Sonicwonderland - Hiromi (2023)

Hiromi Uehara is one of the great minds in modern jazz. As both a composer and performer, her music is wildly inventive and always in motion.

Sonicwonder is the new group she’s been recording and touring with, putting her keyboard playing in a quartet format with rhythm section as well as a trumpeter.

Her music with Sonicwonder explores different textures for her keyboard playing, which includes her typically amazing piano work but adds organ and synth to the pallete.

There’s a spacy feel to this album, but the drive and inventiveness we’d expect still come shining through. Hiromi’s melodies are always impeccable and intricate. Unlike some of her previous work (mostly in a trio format), here her compositions work to facilitate the rest of her band: She leaves space for the other instruments to stand out, rather than relying on her own wizardry to carry everything.

It’s an interesting evolution for an artists I’ve spent years being a huge fan of.