"I don't
want to put a name on my music," she says. "Other people
can put a name on what I do. It's just the union of what I've been
listening to and what I've been learning. It has some elements of
classical music, it has some rock, it has some jazz, but I don't want
to give it a name."—Hiromi Uchera Hiromi, Photo by Andrea Canter The Bad Plus might fly higher in the
media, but arguably the most electrifying jazz artist of the current
decade is a diminutive pianist named Hiromi Uehera. The 26-year-old
artist has impressed no less than Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea and
Ahmad Jamal, wowed critics with three successive Telarc recordings
(Another Mind, Brain, and the newly released
Spiral) [Click here for the Jazz
Police review of Spiral]. Hiromi
takes on the west coast, at Catalina’s in LA (Feburary 20-21), at
Yoshi’s in Oakland (February 24-25), and north to Seattle at Jazz
Alley (February 28-March 1).
 Hiromi, Photo by Andrea Canter
A native of Shizuoka, Japan, Hiromi
started playing piano at age 5, and enrolled in the Yamaha School of
Music at age six.
By age 12, she was performing in public, and at 14
performed with the Czech Philharmonic.
When she was 17, she met Chick Corea in Tokyo: "He
was doing something at Yamaha, and I was visiting Tokyo at the time
to take some lessons. I talked to some teachers and said that I
really wanted to see him. I sat down with him, and he said 'Play
something.' So I played something, and then he said, 'Can you
improvise?' I told him I could, and we did some two-piano
improvisations. Then he asked me if I was free the next day. I told
him I was, and he said, 'Well, I have a concert tomorrow. Why don't
you come?' So I went there, and he called my name at the end of the
concert, and we did some improvisations together."
Hiromi was immersed in classical and
jazz through her earliest teachers and throughout her training, which
culminated in her enrollment at the Berklee College of Music in
Boston. An early influence was Oscar Peterson, with whom she was
ultimately connected through Yamaha and who has been a significant
supporter. Ahmad Jamal has overseen her recent career and was
co-producer of her first recording. "I love Bach, I love Oscar
Peterson, I love Franz Liszt, I love Ahmad Jamal," she says. "I
also love people like Sly and the Family Stone, Dream Theatre and
King Crimson. Also, I'm so much inspired by sports players like Carl
Lewis and Michael Jordan. Basically, I'm inspired by anyone who has
big, big energy. They really come straight to my heart."
And “big, big energy” is an apt
description of Hiromi’s approach to the keyboard. Audiences have
been blown away by her dynamic range, percussive attack, and creative
compositions that echo the wild playfulness of the Bad Plus as well
as the sophisticated complexities of Tyner, Jamal and Jarrett.
True to her generation, Hiromi throws
in rock elements but the underlying foundation is high-flying
improvisation. Listening to her recordings, like her live
performance, is an acoustic feast. Although performing in a trio
format, one is struck by the pianist’s uncanny ability to evoke all
three instruments—even her solo passages feel like a trio. Her
left hand provides dazzling bass lines, her attack is as percussive
and driving as a drum kit; and her keyboarding as challenging and
musical as the Bad Plus’ Ethan Iverson while showing greater
complexity. Hints of her classical upbringing peek through, but like
Debussy on psychodelics. She can be alternatingly haunting and
majestic, as on the title rack of Another Mind, channeling
bells, violins, even Bill Evans without letting the listener forget
there’s a firestorm raging nearby.
 Hiromi, Photo by Andrea Canter The Los Angeles Times praised
Another Mind (2003) for its tendency to "vibrate and
surge with the non-stop sensory stimulation of the ginza, with busy
bass lines and crisply dissonant harmonies." Brain
(2004) quickly followed, showcasing one of the most daring
and creative voices of her generation, or perhaps of any working
generation in jazz today. Indeed, Brain
received Swing Journal's "New Star Award," Jazz
Life's "Gold Album," HMV Japan's "Best Japanese
Jazz Album," the Surround 2004 Horizon Award, the Japan Music
Pen Club's "Japanese Artist Award," and recently, Swing’s
“Album of the Year” in its 2005 Readers’ Poll. Noted her mentor
(and co-producer of Another Mind), Ahmad Jamal, "Hiromi
is changing the musical landscape. Her music, charm, and spirit let
her soar to unimaginable heights. She is nothing short of amazing."
Particularly following the scrumptious diversity of Brain, one
had to wonder which of many directions Hiromi would go next, or
perhaps how she could continue to explore so many ideas without
losing her way. Spiral (released last month) is the answer as
well as the apt description of the structure of these eight
compositions. Again Hiromi proves that she is an endless well of
original musical ideas that range from the eerily bizarre (“Return
of Kung Foo World Champion”) to the bluesy eccentric (“Love and
Laughter”) to the classically lyrical (“Old Castle by the River
in the Middle of a Forest”).
 Hiromi, Photo by Andrea Canter
"Hiromi is changing the musical
landscape. Her music, charm and spirit let her soar to unimaginable
heights. She is nothing short of amazing."—Ahmad Jamal
Hiromi performs at Catalina’s in
LA, February 20-21; tickets at
www.catalinajazzclub.com;
at Yoshi’s in Oakland, CA, February 24-25;
www.yoshis.com;
and in Seattle, at Jazz Alley, February 28-March 1;
www.jazzalley.com.
Visit the artist’s website at
www.hiromimusic.com
|
Los Angeles 
Wednesday, 07 January 2009
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