The Jazz Educator's Magazine

OCTOBER 2019 OCTOBER THE JAZZ EDUCATOR’S MAGAZINE $4.99 Composing With Colors jazzedmagazine.com INSIDE Focus Session: Developing a Great Vibrato ‘Tearing Down the Silos’: Inside Aspen’s New Jazz ‘Boot Camp’ Collaboration Between Jazz Aspen Snowmass and the Frost School of Music spotlight C o m p o s i n g w i t h C o l o r s ALL PHOTOS COURTESY TELARC/CONCORD MUSIC GROUP MUSIC TELARC/CONCORD COURTESY PHOTOS ALL azz pianist and composer cover of a tune the pianist had Hiromi Uehara is a whirling been dying to do: the “Cantina Theme” from Star Wars. And the Jdervish of musical energy. Her By Bryan Reesman diverse recorded repertoire over the duo performed it their own special style last 16 years verifi es that claim. While she which went beyond the original melody. has released a fair number of solo albums, she Her collaboration with Castaneda is typical of also revels in collaborating with equally talented peers who how Hiromi interprets jazz, in which she implements diff erent allow her to widen her horizons. She already shares a Grammy approaches that range from the melodic to the textural. On her Award for performing with The Stanley Clarke Band on their 2010 new solo piano album Spectrum, one track fi nds her interpreting self-titled album, which won Best Contemporary Jazz Album at Gershwin in her own inimitable way while another has a boogie the Grammy Awards in 2011. feel to it. Going back in her catalog yields the same kind of re- I fi rst saw Hiromi live at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2017 sults, with “Kung Fu World Champion,” from her sophomore al- where she played a concert with harp player Edmar Castaneda, bum Brain, serving up a dissonant, funky vibe. By contrast, on the which was recorded for a subsequent live CD titled, appropriate- Sonicbloom Live track “Note From The Past,” she is plucking the ly enough, Live In Montreal. They had shared the same stage the strings inside the piano with her players matching that approach. previous year but for their own sets. “It was my fi rst time seeing That tune off ers more of a rhythmic thrust. him live,” she recalls. “I was just fascinated by how he plays and Such eclecticism started with her original childhood teacher, the way he uses his instrument. It was really magical.” Noriko Hikida, who in their home country of Japan instructed the Both musicians embrace many musical genres and like to test young Hiromi in an unusual manner. She taught her to think in unorthodox ideas. For example, The Guardian in the U.K. noted terms of colors, not traditional musical terms. how Castaneda begins one of the Montreal tunes sounding like “I think she was trying to fi nd the way to teach little kids,” recalls a ragtime guitarist and ends sounding like a kora player. The live Hiromi. “When teachers use musical-specifi c terms, sometimes it’s album spans diff erent moods and styles and includes a special hard for kids to understand what these words mean. For example, 16 JAZZed • October 2019 there are all kinds of dynamic symbols on tion,” recalls Hiromi. “I always loved per- “I was always interested in scoring for the score – forte, piano, mezzoforte, and forming, even in a little school concert visuals,” says Hiromi. “I love lm music, crescendo – and there are also musical just playing one song. It was fascinating and writing jingles is like [creating] short terms like expressivo and marcato. It’s to share this music journey with all of lm music. So I said, ‘I would love to if I hard to understand sometimes, and what these audiences. They were just parents can have the opportunity.’ That’s how he she did was colored all these score papers of the kids who were studying in the introduced me to the jingle writing world. with colored pencils – the forte symbol same class, but still for me it was always I remember that one of the Nissan com- with red, pianissimo with blue – so that an audience. That made me really want to mercials that I did starred Mr. Bean, Row- I could visually see what these sections become a professional pianist and pursue an Atkinson, and he was going around should sound like. This section should this career.” She is happiest on stage. this [tra c] circle in England in his car, sound more ery, more powerful, strong. At 14, Hiromi played with the Czech and I had to write songs to it. It was so That section should sound more roman- Philharmonic Orchestra. When she was much