Keys tomany doors
Pianist Hiromi’s ‘Alive’ with influences
You can tell a lot about performers by who comes to see them play. That maxim holds especially true for the dazzling pianist Hiromi. “At a show, I’ll look out from the stage and see a woman with a pearl necklace next to a guy in a Grateful Dead T-shirt next to a young kid with his mom,” she says. “It’s fun to see them all together.”
They’re bonding over the rich and mercurial mix in her music. It’s marketed, correctly, as jazz. But key parts of the songs have the formal beauty of classical etudes, the pitched attack of prog rock or even the ease of poptinged blues.
If Hiromi’s music doesn’t have something for everyone, it has plenty for many. She’s skilled enough to join the relatively rare rank of top female jazz stars known exclusively for their playing. They range from drummer Viola Smith in the 1940s to pianists Alice Coltrane and Carla Bley in the ’60s and ’70s to drummer Terri Lyne Carrington in the ’80s and ’90s to bassist Esperanza Spalding today.
Her playing is especially animated on her latest disc, “Alive.” The sound centers on the muscular dynamics among the pianist’s core trio, rounded out by drummer Simon Phillips and bassist Anthony Jackson.
She’ll feature that lineup at six hotly anticipated shows that stretch through the weekend at the Blue Note.
The trio represents only one of Hiromi’s guises. In her 35 years, she has played with top jazz stars, like Stanley Clarke, Lenny White and Chick Corea, and also led the band Sonicbloom.
The woman born Hiromi Uehara began playing piano at age 6 in Hamamatsu, Japan. Early on, she was exposed to the piano work of Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson, who became her biggest influences. By 14, she appeared with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and, at 17, met Corea in Tokyo. He invited her to play with him at a concert the next day.
Hiromi moved to the U.S. to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. A professor of hers took a demo tape she had recorded to legendary jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. He helped her get a recording contract before she even graduated. Hiromi’s debut album, 2003’s “Another Mind,” appeared during her senior year.
In the years since, Hiromi has defied jazz’s love of covers, writing nearly all the material she performs herself.
“I always have a will to write,” she says. “It’s organic to me.”
She seldom uses singers. Even her album titled “Voice” featured no human ones. “When there are no lyrics, people can picture what they want,” Hiromi says. “It’s a reflection of where they are in their lives.”
Her instrumentals can be contemplative, but more often they’re brisk. The title track on “Alive” approaches the speed of “Flight of the Bumblebee.” “The energy is just there in me,” she says. “All the members of the band hate being in the safe zone. We want to push ourselves to find new landscapes. Music should take you on a ride.”