If you’re already a fan of Japanese jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara, then you’d probably be on a first-name basis with her even if she didn’t go by just Hiromi for recordings and touring.
And if you’ve been a fan throughout her 10-year recording career, the association likely started with XYZ, the opening song from her 2003 Telarc debut CD, Another Mind.
Talk about a first impression. After the song’s quick count-in, Hiromi immediately executes staggering chord patterns and harmonics while bassist Mitch Cohn and drummer Dave DiCenso play a shell game with the song’s time signature at warp speed. It sounds like Art Tatum was mixed with Sergei Rachmaninov in a blender on the uncompromising setting of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
The 34-year-old Hiromi recorded that debut CD before she’d even graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, which she attended on a full scholarship (and where Cohn was a fellow student and DiCenso a professor). Produced by her mentor, esteemed jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, Another Mind featured guest performances by guitarist David Fiuczynski and bassist Anthony Jackson, both of whom have since factored heavily into Hiromi’s career.
The Brooklyn-based pianist’s 2004-2009 trio included a torrid young rhythm section of fellow Berklee alumni in bassist Tony Grey and drummer Martin Valihora, occasionally joined by Fiuczynski to create the quartet Hiromi’s Sonicbloom. But Hiromi’s latest two CDs, Voice and the new Move, have been recorded with an all-star trio.
Named the Trio Project, its rhythm section consists of Jackson, the inventor of the six-string contrabass guitar, whose recording and touring credits include Chick Corea, Paul Simon, Al Di Meola, and Steely Dan, and thunderous British drummer Simon Phillips (Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Toto, Jack Bruce).
“I never really thought about how famous they were,” Hiromi says by phone from Japan, where the Trio Project was preparing for a three-night run at the Blue Note in Tokyo. “I’d really wanted to record a full album with Anthony since he appeared on ‘Another Mind.’ Since then, we’ve run into each other in New York City or at festivals, when he was always on the road with other people. I’d always tell him that I wanted to work with him again, and he’d always say the same thing, so I was very excited to get this opportunity.”
“When I started to write music for the CD, I’d thought about the sound I wanted from the drums, and then thought about Simon. I’d listened to him on several recordings, and always loved his tone. And though he’s known as more of a rock drummer, I knew he could play anything. When I asked Anthony about Simon, he said that they’d worked together on sessions for 30 years, and that he was a great choice.”
The Trio Project has pretty much played anything and everything over two CDs and a DVD together during the past two years. Voice, from 2011, and the 2012 DVD Live in Marciac both showcase the CD’s expansive, Return To Forever-influenced title track (Hiromi has recorded with that group’s longtime members, keyboardist Corea, bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White, during the past five years).
Hiromi’s first experience with Corea, with whom she recorded a 2008 live twin-piano double-CD called Duet, actually came much earlier. The gentlemanly keyboardist had a show in Tokyo on tour, and met a then 17-year-old Hiromi by chance. Impressed by her knowledge and attitude, he invited her to join him onstage the next night, which she accepted. Her more recent interaction with Clarke and White started with the Stanley
Clarke Trio’s 2009 release Jazz in the Garden.
“I feel really grateful to be able to work with such amazing artists,” Hiromi says.
There are also two indicators on Voice and Live in Marciac of Hiromi’s early classical training in Japan, long before she moved to the United States at age 20 and graduated from Berklee in 2003. Yet her classical technique has always been filtered through an open mind that appreciated Sly and the Family Stone, King Crimson, and Fiucznski’s hip-hop/opera/jazz/funk hybrid group the Screaming Headless Torsos along with Miles, ’Trane and Diz; Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
Flashback is a dizzying romp between odd and even time signatures that displays Hiromi’s incomparable independence between her left and right hands. The pianist also blends classical flair with elements of blues and soul, as only she can, on Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata aided by Jackson’s countermelodies and Phillips’ brushwork.
