"When I play music, I realize that it really filters emotions," says Hiromi. "I called this album Voice because I believe that people's real voices are expressed in their emotions. It's not something that you really say. It's more something that you have in your heart. Maybe it's something you haven't said yet. Maybe you're never going to say it. But it's your true voice. Instrumental music is very similar. We don't have any words or any lyrics to go with it. It's the true voice that we don't really put into words, but we feel it when it's real."
Hiromi Uehara first mesmerized the jazz community with her 2003 Telarc debut, Another Mind. The buzz started by her first album spread all the way back to her native Japan, where Another Mind received the Recording Industry Association of Japan’s (RIAJ) Jazz Album of the Year Award. The keyboardist/ composer’s second release, Brain, won the Horizon Award at the 2004 Surround Music Awards, Swing Journal’s New Star Award, Jazz Life’s Gold Album, HMV Japan’s Best Japanese Jazz Album, and the Japan Music Pen Club’s Japanese Artist Award (the JMPC is a classical/jazz journalists club). Brain was also named Album of the Year in Swing Journal’s 2005 Readers Poll. In 2006, Hiromi won Best Jazz Act at the Boston Music Awards and the Guinness Jazz Festival’s Rising Star Award. She also claimed Jazzman of the Year, Pianist of the Year and Album of the Year in Swing Journal Japan’s Readers Poll for her 2006 release, Spiral. Hiromi continues her winning streak with the 2007 release of Time Control and in 2008, Beyond Standard. Both releases feature Hiromi’s super group, Sonic Bloom.
Hiromi’s newest project is this Trio Project, featuring Anthony Jackson on bass and Simon Phillips on drums. They will perform on June 7, at Blue Note Jazz Festival.
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