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Tour Dates May
18
Minneapolis, MN, US
Dakota
May 19 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland May 20 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland May 21 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland May 23 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland May 24 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland Jul 18 Nice, France NICE JAZZ FESTIVAL PASS Nov 13 London, UK Barbican Centre Read More
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After a nine year hiatus, Hiromi Uehara returned to Dakota Jazz Club to offer the audience an inside peak to her new band, Sonicwonder, with Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Hadrien Feraud on electric bass and Gene Coye on drums.
“It’s our world premiere,” said Hiromi to the crowd.
It was indeed their first public appearance with sheet music at the ready and songs still to be fine tuned before going into the studio to record their first album.
Lowell Pickett, the host for the evening, said Hiromi wanted a few intimate settings to work out the kinks, and she could do no better than the downtown Minneapolis venue.
Born in Hamamatsu, Japan, Hiromi first started playing the piano at six. At fourteen she played with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, at seventeen she played with Chick Corea. At the Berklee College of Music she was mentored by the great Ahmad Jamal, who told Pickett that she was a generational talent, “Maybe the most talented jazz pianist in the past twenty years.”
Telarc Records must have thought so for they signed her to a recording contract before she even graduated, releasing her debut album Another Mind in 2003.
As the band started off the evening with a laid back vibe and a little funk, Hiromi quickly utilized the three keyboards surrounding her: the grand piano in front, an electric keyboard to the side and a synthesizer resting above.
For “Sunny Wonderland” Hiromi started with the synth creating a sound that hovered between a retro 80’s video game and a high-speed German Discotheque dance beat. Throughout the song she played all three keyboards, at moments, two at a time, looking much like a scientist concocting, pushing, letting her other band mates explore with O’Farrill modulating his trumpet sound and Feraud giving a look to Coye at the end that said: “Whew!”
Exploration was definitely the theme of the evening with no two songs the same. O’Farrill was given the opportunity to play a sweet ballad before the rest of the band joined to create a beautiful and grand ending. Feraud started another song with a laidback solo before Hiromi and O’Farrill continued with a playful call and response. Then Hiromi was back on her synth with a top forty pop sound that soon became untethered, moving into a free jazz jam session with Hiromi laughing at the end, saying the song was entitled “Trial and Error”.
Hiromi told Vie Magazine in 2016 that she felt she was a captain of a boat and wanted to take her audience on a journey. Last night at the Dakota, the audience was given a rare treat from a captain still looking for new seas to explore.
Hiromi at Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis (17 May 2023) |
| dave ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com |
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