Such blends have characterized Hiromi’s career, with the classical references more covert than overt. Her third album, the 2006 release Spiral, featured the lengthy Music for Three-Piece Orchestra with Grey and Valihora; the 2008 CD Beyond Standard — an inimitable romp through the jazz standards catalog by Hiromi’s Sonicbloom — included Debussy’s Clair de Lune.
Perhaps, as seems to be the tradition of younger jazz pianists, there could be a classical release in her future?
“A purely classical CD?” she asks incredulously. “No. I’m not really concerned with how people label my music, and don’t mind whatever people call it, but I don’t necessarily want to record under one style.”
The Trio Project’s Move is the latest display of Hiromi’s ever-unorthodox mix of jazz, classical, rock, R&B, fusion and traditional Japanese influences. It helped land her on the cover of a recent issue of the premier jazz magazine DownBeat, and earned her an interview on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday program in early March.
The disc is as much a series of movements or soundscapes as songs, since each selection was written to resemble occurrences we all experience in everyday life. Hence the alarm clock-inspired title track, the insistent tones of which get louder and more chaotic throughout. Or more self-explanatory pieces like the comparatively somber Rainmaker and celebratory Margarita!
Throughout the CD, Hiromi creates moods for a day on piano and occasional synthesizer, accentuated by Jackson’s often-chordal approach to the electric bass. Phillips’ broad range of tones is heightened by an oversize drum kit that includes two bass drums for extra bottom; cylindrical octobans for higher pitches, and extra snare drums and tom-toms for everything in between. And the songs get expanded in concert, as the simpatico trio uses every facet of its arsenal by improvising telepathically; often joyously.
“We travel happily together,” Hiromi says. “We have a great time on the road, both on- and offstage. We get along really well; always laughing, and I have a lot of fun hearing great stories from those guys. And onstage, they’re such great players, and achieve such great tones, that it’s inspirational.”
The Trio Project’s April 12 appearance at the Arsht Center will be Hiromi’s first-ever show in Miami. Under the title Generation Next: Piano, it also features the trio led by 28-year-old New York City-based pianist Gerald Clayton. Influenced by pianists like of Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner, and Corea, he’s the son of Grammy-winning veteran acoustic jazz bassist John Clayton.
“We did two double-bill shows in Japan last year,” Hiromi says, “and Gerald was amazing. I really loved his playing. And I’ve never even been to Miami before. I’ve only seen it on TV and in movies, so I’m really looking forward to it.”
Her co-star echoes the sentiment.
“Hiromi and I got the chance to travel a little bit and hang out last year,” Clayton says. “She’s great, and it was a pleasure getting to know Anthony and Simon as well.”
With bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Justin Brown, Clayton has released two trio CDs, and his third is forthcoming with an expanded lineup.
“Joe, Justin and I have known each other since high school,” Clayton says. “We were in all-star ensembles then, and started recording and touring as a trio about five years ago. We were all based in New York City, and even lived in the same apartment building, so we’ve been able to tighten our sound and get to know each other better, musically and personally. We’ll have a new CD on the Concord label, ‘Life Forum,’ (this past Tuesday). It’ll be the trio with guests like trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, alto saxophonist Logan Richardson, tenor saxophonist Dana Stevens, vocalist Gretchen Parlato, and others.”
Clayton also plays with his father, who’s best-known for his can’t-miss rhythm section partnership with drummer Jeff Hamilton. The two have backed jazz all-stars on countless records, and co-led the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra since the 1980s. The pianist’s uncle, multi-wind instrumentalist Jeff Clayton, plays with the father and son in the Clayton Brothers, rounded out by trumpeter Terell Stafford and drummer Obed Calvaire.
“The Clayton Brothers just did the Jazz Cruise in January,” Gerald says, “and I have a couple nights in St. Louis where I’m playing in a duo with my dad. Those gigs are really special and very familiar. They feel like home.”
See Hiromi’s Trio Project, along with the Gerald Clayton Trio, in Generation Next: Piano, at 8 p.m. on April 12 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami ($25-130, 305-949-6722).