist Philippe Saisse, the drummer Omar Hakim, the bassist Anthony Jackson and the percussionist Don Alias; Cocage (1992) includes "Oye Como Va" with an arrangement credited to Tito Puente.

In 1994 he made Felicia, a Victor album of his own compositions on which Jack McDuff plays organ on "McDuff Blues (Rough, Tough, Brother Jack)" and "The Nearness Of You", and the same year he recorded the Disney songbook When You Wish Upon A Star and a single of the title song with the singer Yasuko Agawa. UK Underground (1996) and Cinematrix (1997) were recorded in London, and Apasionado (1998) in Los Angeles, a Latin-fusion album produced and arranged by Greg Adams of Tower of Power with the saxophonist Eric Marienthal among the guests. On Shuichi Murakami's Welcome To My Life (JVC, 1998) he plays soprano saxophone on a Mambo No. 5 arrangement, and he is the saxophonist on the singer Salena Jones's Those Eyes (JVC, 2001), recorded in Tokyo in December 2000.

Manhattan In Blue (2004), recorded in New York in August 2003, is the record his official history calls his first jazz album: ballads and standards such as "I'm a Fool to Want You", "Cry Me a River" and "God Bless the Child", with Cedar Walton on piano, Peter Washington on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. It was also issued in the XRCD24 audiophile format. Brass (2008) put him in front of the Siena Wind Orchestra, and Malta de Chopin (2010) turned piano pieces by Chopin into jazz arrangements. In 2011 he formed the MALTA Jazz Big Band, which began performing at the Cotton Club in Tokyo, and from 2013 to 2018 he was music director and a performer in the yearly "Jazz in Geidai" concerts at the Tokyo University of the Arts, where he became a visiting professor in 2014.

Teaching and his home region fill much of the later record. He became a visiting professor at Osaka University of Arts in 2007 and a professor there in 2008, and has served as music director of the Kurayoshi Tennyo Music Festival and became the town's tourism ambassador in 2011. A "MALTA Award" has been given at the All-Japan High School Wind Band Festival since 1991, and in 2023 Tokyo Sports reported that he planned to open a MALTA Music School for saxophone and jazz in Tottori, marking 40 years since his Japanese debut. In 2014 and 2015 he released a line of MALTA saxophone mouthpieces and a ligature, and his official history lists the later albums Graduate (2015), Miracle Rainbow (2016), MALTA Planet (2017), MALTA Festa and MALTA Like You! (both 2018).

He turned 77 on September 19, 2026, and is still playing. His official schedule lists an October 3 concert in Yonago, Tottori, an October 14 evening set on the Tembo Deck of Tokyo Skytree with a keyboardist, and an October 31 date at BarBarBar in Yokohama with his band MALTA Hit&Run.

MALTA plays a singing, melodic alto and soprano, and writes tunes built to be hummed. His own site lists Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder and Lionel Hampton among the artists he admires. His records of the 1980s pair his lead lines with lush string arrangements by Masahiko Satoh and tightly produced rhythm sections, and several of his themes became television and commercial music. That is the part of his catalogue that Discogs files under Jazz-Funk, Fusion and Smooth Jazz, and it is the part behind the reader-poll rankings his official history reports.

His standing is not only commercial. He studied at Berklee, played on Mingus's last recording sessions, spent years in Lionel Hampton's band, and in 2004 recorded the straight-ahead Manhattan In Blue with a New York rhythm section. He fronts a jazz big band, directed a university jazz concert series and has held professorships at two Japanese arts universities. Much of his output still lives at the pop-adjacent end of fusion, including a Disney songbook, television soundtrack work and many compilations, but nearly all of it is classed as jazz on Discogs and it is his jazz credentials and teaching posts that define his place in the Japanese scene.