fun.” tic, melancholic, soft.” She felt that it was 17, Chick Corea saw her perform in Tokyo The pianist says that her jingle writing easier for 6 year-olds to envision these and asked to join him onstage at his per- experience actually boosted her interest colors and play rather than interpreting formance at the Tokyo Jazz Festival the in writing for other instruments. Up until unfamiliar terminology. following night. Eleven years later they then, she was mostly writing for piano. Hiromi studied under Hikida between recorded the Duet live CD at the Blue Note “To write for jingles, I had to write for oth- the ages of 6 and 18. Hikida was a big Jazz Club in Tokyo. Things had come full er instruments,” notes Hiromi. “Sometimes fan of jazz, particularly Errol Garner and circle. with string quartets, sometimes for horns, Oscar Peterson, and she introduced her When she was 18, Hiromi attended the sometimes for vocals. I started to have in- young student to their music early on. Yamaha School of Music in Japan to fur- terest in studying the other instruments, “I was 8 when I rst heard Errol Gar- ther focus on composing. She played in so it was the time for me to go to Berklee ner’s Concert By The Sea and Oscar Peter- clubs around Tokyo, and one of the bosses [to do so].” son’s We Get Requests, and I was just fasci- of a jingle company happened to be at one Hiromi’s prodigious talents were quick- nated by how happy they sounded,” says of her shows. He found out that she played ly noticed at Berklee, where she enrolled Hiromi. “I couldn’t stop dancing to the and composed, so he met her and asked if at age 20 in 1999. She says a lot of her music. Then she explained that they play she would like to write some jingles. opportunities came about naturally. She what they feel at the moment. That’s im- provisation. [I said] ‘Wow, that’s so cool. So they don’t read music?’ ‘No, they don’t. They just play over the chords.’ That was a little too complicated to explain to me because I was 8. I started listening to all this music and just tried to imitate them, copy what they did.” The musical prodigy began composing music at the age of 6 years old. When asked whether she has revisited anything that she wrote as a child, she notes that one works with the inspiration around them. “The inspiration you have at age 6 or 7 is very childish,” she laughs. “I wrote this song when I was 7 [called] ‘Why Can’t Chickens Fly?’ Chickens try to y and they fail, and they just keep trying and fail. I guess nally, in a dreamy world, they could y.” While she says that early tune did have a certain jazz feel to it, she of- fers that it falls in the domain of the “chil- dren’s playbook.” Hikida always told the precocious Hi- romi that she sounded di erent when she was on stage, that she sounded better when she performed than in the prac- tice room. She told the young pianist that that was a really rare quality, and that she should really pursue a musical career. “She always pushed me in that direc- October 2019 • JAZZed 17 spotlight studied under veteran bassist/arranger body compliments you, right? Same Richard Evans, whom she recalls was pro- thing for me. I love playing the piano. fessor of arranging. She took his class for Of course, there are certain hours that writing for strings. The pianist was major- I do play scales up and down, but even ing in jazz composition and also contem- so, I just love this instrument. It has so porary writing and production, but not in much to explore, and the more I play performance. the more fun it gets. That’s what I al- “He didn’t know me as a pianist,” re- ways tell little kids when they come to veals Hiromi. “He only knew me as an my concerts, and their parents ask me, arranger and a composer. He liked one ‘What’s the key to playing better and of the midterm projects that I did, and practicing more?’ I always tell them, the he said, ‘For the nal project, if you write more you play the more fun it gets.” your own composition, you should try to Although it seems like Hiromi would arrange it. Bring one of your own compo- make a great instructor, she does not sitions during o ce hours.’” conduct master classes or give private She then recorded an original tune lessons. She does not have a lot of free and played it to her professor. Upon hear- time to be able to do that. ing it, the rst thing Evans inquired about “I can give simple advice,” she o ers.

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