Beyond Standard

Hiromi | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 10, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Telarc
• ASIN: B00168X0RK
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,915 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Softly as in a Morning Sunrise

2. Clair de Lune

3. Caravan

4. Ue Wo Muite Aruko

5. My Favorite Things

6. Led Boots

7. Xyg

8. I've Got Rhythm

Editorial Reviews

No description available.
Genre: Jazz Music
Rating:
Release Date: 0000-00-00
Media Type: Compact Disk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just when you thought she couldn't get any better..., June 20, 2008

By 

Howard M. Edwards - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond Standard (Audio CD)

Just when you thought she couldn't get any better, she releases BEYOND STANDARD. It is similar in some ways to her previous CD, but this one is a little more "jazz" and a little less "fusion." I hate to use those terms, but it may be helpful. Anyway, hear for yourself. She is a talent who will be around for a long, long, time. I just wish she would tour more in the USA. We would love it. But as for the CD, do not hesitate to get it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome playing, creative arranging!, March 27, 2009

By 

E. Minkovitch (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond Standard (MP3 Download)

Hiromi never ceases to surprise. Just an amazing album sparkling with originality and creativity. She is one of the very few musicians today who can play genuine fusion without sounding anachronistic. This album is as brilliant as its predecessor, except this time she is playing the standards, rather than her own compositions. However, her renditions are characteristically witty, fresh and quirky. Just listen to the old Japanese pop tune "Sukiyaki". If you've never heard the original, you'd never guess it's not a fusion tune. And the chords on "My Favourite Things" take that classic Coltrane vehicle into new directions. Hiromi never runs out of ways to make each song her own. She leaves plenty of room for herself and the band to improvise and have fun. The interplay between the band is very tight, I love the way everyone plays a passage or run in perfect unison. Couldn't recommend is more highly to anyone who loves Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and contemporary jazz.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Multi-cultural, genre-defying, superhuman phenom, August 13, 2010

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond Standard (Audio CD)

Admittedly best experienced live, the head-shaking pianisms, Japanese eclecticism and absorption of Western pop culture, indefatigable energy, and jaw-dropping "overachieving" ways of Hiromi come through on an audio disc almost as unmistakably as they do on video. Personally, I'd prefer to hear less of the synths, Fender Rhodes, and hot-rock funk-driven rhythms, but if those components are bringing a new generation back to music (real music, not "smooth," or "contemporary" jazz), I'm not about to complain. In fact, I bring every potentially impressionable young person along with me to her concerts and club dates (which she surprisingly agreed to do at Chicago's Jazz Showcase this past spring).

She comes to the U.S. and Berklee School of Music 50 years after Toshiko, who was a Bud Powell disciple and later composer-leader for arguably the outstanding big band of the 1970s (she's limiting the big band work but is still playing up a storm on piano). Hiromi may have more technique than Toshiko--she's a prodigious wunderkind--though she has yet to reflect the music of the "tradition" (Pops through Prez through Bird through Bud through Bill Evans). Her athletic piano skills reveal a player of frightening technique, speed, agility, multiple piano "syles," and precision--but close, attentive listening on the part of someone familiar with the legacy--from Earl Hines through Evans--soon reveals melodic lines that are patterned, repetitious, flamboyant, accessible and plenty "showy."

All the same, she's an irresistible performer, arguably the hottest ticket on the jazz festival circuit--at least when the field is limited to purely instrumental musicians. At this point, she wants to "play it all," and I wouldn't be surprised if one of her chief supporters and mentors, Ahmad Jamal, isn't occasionally perturbed by the unrelenting exhibition of her seemingly limitless talent. Give her a few years and it's very possible she, like so many other players who enjoyed great success in the "fusion '70s," will reconsider all the "gear," take some time off for reflection, and return as a more focused, thoughtful artist. In the meantime, you can only marvel at the present millennium's most visible, most electrifying, and possibly most influential instrumental talent. Young or old, female or male, if you're incapable of being seduced by the unlikely combination of charm and strength exuded by this remarkable performer, it may be time to look into some of those Viagra-type products.

Perhaps needless to say, Hiromi is, like the title of her album, the very embodiment of Duke's favorite description of his favorite music and its makers: "Beyond category."