Telarc Jazz CD83695 | Hiromi Uehara (p). Rec. 20-21 March 2009

Last year was a big year for Hiromi Uehara. Aside from the release of highprofile collaborations with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke, the fleet-fingered fusionist also found time to write and record her solo piano debut. Completed around the time she turned 30, the project has both a geographical and an autobiographical function. The music is essentially a response to places visited (or imagined) on the much-in-demand musician’s tour itinerary, but it’s also a conscious summation of the first phase of her career – “I wanted to record the sound of my twenties for archival purposes,” Hiromi has said. The lightningfast ‘BQE’ gets the album off to a typically and appropriately (the title stands for Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) frenetic start, while ‘Choux à la Crème’, named for a favourite French treat, swings along nicely, although there’s a showboating staginess about the execution that won’t be to everyone’s taste. There’s dazzling technical virtuosity on show throughout, but the potential for artistic growth is best exemplified by the slower, more reflective material such as ‘Somewhere’ or by the comparatively restrained syncopated sophistication of ‘Pachelbel’s Canon’ (apparently Hiromi had long dreamed of walking along a German street listening to Pachelbel’s famous composition). Robert Shore

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