Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Friday, March 19, 2010
Hiromi at The Detroit Institute of Arts
Hiromi can’t be happier as she talks about her family’s actual “Green Tea Farm” in Shizuoka, Japan. “I’m not trying to push my family business on you. But green tea is very good for you,” she laughs before she starts the soothing song of the same name. Hiromi stayed mostly with material off of her newest album Place To Be, which attempt to create the various places the lifelong pianist has encountered to get to where she is today among jazz’s elite. Now 30, Hiromi did a few recital shows before she embarks on a long summer. The next few months will find Hiromi with an 18-show cross country tour with Stanly Clark, a stint at the Marciac Jazz Festival in Paris, and a residency at The Blue Note in New York.
Hiromi came to one of Detroit’s best places to be for art, as The Detroit Institute of Arts welcomed Hiromi to their cathedral style showroom, Kresge Court.
The late show of the evening kept with mostly songs from Hiromi’s latest, but also ventured to her first album with “Old castle, by the river, in the middle of the forest.” She joked before the song, saying a painting of the same name had inspired the song, so she just couldn’t bear to change the name.
A closing trio of songs showed Hiromi’s musical depth as it hopped styles and paces frantically. Hiromi’s Vegas suite featured three sections of 24-hours in the desert balm of Las Vegas. “Show city, Show girl” bounces from a playful jitter, spreading melodies as we stumble backstage through a seedy casino show. Sleek and slithering desert tappings gaze up at the circus that surrounds you churning from every angle. Slowly it bleeds into the sun stroked midday, which slows the playfulness into a crawl under the beating sun. A spinning klink of the lights and buzzes leads back into “The Gambler” and their resulting wins or loses with a suspenseful musical jackpot or bankruptcy. Frantic chases up and down the keyboard find Hiromi’s hands battling each other, tearing across the grand piano meandering the hotel maze as she throws her tiny frame into the gigantic piano. A light dancing around “The Tom and Jerry Theme” leaves Hiromi grinning ear to ear as she romps across her keys.
Her energy borderline summons Elaine Bene’s crazy legs, beaming in her seat, “limbs flailing, arms akimbo, feet kicking up dust…” Now, let’s not get things confused here, Elaine lacked any musical semblance, Hiromi’s musical voice exudes through every movement that went through body and out her fingertips into the piano. She plays with the reckless abandon like nobody is watching, having the time of her life, but still remains disciplined to execute her complex chases with beautiful precision. Her fingers and palms slam on the ivories as much as her elbows, as at one point in the night she reached inside the piano strumming and slapping the strings. Hiromi’s energy is contagious as she creates these vivid landscapes of sound with only her piano filling the entire room.
Hiromi has definitely found her place in jazz’s elite, and this summer will be yet another chance for her to showcase it to the world and continue to push herself. After showcasing what she can do with merely a grand piano, it will definitely be another task to see her with a full arsenal of keyboards.
by Pietro C. Truba
click to enlarge or view the SLIDESHOW HERE...
Hiromi came to one of Detroit’s best places to be for art, as The Detroit Institute of Arts welcomed Hiromi to their cathedral style showroom, Kresge Court.
The late show of the evening kept with mostly songs from Hiromi’s latest, but also ventured to her first album with “Old castle, by the river, in the middle of the forest.” She joked before the song, saying a painting of the same name had inspired the song, so she just couldn’t bear to change the name.
A closing trio of songs showed Hiromi’s musical depth as it hopped styles and paces frantically. Hiromi’s Vegas suite featured three sections of 24-hours in the desert balm of Las Vegas. “Show city, Show girl” bounces from a playful jitter, spreading melodies as we stumble backstage through a seedy casino show. Sleek and slithering desert tappings gaze up at the circus that surrounds you churning from every angle. Slowly it bleeds into the sun stroked midday, which slows the playfulness into a crawl under the beating sun. A spinning klink of the lights and buzzes leads back into “The Gambler” and their resulting wins or loses with a suspenseful musical jackpot or bankruptcy. Frantic chases up and down the keyboard find Hiromi’s hands battling each other, tearing across the grand piano meandering the hotel maze as she throws her tiny frame into the gigantic piano. A light dancing around “The Tom and Jerry Theme” leaves Hiromi grinning ear to ear as she romps across her keys.
