Hiromi was restrained on Tuesday night. Those who saw her late concert, and who were seeing her for the first time, might think that’s a preposterous thing to write. One person, after the concert, called it “caffeinated jazz.” Compared to most performers, she was dynamic and energetic, scaling the keyboard up and down in frenzy, bursting with ideas with fingers that never miss, and even kicking up a leg here and there in heights of ecstasy. But, she also didn’t seem like she might have a wrestling match with the piano or do a cartwheel over it, which is what I was expecting, from experience at her Newport Jazz Festival performance last summer. She seemed a little tired, to me, in comparison. But while the physicalities might have been reined in ever so slightly on the Hiromi scale, the music took the audience on the wild ride that I expected it to be.
If you read the interview I did with her, you would know that she plays to the hall and the piano, picking the tunes that are going to resonate best in specific listening environments. And a noisy, airy outdoor festival is different from a quiet, sacred theater concert hall. Knowing that audiences are there to pay attention in the concert hall, in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, I had a feeling she’d play some of her more dense and lengthy works.
She opened the concert with “Sonicwonderland,” the title track from her band Sonicwonder’s first album. The tune is almost an anthem for the group, at this point. It’s a work that sets up listeners for the range of Hiromi’s tools, as she bounces between the piano, a full nord synth next to the piano, and a smaller synth on the piano top that produces spacey electronics. The work is a candy store of electro-acoustic sound. There’s always plenty of space for improvisation for each of the members in her tunes, and each took a turn: first in a back-and-forth with plugged-in trumpet player Adam O’Farrill (whose piano-playing dad we heard in town back in May at the Bop Shop), then featuring the charged up bass player Hadrien Feraud, and then the intricate drumming of Gene Coye who can do a slow-burn build up like no one else.
With the players warmed up and the audience’s ears tuned up, Hiromi proceeded to play straight through for the next 50 minutes without a break. She warned the audience first that she was about to play a four-part suite called “Out There,” the title track work on the band’s second and latest album. The first movement, “Take Off,” starts with simmering piano pulsations that build up anticipation as the work gets going. O’Farrill added to the environment with wacky electronics that sounded more like orca whale calls. The work features more of the band’s famous building surges before deflating the sonic environment by settling back into an easy groove. The second movement, “Strollin,’” is as if someone strolling down a street suddenly had the hiccups. The head of the tune keeps trying to find its stride but is constantly interrupted, always unpredictably (though the band was so in-sync with their hits that there was clearly a plan). They then pulled things back in a haze of electronics, for the movement “Orion,” with Feraud providing pinging harmonics and pillowy tones on the electric bass and O’Farrill playing luscious melodies on the trumpet. The movement does find a groove, though, for the players to take solo turns. The last movement, “The Quest,” is an accelerated amusement park ride, with lots of quick dips and turns in feel. Hiromi was headbanging while stepping on the gas, her fingers just a blur across the keyboard. She had a smirk on her face that let us know that, despite the off-the-rail feel, she was in complete control. The work boiled over with virtuosity and affect.
When the ride of “Out There” finished, I personally felt like my head was just ping-ponged around an arcade game, in the best way possible. There’s four days of the festival left, but I can’t imagine much is going to top that for me. But that won’t stop me from seeking out great music.
Wednesday, June 24
There are a few can’t miss shows, and a lot on my ‘nice to hear’ card tonight.
1. The Bad Plus, performing at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall, is one of those bands that was doing the postmodern mixing of pop and serious genres before it was the vogue thing to do, playing deconstructed jazz arrangements of pop tunes. By injecting some tunefulness and fun into their repertoire, they were a breath of fresh air in the dense modernisms that came to define contemporary jazz. After 26 years as a band, albeit with some band-member turnover, they are calling it a day after this year. So, they are currently on their farewell tour. The two founding members in the band—bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King—play with guitarist Ben Monder and saxophonist Chris Speed. They’re without a piano player, which is a change from the piano-bass-drum trio formation I best known them as, so I’ll be curious to hear how the lack of a piano and addition of guitar and saxophone are able to keep the original Bad Plus sound going. Do note that their former pianist, Orrin Evans, is playing at Max of Eastman Place on Friday, which is definitely a show I also want to hear.
Edit: Auto correct had Ben Monder as Ben Mozart! Thanks for a reader for pointing that out
2. Cécile McLorin Salvant is another creative force on tonight’s roster, playing a club show at Kodak Hall. She can do everything from the blues, to wistful ballads, to complex articulations. Justin Murphy did an interview with her at CITY, which is worth a read.
3. Later in the same space, at 9:30 p.m., Bill Frisell returns for his 11th RIJF performance. I’d say ‘we’ve heard him before’ but you never really know what you’re going to hear with Frisell because he’s always shapeshifting and morphing music into unheard directions, which means he’s always worth the stop in. My friend and former D&C colleague Gary Craig, who has excellent and generally more roots-oriented recommendations on his Substack, wrote a preview on Frisell’s show at CITY, as well, in which Gary does a phenomenal job explaining what we hear and why in Frisell’s music.
4. We’ve had such riches of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz this festival, which continues tonight with Tito Puente Jr. and Nestor Torres on the Wegmans Stage at Parcel 5 at 9 p.m. It’s completely free and will have you rolling your hips to the spicy Latin sounds.
I’m also personally interested in sneaking in for the excellent flutist Jamie Baum’s Septet+ (assuming the + is that the band might actually be bigger than seven members, tonight, even though the septet is her usual band). Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen, the brother of clarinetist Anat Cohen, brings a sizzling band to Temple Theater at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. that goes beyond jazz to incorporate rock and psychedelic influences. Should be a fun show. And more classy, contemporary jazz will be at Max with pianist Eric Scott Reed playing with drummer Willie Jones. There’s really a lot to hear tonight, and it’s going to take some crafty maneuvers to hear it all.
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