Hiromi performs at Sofitel
MANILA, Philippines - If all the world is indeed a stage, pianist-composer Hiromi Uehara has played on just about every corner of it. Since the beginning of the decade, she has supported her impressive body of studio work with an ambitious tour schedule that has electrified audiences throughout the US, Europe, Asia and elsewhere with performances that have pushed the limits of piano jazz to new frontiers of compositional and technical skills. After her huge success touring with Stanley Clarke and Lenny White in a trio, and with Chick Corea in a duet, she is now concentrating on her solo performances.
Hiromi was born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1979, and took her first piano lessons at age six. She learned from her earliest teacher to tap into the intuitive as well as the technical aspects of music. She absorbed a range of musical styles, and by age 17, she’d performed with both the Czech Philharmonic and Chick Corea.
Hiromi came to the United States in 1999 to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, an environment that pushed the limits of her artistic sensibilities even further. Her jazz mentors include Ahmad Jamal and veteran bassist Richard Evans, who teaches arranging and orchestration at Berklee. Evans co-produced “Another Mind” with longtime friend and collaborator Ahmad Jamal, who has also taken a personal interest in Hiromi’s artistic development.
Hiromi conjures the ghosts of famous stride piano players like Art Tatum, James P. Johnson and Oscar Peterson, with whom she had the opportunity to play before his death in 2007. Her left hand transforms the bass line into a thick wall of repetition, as if the tune were a Philip Glass etude, while the right hand takes the tune through wild permutations. Hiromi plays far out, as is her heightened virtuoso nature, but she leaves enough of the melody intact as guideposts to where the tune leads.
She turns the melody over to the left hand; her right hand reappears with enchanting trills and intricate improvisations on the melody. Rolling chords, tinged with dissonance, rise and fall like ocean waves.
Hiromi’s classical technique is evident in her firm yet light touch, in her impeccable sense of time and in her respect for the structure of the piece, even as she turns it inside-out. Her reinventions are whimsical and witty, moody and meandering. Yet, in the end, the piece wanders back to its original form:
Considered one of the best jazz pianists and composers. Hiromi stands at the threshold of limitless possibility, constantly drawing inspiration from virtually everyone and everything around her. Her list of influences, like her music itself, is boundless. But she won’t, as a matter of principle, put labels on her music. She’ll continue to follow whatever moves her, and leave the definitions to others.
On Dec. 17 at 8 p.m., Hiromi will perform at The Harbour Garden, Sofitel Philippine Plaza. For inquiries, e-mail pijazz@gmail.com or call Sofitel at 551-5555. This concert is presented by The Philippine International Jazz Festival Foundation, The Japan Foundation, Delta Airlines, GA Yupangco Yamaha and The Sofitel Philippine Plaza.