Hiromi has definitely found her place in jazz’s elite, and this summer will be yet another chance for her to showcase it to the world and continue to push herself. After showcasing what she can do with merely a grand piano, it will definitely be another task to see her with a full arsenal of keyboards.
by Pietro C. Truba
click to enlarge or view the SLIDESHOW HERE...
Friday, March 12, 2010
RJD2 wsg Adam Dietch’s Break Science at The Magic Stick, Detroit, Mi
“That’s what I love about Detroit. You don’t care if it’s electro, hip-hop, funk or rock. You just want to get down.” RJD2 said following his set at The Magic Stick in Detroit, last week.
RJD2, Ramble John "RJ" Krohn, has built quite a unique following. His music has found multiple niches in snowboarding feature films, in the live music scene playing opening sets for Umphrey’s McGee and The Disco Biscuits and with hip-hop emcees. After more than a decade, he now has own label and with all his collaborations and mixes has more than 15 albums and EP’s. Playing live as both a more traditional DJ and a full band, his live shows bring out the diversity and the breadth of his musical palette. He came to Detroit, the self-proclaimed birthplace of techno, and it was a sweaty sold out dance party in Motown on a Friday night.
Opening the evening was New York’s Break Science featuring drummer Adam Dietch and keyboard player Borahm Lee. Dietch and Lee’s resumes read like a who’s who of recent stars in hip-hop and pop-art. Break Science earned a solid foothold in Michigan with brain-melting late night set at Rothbury’s Tripolee Dome last year and they would provide a raucous opening set for the sold out crowd. Their set started with a bit of Lee Scratch Perry, but ran the gamut all over jazz, psychedelia, techno and onto hip-hop with homage to one Detroit’s greatest producers, the late J-Dilla. Break Science toyed around playing “Lightworks” and a few other nuggets from Dilla’s Donuts to rile the Detroit crowd with a hometown hero. Lee and Dietch lock in perfectly as Dietch’s schizophrenic drum changing is matched by Lee’s arsenal of keyboard abilities. Break Science is definitely hard to pin down, but that makes them all the more interesting as they sonically roll around inside your head.
RJD2 then took the stage to the now feisty crowd as “Commissioner Crotchbuttons.” A bejeweled jumpsuit completely with a crotch mounted wireless pad. See him explain it here. RJD2 channeled his inner MacGyver as he slapped an old Lazy Susan together with an MPC, (Music/Midi Production Center) and attached them both at his crotch of the wireless suit. RJ gets all Daft Punk on everybody’s ass, as a robotic voice in his welding mask echoes to froth the packed crowd before jumping back to his turntable set ups to start the show.
The whole night would transition from RJD2 in his “Commissioner” suit to his more traditional DJ set up with a mix with his four piece live band with drummer Sam Brown, and multi-instrumentalists Derek Dicenzo and Happy Chincester. Sometimes he would be behind the turntables with one or two of his band mates, sometimes alone. He wouldn’t stay in one place for too long as he bounced grinning ear to ear from his electric guitar, to bass and back to his turntable set up as he blended music from across his mounting catalogue including his recently re-released first album, Your Face or Your Kneecaps, a soulful trip through vintage funk, and his latest The Colossus.
RJD2 takes his varied material, funk, jazz, hip-hop, electronic and all in between, and slashes it apart to rebuild it live. Production laden DJ numbers are changed and thrown to full band instrumentation, and vice versa, for a motley and unrestrained take on his material.
The closing medley provides a glimpse into the night as loud thunderous builds came from older production heavy songs like “The Horror>Ghostwriter,” are then balanced by calmer material from the full band with three part harmonies. The sirens and samples crashing through “The Horror” are soon bottomed out, as RJ slides from behind the turntables and a soft acoustic guitar strum from Chinchester starts “Ghostwriter.” The full band slowly builds to a slamming climax horn section with the return to “Ghostwriter” as RJ, dressed in his Commissioner Crotchbutton’s attire, crashes through the ending of the song.
The slow crawl of the encore “Making Days Longer” slowed things down for a bit but soon RJ brought things to a thrashing close with a wide-eyed grin as he ripped his final guitar solo. The wavy ups and downs of the evening were also mirrored on a movie screen onstage speckled with various eye candy for the crowd to enjoy.
