A BLAZING COMET FROM THE EAST
Hiromi is a phenomenon of our times. When she settles in with jazz piano, it’s as if an alien spirit of high inventiveness has taken over artistic control, using her as a mere vessel to exude a wealth of ideas, transitions and pulse-quickening runs that defy easy characterization.
A composed Japanese woman and mother, she still exudes glints of the precocious girl who vied to be a classical artist. What stands out after a long evening at SFJazz was her finger agility, amazing technique and improvisatory acumen. But which is the real Hiromi—-the tiny woman who could demurely pass for any age from 17 on up, or the take-charge master of keyboard improvisation who acts like a woman possessed?
When the spirit takes over, she is a new artist who cannot sit still. Totally immersed in her medium, she swings and sways, with feet flying back and forth, occasionally standing up to play, even plucking piano strings within, sounding like a string bass instrument. She rarely gazes down at the keyboard, which become her high-power plaything as she delves even into the extreme sonics at either end. She mutters, as if singing to herself, and looks out with a disarming other-earthly grin as if inventing untamed fantasies alone in her studio with no audience at all.
The piece de resistance when heard Sept. 8 was her half-hour-long impression of Gershwin, “Rhapsody in Various Shades of Blue,” in which she moved effortlessly and seamlessly between her own improvisations and the unmistakable Gershwin rhapsody, spun out at heavenly length. The back-and-forth shifts came smoothly again and again, like a 21st-century hybrid car moving between electric and olden fuel automatically. And yet the two media she projected were not even close in essence. Before long you could readily visualize the real live Gershwin playing at a late-night private party after some concert appearance a century ago and bringing his inventive spirit to bear on his epic jazz-inflected classic of a century ago, “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Also featured here were selections from her latest record, “Spectrum,” including “Whiteout” and “Blackbird.”
Hiromi is truly international, with her bouffant hair flying in the breeze, playing with indeterminate nationality. What was undeniable was her flair and unorthodox appearance, linked with great keyboard fluency and strength (Her iron-man stint was half again longer than any standard concert-hall piano recital.)
I might have completely missed Hiromi returning here two years after her abrupt shutdown by pandemic restrictions in 2020, coming to open the SFJazz season in a too-long postponed makeup. But a fan back east I rarely hear from called—-yes, out of the blue—spurring me to act on her San Francisco four-day sold-out gig. A welcome tip not to miss a formidable jazz giant lurking within that disarming compact frame.
The concert was sold out, and the audience highly responsive, ending up in the palms of her hands.
Hiromi (full name: Hiromi Uehara) had been discovered as a teenager in Japan by Chick Corea, who invited her to join him in concert. She later studied at the Berklee School of Music in Cambridge, MA (no, not Berkeley, CA!) and, in 2007, got married. Her two closing concerts here, with string quartet, will feature Hiromi’s classically inspired compositions played in the jazz vocabulary.
Hiromi at the keyboard Sept. 8, the first of four nights. SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, San Francisco. For info: (415) 788-7353, or go online: www.sfjazz.org.
