1. Intro: Softly as in a Morning Sunrise
2. Softly as in a Morning Sunrise
3. Clair de Lune
4. Caravan
5. Ue Wo Muite Aruko
6. My Favourite Things
7. Led Boots
8. XYG
9. I Got Rhythm
Hiromi Uehara - Piano, keyboards
David Fiuczynski - Fretted and fretless guitars
Tony Grey - Bass
Martin Valihora - Drums
The Japanese pianist Hiromi
Uehara (better known simply as Hiromi) has
already established herself as a remarkably
deft player, with a technique to commit hara-kiri
for. She moved to the USA to study at Berklee
College, and was assisted by fellow-pianists
Chick Corea and Ahmad Jamal. Her earlier albums
mainly featured a trio, in its most recent
form completed by British bassist Tony Grey
(from Newcastle) and Bratislavan drummer Martin
Valihora. But the trio became a quartet with
the addition of Dave Fiuczynski, an extrovert
guitarist who formerly played with a group
called the Screaming Headless Torsoes!
As the CD title suggests,
the focus is on jazz standards - a change
of direction for Hiromi, whose previous albums
have concentrated on her own compositions.
The repertoire includes some oddities: a tune
(Led Boots) from Jeff Beck's album
Wired and a version of Debussy's Clair
de Lune, but these are not the most surprising
things on the album. The greater surprise
is Hiromi's oblique approach to the jazz standards,
which you may never have heard played this
way before.
For example, Caravan
has Fiuczynski's guitar keening and screaming
- often sounding like the out-of-tune noise
made by a member of Spike Jones's band pretending
to play a violin with a tree branch. Thankfully,
Hiromi's piano solo is more melodious: playing
about with the exotic rhythm before moving
into a fast-paced skitter around the keyboard.
And her solo version of I Got Rhythm
(entitled I've Got Rhythm on
the sleeve) starts with vaudevillian ragtime
and moves into pensive swing before getting
much freer, while keeping the tune audibly
present. This track is Hiromi's appropriate
tribute to the late Oscar Peterson, another
pianist who helped her.
My Favourite Things
is also dislocated in Hiromi's interpretation,
with some unusual variations in the beat.
Tony Grey gets a bass guitar solo, accompanied
sympathetically by piano and drums. Hiromi's
piano solo is radiantly fluid. Clair de
Lune is jazzed up, with Dave's guitar
tinkering with the melody. Here and elsewhere,
the group has a twinkle in its eye and - frequently
- a tongue in its cheek, playing with ironical
humour. Ue Wo Muite Aruko (better known
as Sukiyaki) is turned into a jazz-rock
outing with what may be Scottish overtones!
Led Boots is also jazz-rock but in
heavier mode, with Fiuczynski thrashing his
guitar fiercely - nearer heavy metal than
jazz.
The jazz standards in the
Great American Songbook have been done to
death but Hiromi's group takes a fresh, invigorating
look at some of them. The band uses its exceptional
technique to explore these tunes without demolishing
them. And Hiromi herself is a phenomenal pianist
who we will certainly hear much more of.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Telarc
CD 83686
