Hiromi And SonicBloom Plays Jazz At The Lake.
Japanese Piano Prodigy Plays Toronto Festival For The Second Time.
Hiromi burst onto the jazz scene in 2003 with her debut recording Another Mind on the Telarc label and has continued to make important statement with every new recording.
Since that year she released four albums as a leader: Brain, Spiral, Time Control and Beyond Standard. She won numerous awards internationally and in her native Japan where here first album Another Mind won Jazz album of the year, acclaimed by the Recording Industry Association Of Japan (RIAJ)
Recording With Chick And Stanley
In the last six month two albums were released that had her working with veteran jazz pianist Chick Corea and master bassist Stanley Clarke. The albums Duets (Concord Records) with Chick Corea and Jazz in the Garden (Heads Up) with Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White were released to much critical approval.
It must be noted that if her next album features guitarist Al Dimeola she could be considered an unofficial member of the band Return to Forever.
Hiromi was born in Shizuoka Japan and began taking piano lessons when she was six. Her first piano teacher encouraged her to be intuitive about the music; she also taught her the colours of music, whenever she wanted Hiromi to play something passionate she would simply tell her to play red, or if it was something mellow she would say play blue.
Enrolling At The Yamaha School Of Music.
Hiromi enrolled in the Yamaha school of music less that a year after her first piano lesson. By age twelve she was performing in public sometimes with large orchestra. She played with the Czech Philharmonic when she was fourteen in the former Czechoslovakia.
Her involvement with Yamaha led to a chance meeting with Chick Corea who at the time was working with the company on a project. Upon hearing he was there in Tokyo, she told a few teachers that she wanted to meet him. It was arranged and they did meet as Hiromi recalls:
"He asked me to play something then asked if I could improvise, I told him I could” and we did a bit of two piano improvisations."
He then invited her to his concert the next night and at the end of it called her up on stage for an impromptu jam.
Hiromi spent a few years in her native Japan writing jingles for the Nissan Company before enrolling in The Berklee College of music In Boston.
She impressed many of her peers and her teachers with her musical abilities. One of those teachers was veteran bassists Richard Davis. He was so impressed with her that he and longtime friend and Collaborator Ahmad Jamal who was equally impressed with her musicality, produced her debut record for The Telarc label.
Playing For Oscar.
To many jazz observers Hiromi is one of the most exciting, innovative and successful female jazz pianist to come out of Japan since Toshiko Akiyoshi enthralled American audience back in the fifties.
Indeed before her debut CD came out she had already impressed legends like Canadian Jazz Icon Pianist Oscar Peterson who invited her to play for him at his home in Ontario.
Hiromi's music and her playing are filled with a boundless energy, something she unleashes when she hits the stage. She brings a new edge to everything she plays; it could be one of her own compositions, or a Japanese traditional folk song or a treasured piece from the American songbook, she lays her stamp on it and colours it bold.
Hiromi who admits that her ears are wide open when it comes to music tries to bring a taste of everything she hears to her music. It is not unusual to hear her splash around on her keyboards bridging the gap between fusion and bop, she plays it straight ahead or get folksy on the same album. She plays the acoustic piano like a veteran beyond her age and blends in very well with the sound of jazz rock. She is the real deal.
Hiromi bring her high energy show to the Toronto stage again. As part of the Jazz By The Lake series produced by the Toronto Jazz festival. She will play at the Fleck theatre at the Harbourfront centre on Monday June 29th.
This is one show that fans of great exciting open-ended jazz should not miss.
Hiromi Uehera
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Hiromi Uehera
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