RJD2 is on tour supporting The Colossus, and is well worth heading to check out, with most shows under $20, including smoking openers Break Science for the next two Midwest shows before heading to Colorado and out west. Break Science will also be touring with throughout the south with The Pnuma Trio.
by Pietro C. Truba
click to enlarge or view the SLIDESHOW HERE...
RJD2, Ramble John "RJ" Krohn, has built quite a unique following. His music has found multiple niches in snowboarding feature films, in the live music scene playing opening sets for Umphrey’s McGee and The Disco Biscuits and with hip-hop emcees. After more than a decade, he now has own label and with all his collaborations and mixes has more than 15 albums and EP’s. Playing live as both a more traditional DJ and a full band, his live shows bring out the diversity and the breadth of his musical palette. He came to Detroit, the self-proclaimed birthplace of techno, and it was a sweaty sold out dance party in Motown on a Friday night.
Opening the evening was New York’s Break Science featuring drummer Adam Dietch and keyboard player Borahm Lee. Dietch and Lee’s resumes read like a who’s who of recent stars in hip-hop and pop-art. Break Science earned a solid foothold in Michigan with brain-melting late night set at Rothbury’s Tripolee Dome last year and they would provide a raucous opening set for the sold out crowd. Their set started with a bit of Lee Scratch Perry, but ran the gamut all over jazz, psychedelia, techno and onto hip-hop with homage to one Detroit’s greatest producers, the late J-Dilla. Break Science toyed around playing “Lightworks” and a few other nuggets from Dilla’s Donuts to rile the Detroit crowd with a hometown hero. Lee and Dietch lock in perfectly as Dietch’s schizophrenic drum changing is matched by Lee’s arsenal of keyboard abilities. Break Science is definitely hard to pin down, but that makes them all the more interesting as they sonically roll around inside your head.
RJD2 then took the stage to the now feisty crowd as “Commissioner Crotchbuttons.” A bejeweled jumpsuit completely with a crotch mounted wireless pad. See him explain it here. RJD2 channeled his inner MacGyver as he slapped an old Lazy Susan together with an MPC, (Music/Midi Production Center) and attached them both at his crotch of the wireless suit. RJ gets all Daft Punk on everybody’s ass, as a robotic voice in his welding mask echoes to froth the packed crowd before jumping back to his turntable set ups to start the show.
The whole night would transition from RJD2 in his “Commissioner” suit to his more traditional DJ set up with a mix with his four piece live band with drummer Sam Brown, and multi-instrumentalists Derek Dicenzo and Happy Chincester. Sometimes he would be behind the turntables with one or two of his band mates, sometimes alone. He wouldn’t stay in one place for too long as he bounced grinning ear to ear from his electric guitar, to bass and back to his turntable set up as he blended music from across his mounting catalogue including his recently re-released first album, Your Face or Your Kneecaps, a soulful trip through vintage funk, and his latest The Colossus.
RJD2 takes his varied material, funk, jazz, hip-hop, electronic and all in between, and slashes it apart to rebuild it live. Production laden DJ numbers are changed and thrown to full band instrumentation, and vice versa, for a motley and unrestrained take on his material.
The closing medley provides a glimpse into the night as loud thunderous builds came from older production heavy songs like “The Horror>Ghostwriter,” are then balanced by calmer material from the full band with three part harmonies. The sirens and samples crashing through “The Horror” are soon bottomed out, as RJ slides from behind the turntables and a soft acoustic guitar strum from Chinchester starts “Ghostwriter.” The full band slowly builds to a slamming climax horn section with the return to “Ghostwriter” as RJ, dressed in his Commissioner Crotchbutton’s attire, crashes through the ending of the song.
The slow crawl of the encore “Making Days Longer” slowed things down for a bit but soon RJ brought things to a thrashing close with a wide-eyed grin as he ripped his final guitar solo. The wavy ups and downs of the evening were also mirrored on a movie screen onstage speckled with various eye candy for the crowd to enjoy.
RJD2 is on tour supporting The Colossus, and is well worth heading to check out, with most shows under $20, including smoking openers Break Science for the next two Midwest shows before heading to Colorado and out west. Break Science will also be touring with throughout the south with The Pnuma Trio.
by Pietro C. Truba
click to enlarge or view the SLIDESHOW HERE...
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