By: Joe Lang
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| Hiromi - Publicity photo by Frank Capri |
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the edge. The future of music. Hiromi Uehara will be your guide for the trip. Sit back, enjoy, feel the burn.
Monday night at the Dakota Jazz Club, along with her Nord keyboards, house piano, and Sonicbloom bandmates, bassist Tony Grey (John Mclaughlin), guitarist David “Fuze” Fiuczynski (John Medeski), and drummer Martin Valihora, prodigious virtuoso Hiromi proceeded to absolutely kill it. Playing mostly songs off of her new album Time Control, the just over five feet tall, 27-year-old Amazon showed what girl power is really all about.
The group started off the set with the ferocious “Double Personality” from Hiromi’s debut effort, Another Mind. Propelled by the rapid fire smooth toned Fodera bass stylings of Tony Grey, Fuze’s octave double necked fretless guitar soloing, Hiromi’s unrelenting piano attack into a swinging blues, the audience was already starting to feel the G’s. But no letting up. The group at first seemed to take it down with Time Control track “Into the Night,” which, as Hiromi mentioned, is about the night’s “magic to make people emotional,” but the stranglehold was not over. Starting out with Fuze’s smooth toned '70s-era Jeff Beck stylings, the epic tune exploded with up- tempo stomping climaxing with dynamic release, all the while with Hiromi smiling more than any performer I’ve ever seen before.
When you see a show like this, with rapid fire changes and more twists and turns than a bad pulp fiction novel, it’s hard to not have the review coming off like it was written by an overzealous soccer announcer; “Grey takes a quick bass solo, back to Fuze’s melodic guitar playing, back to head, Fuze plays distorted pentatonic runs, FUZE, HIROMI, FUZE, HIROMI….GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!” But that’s what makes the best show, isn’t it? Complete unpredictability with masterful construction.
The quartet then took on “Time and Space,” but with a metal interpretation that had Hiromi banging her head and her huge mass of flipped hair flying around. Hiromi switched to the Nord, and begun doing unison melody and harmony lines, one hand on the Nord, one on the grand. The joy in Hiromi’s playing becomes ever more evident as she continues to play more intensely and passionately, all the while her smile growing. Fuze took a Scofield-esque solo, the band climaxed and than left Hiromi alone on the stage.
Hiromi took on her signature solo piece. Without going into detail, “The Tom and Jerry Show,” is a blistering breakneck take on ragtime and what allmusic.com calls “Carl Stalling–esque avant gardism.” Burning on Oscar Peterson, Jelly Roll Morton, and Art Tatum stylings, [fellow HowWasTheShow writer] Ilya Ratner was asking if there was any style Hiromi isn’t capable of. I kind of doubt it.
The band took the stage again for the hard grooving “Time Out,” which had the group burning in a wah-drenched pocket funk frenzy before garnering a standing ovation and coming back for the encore. What transpired in the encore was a blur to me, as my phone ran out of memory to take notes, and the other tunes frankly blew my mind to the point of oblivion. So there I stood, after the show, mind fully blown, not knowing what to do. The only prescription: more Hiromi.
I came back the next night and caught a set and a half, but rather than passion, grace, and fire, the mood and energy was way down. I did get a chance to ask Hiromi how often she practiced when she wasn’t busy in class at Berkley. Her (seeming confused) response: “All the time? I love playing.”
Excuse me, I have to go practice.
Location Info:
Dakota Jazz Club
Artist Info: Hiromi Uehara and Sonicbloom
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