I was so surprised that i stopped walking in the street yesterday as i was discovering the incredibly talented Japanese jazz pianist Hiromi Ueahara via a NPR jazz podcast (i recommend by the way).
I never heard about her before and i was totally blown by the level of energy and creativity of this young pianist. I went to youtube this morning to find out more about her. Check out below one of her composition, the tom and jerry show (tribute to the cartoon) and observe how she really "plays" with the piano this complex piece of music. Everything looks easy and totally under control.
I thought her territory would be more traditional-revisited (you feel the influence of Tatum/Peterson/Garner). But if you dig more you can see she knows how to explore new modern fields, like on this memorable version of summertime in duo with no one else than Chick Corea himself...
In addition she's very pretty and sounds very nice (you need to listen to her podcast on NPR jazz). I can only anticipate a massive success for this young artist.
I did not know really any international jazz musician until that day. I am already a great fan of Ruychi Sakamoto who is a great music film composer (mainly for Takeshi Kitano and Hayao Miyazaki cartoons) and has a strong jazz background. but Hiromi is the first true jazz artist i know coming out of this country
She's from now on at the top of my hot list of talented jazz musician to keep track of.
Man!!! I know why I was seriously missing the Jazzcast now ;)
Thank for sharing this artist discovery with us. She has a very technical style (Japanese school ?) but I liked very much standards played with Chick and also her very funky compositions (quartet piano/drums/bass/guitar) from Youtube. Hope she ll come and play in Paris someday.
Posted by: aurel | 04 February 2008 at 11:22 AM
She was in Israel last year (twice I think), and from what I heard, gave an amazing show.
Posted by: lagon | 04 February 2008 at 11:27 AM