Japanese pianist / composer Hiromi Uehara is a unstoppable force of nature. If you looked up the word “virtuoso” in the dictionary, it should include a picture of her. She studied at Berklee College of Music in the early 2000s and was able to jumpstart her career from there.
Her style is a wild mixture of jazz, progressive rock, funk, classical and video game music. Most of the music she plays is very high energy, whiplashing, sonic overload. Even though the music is highly technical, it also contains extremely catchy melodies and are fun to listen to. This is a very hard trick to perform. But over a couple decades, Hiromi has consistently put out albums that up the ante of virtuosity and wackiness.
The first Hiromi record that caught my attention was Spiral from 2006. It’s essentially a jazz trio record (she is joined by Tony Grey on bass and Martin Valihora on drums). One of my favorite song on Spiral is “Return of the Kung Fu Champion”. Here is a performance of it from 2011:
Completely bonkers!
Hiromi also has a long-time association with bassist Stanley Clarke (of Return to Forever fame). Here she is playing the Joe Henderson tune “Black Narcissus” with the Stanley Clarke band in 2013. “Black Narcissus” was originally recorded in 1969 (on the album Power to the People with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette). The new version takes the already brilliant song and brings it to new modern heights:
Hiromi doesn’t just exist in the jazz underground. She is an extremely popular performer around the world, but especially in her home country of Japan. She was invited to perform in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020:
In 2023 Hiromi formed a new group called Sonicwonder. That band includes Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Gene Coye on drums and Hadrien Feraud on bass. This band fully embraced her wild and outrageous brand of music, releasing an album called Sonicwonderland. A lot of what they perform doesn’t even sound like it is humanly possible. They are all incredible musicians performing at the top of their game. I think this is her strongest group, and many people agree. Hiromi and Sonicwonder appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert in 2023 and it is one of the most viewed performances in that series EVER:
They also performed the soundtrack of the film adaptation of the manga series Blue Giant. It’s a pretty great film about someone who learns to play the saxophone and is currently available to stream on Netflix. I highly recommend it:
Last week, Hiromi and Sonicwonder released their second album, OUT THERE. It is today’s pick!
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OUT THERE picks right up where Sonicwonderland left off. Again, they take things to bonkers new heights. In fact, the title track of OUT THERE is a progressive rock epic in four movements spanning close to thirty minutes! It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that is right up my alley. I’m not going to embed the song suite here, because if you’re going to invest a half hour listening to it, you might as well listen to the whole album at that point.
Hiromi also released a single from the album, believe it or not. That song is “Yes! Ramen!!” and here is the official video for it. It definitely does a good job showcasing what the overall album sounds like:
Another fantastic song that closes the album is “Balloon Pop”. Here is Sonicwonder performing it a couple months ago at Blue Note Tokyo:
I absolutely love watching this band perform! Here is another great recent performance from the 2024 Jazz à Vienne Festival:
The excellent Jazz and Coffee Substack (I highly recommend you subscribe!) recently interviewed Hiromi. They discuss her influences and the making of OUT THERE. It is a great in-depth discussion of the music. The post on Substack also contains a thorough review of OUT THERE that is worth reading if you are still unconvinced that the album is worth checking out.
Even though it is only early April, I think it is safe to say that OUT THERE will be near the top of the list of my favorite records from 2025. It really is that good and I find it hard to believe there will be many records more awesome than this one released this year. A masterpiece!
