![]() "Yellow Wurlitzer Blues" reflects the harmonic invention of Thelonious Monk if he were a stride blues pianist. It aches with emotion and the hint of a smile in its improvisational moments. Her ballads, including "Whiteout," offer an elegant lyricism that touches on Beethoven and Ravel as well as Scott Joplin and Errol Garner. But speed and dexterity aren't the only things on offer. ![]() The physically demanding title track builds on a similar idea, although modal and contrapuntal acrobatics chase one another at high speeds with only expansive, chordal interludes offering respite, and then only briefly. You can hear everyone from Bach and Scarlatti to Art Tatum and Chick Corea in this workout. Set-opener "Kaleidoscope" commences with a sequence of single notes played in an angular pattern that gives way to episodic multiples in staggered and syncopated sequences - a bit like Philip Glass' piano cadences in Einstein on the Beach - and she adds and subtracts while layering fleet and forceful dynamics and spiraling arpeggios across, under, and atop her chordal syntax they emerge, dissipate, and evolve into new ones throughout. Spectrum addresses a guiding notion imposed by her piano teacher: that she quite literally envision prismatic color through music. Hiromi conjures up the same power and creative facility solo as she does with her Trio Project (bassist Anthony Jackson and drummer Simon Phillips). ![]() It's the second time she's done this her debut solo offering, Place to Be, in 2009 that surveyed her twenties. She issued Spectrum on the eve of her fortieth birthday as an overview of what she learned as a musician in her thirties. Since making her recorded debut in the 1990s, Hiromi Uehara has established herself as one of the most gifted jazz pianists of her generation. ![]()
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