Out There

Over more than 20 years as a recording artist, the jazz piano phenomenon Hiromi has shifted seamlessly from one spellbinding project to the next. In the process, she’s earned a reputation as one of the most explosive live performers in jazz history and a global ambassador for the art form. Her many triumphs include an NPR Tiny Desk Concert that has racked up 2 million views; the opportunity to represent her native Japan with a performance at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo; 2024 winner for Best Music Score for the animated feature film Blue Giant (Award of the Japanese Academy); and a GRAMMY Award for a collaboration with fusion hero Stanley Clarke. Her artistry is — to borrow a descriptor the New Yorker favored — “dazzling.”

The core of OUT THERE is its four-part title suite, which Hiromi would like fans to hear as a focused front-to-back listen. “I know that these days streaming gives you one song at a time,” she says, “but I hope they listen to it straight through, giving them a whole new experience.” The suite is nothing less than a tour de force, and certainly deserves undivided attention. It opens with the rapid-fire melody of “Takin’ Off,” shared nimbly on the frontline between Hiromi and O’Farrill, and traverses the sly ’70s fusion grooves of “Strollin’,” which calls to mind Herbie Hancock, George Duke and Grover Washington Jr. “Orion” follows, with bold and triumphant bookends that could score a great work of science fiction. Hiromi wrote it as a kind of “answer song” to “Polaris,” included on Sonicwonderland. Both compositions reflect the fact that “stars are a guide,” she says. “You know where you are if you look up at the sky. You can go toward an adventure; there’s nothing to be scared of.” The suite closes with “The Quest,” which unites the chopped-up rhythmic thrust of current jazz with the synth pleasures of vintage prog-rock.

Hiromi crafted the suite, chock-full of thrilling twists and turns, as a celebration of our post-pandemic moment, when we can once again live with a sense of exploration. “Now is the time to go out there and find something new,” she implores. And that sense of excitement isn’t exclusive to the suite; rather, it defines OUT THERE in its entirety.

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