(Hiromi Uehara, piano/keyboards; David Fiuczynski, fretted & fretless guitar; Tony Grey, bass; Martin Valihora, drums)
Yes, this is certainly not a standard CD, you can say that again. Hiromi’s weird, Japanese punk-style hairdo in the photos is intended to establish that. Many of the nine tracks are extremely electronic. There should perhaps be a credit above for another performer – Telarc’s Michael Bishop, who is credited as both the recording engineer and producer along with Hiromi herself. All sorts of electronic gimmicks have been used in the mixes. Fiuczynski’s guitars often take the spotlight away from Hiromi’s keyboard work with a very strong reverberant electronic sound. On one track they are made to circle the room a few times a la those early surround sound demo discs. Hiromi’s roots are in jazz, but she explores pop, funk, rock and avantgarde, not to mention electronica. She has won major recognition for her band’s new take on jazz fusion. More power to her; it’s just not my sort of thing.
I really dug Hiromi’s clever treatment of Romberg’s Softly As in a Morning Sunrise, which kicks off with a half-minute mono intro entirely from the center channel with an overlay of record scratch. It sets up the stage for the mostly retro tunes to be delivered in updated fashion. Quite an aural shock when it switches to 5.0 channel hi-res sound. Her closing quirky keyboard interpretation of I Got Rhythm seems to honor not only Oscar Peterson but the whole history of piano jazz. But for most of the rest of the SACD I have to say I preferred Hiromi’s earlier Telarc efforts, which had much less contribution from electronica.
TrackList:
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 Favorite Things
7. Led Boots
8. XYG
9. I’ve Got Rhythm
– John Henry
