The ticket was simple: Hiromi, piano. It would have been better: Hiromi, Blitz. Or: Hiromi, thunder. Or: Hiromi, quake.
But from the beginning. The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg has the fate that many of its guests do not necessarily come because of the artists, but because the building still lures. Some have won an incentive trip, others have included the ticket in the quota of their hotel. And so, at the Hiromi concert at the front doors, hostesses were waiting, holding signs bearing the name "BMW Excellence Club" (who is allowed to become a member who bought a 7). And in the hall were also people who looked quickly before the concert on Wikipedia, whom they will listen because then.
Therefore, the Elbphilharmonie has the fate that many people will go during the concert - especially at jazz concerts. Picture taken, WhatsApp sent, heard enough. The audience sometimes meets unprepared for what is being presented in the Great Hall.
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Hiromi in the Elbphilharmonie: Sophisticated LadyHiromi Uehara, who calls herself Hiromi for short, all remained. Until the end. Already at the beginning it rang out of the auditorium "We love you". When she reached the climax of the concert exhausted after about 20 minutes of improvisation on George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in blue", people were torn from their seats, standing ovations before the actual end of the concert. It was also the highlight for the audience.
In Video: Hiromi plays solo the title track of her new album "Spectrum"
The Japanese girl is 40 years old now, she's been performing for 20 years, and it's a mystery why she's still an insider tip. A "demonic energy" was awarded to her, as "Jimmy Hendrix of the piano," she was referred to as "acrobat at the keys". And it's true: when she appeared in Hamburg a few years ago - at that time with her trio in the factory - someone whispered when leaving: "This was not a concert, that was a demonstration of power".
There is currently no one among the jazz pianists who controls his instrument better than Hiromi. Concerts by her are a performance show, for which the combination of human and instrument together are capable. Intricate cascades, dreamy miniatures, vehement runs - the musician, who in December will be one of the few women to decorate the cover of the American jazz magazine "Downbeat", elicits the piano sounds like animal tamers circus tricks.
Listening pleasure with reverberation
Hardly anyone is as versatile as they are. Whether in trio, solo, in duo with partners such as pianist Chick Corea, harpist Edmar Castaneda or as sidekick of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra - Hiromi's virtuosity and enthusiasm enrich each song. Since the age of six, Hiromi has been taught by her teacher Noriko Hikida. "I loved her, I studied with her for twelve years, she was unique," Hiromi said in an interview. "Especially for children, it is difficult to understand all the musical concepts, the expressions, the signs, the Italian words".
When the sheet music did not appeal to her, her teacher painted in bright colors, red for expressive, blue for melancholic, small faces for passages that sounded like singing. From Hikida Hiromi also got their first jazz records. Erroll Garner's "Concert by the sea" and Oscar Peterson's "We get request". Since then, she loves the stride piano, the chord game that cultivated the two US artists so. In 1999 she moved to the USA herself, she began to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, after she had already played at the age of 14 in the Czech National Orchestra and composed for corporations such as Nissan Jingles.
In the video: Hiromi with Chick Corea and her composition "Old Castle, by the River, in the Middle of a Forest"
In Hamburg, Hiromi introduced her new solo album, "Spectrum" is her fourteenth - a plate that revolves around colors, as back then with her teacher. An album that you have to get involved with just like a mountain hike. Arrived at the summit it is pure luck. Hiromi offers no bits and pieces from playlists of the Spotify folder when walking through the shopping arcade, but listening pleasure with reverberation.
In the opening track "Kaleidoscope" she chases the notes like zeros and ones through an information superhighway, her delicate fingers fall like fall axes on the keyboard. In "Yellow Wurlitzer Blues", she stands in front of the piano and, with her hand, hammers the pianos' hammers for a more powerful and earthy sound. The ballad "Whitout" composed it in the winter in the snow, she dabbed it like a painting. Thrilling, never cheesy. Catchy, never simple-minded. If "Spectrum" is a journey through the colors, then you have to say: Hiromi's world is colorful, her music makes her more beautiful.
In 2003, she appeared in Munich's jazz club "Unterfahrt", a critic complained that when it came to "not splurge and chat, but to tell and shape, then they are missing the stories". It was "a superficial, effective concert" with much rhetoric, "but little originality".
16 years later and 16 years older, these stories have happened to her and she translates them into music. "Blackbird" plays less of a mind than Brad Mehldau, who also tried the Beatles song, "Sepia Effect" is such an emotional ballad that leaves only people with a concrete mind untouched.
When she performed in her homeland in 2011 after the Fukushima reactor disaster and played her own composition "Place to be," tears ran down her own. "She must be an angel on earth," was a comment below the Youtube recording, "this dynamic, absolutely another planet", a second, "her music touches mind, body and soul" a third.
Even after the Hamburg concert, people were running into the night as if inspired. Again, such a demonstration of power, a power that you like to choose over and over again.
In the video: Hiromi solo plays her composition "Place to be"