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...

Phish Comes to Cobo Hall

“I want to tell you, Detroit, that you done set me up for a comeback,” former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said after he was forced to resign last year. Echoing the words of the infamous Detroit mayor, Phish returned for a comeback of their own in the Motor City for this year’s fall tour opener, however, delivering on the comeback would be a different story. Save a few bright spots, (Down With Disease>Free and 46 Days) the show sounded like the first show of a tour, a bit rusty and apprehensive.

The quartet came out to a barrage of roses from someone hopeful for Ween’s Roses Are Free, that unfortunately didn’t come. Most of the first set was fairly straightforward as nothing really found a perfect fit. With the newer songs Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan and Kill Devil Falls, guitarist Trey Anastasio’s, for lack of a better word, Joy, was apparent as he played these new compositions just as noticeably eager as he was the past summer to push the crowd to enjoy them as much as he seems to.
It’s Ice made for an interesting highlight of the first set, but most of the opening stanza was filled with slower tunes such as Mist. Things got slightly more upbeat with Poor Heart and 46 Days would branch out a bit, with Trey pinging notes over a spacey pulsing background soundscape while lighting director Chris Kuroda covered the side walls of Cobo Hall during the ambient improv. Slowly, the space in 46 Days fizzled into silence before it got to any real interesting territory.

With the hit of drummer Jon Fishman’s hi-hat, David Bowie attempted to give the first set a closing shot in the arm. However, the four members of Phish never really got in sync as the ending of Bowie sounded frantic and disconnected and never reached full throttle to finish the first set.

The second set would open up with a few bright spots, namely Runaway Jim and the highlight of the evening - Down With Disease -> Free. Trey would drive the jam out of Disease jumping around the stage as, for the first time in the night, all four members clicked in and barreled forward as Kuroda pulsed lights around the legendary venue.

Soon Trey started fluttering chops across his Languedoc to slowly sneak into Free. The rest of the second set, however, went back to slower tunes. Waste, Taste, Bug and Wading In The Velvet Sea found a lot of people sitting down as a quiet cloud of chatter hung over the crowd.
Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove brought most of the crowd back to their feet. McConnell crunched a dark dirty organ in Mike’s Song for a change of pace, while Trey searched across the fretboard with slamming chords before going back into the verse of Mike’s. After the tender Hydrogen and a short Weekapaug, the second set ended with a predictable and standard Cavern.
Overall the show never found much, if any, solid coherence between all four members to create anything spectacular, but a certain amount of that is expected for a tour opener. A relatively inattentive and somewhat undersold crowd also didn’t help matters any. Here’s hoping the rest of the tour will find the band taking more chances and pulling out more surprises than they did in Detroit.

Scroll down for pictures and setlist. click thumbnails to enlarge.

Phish

November 18, 2009

Cobo Arena

Detroit, MI

Set 1: AC/DC Bag, Foam, Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan, Bouncing Around The Room, Sample In A Jar, Kill Devil Falls, It’s Ice, Horn. Mountains In The Mist, Poor Heart, 46 Days, David Bowie
Set 2: Runaway Jim, Down With Disease -> Free, Waste, Taste, Bug, Wading In The Velvet Sea, Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Cavern
Encore: Character Zero

by Pietro C. Truba

originally for Glidemagazine.com

Them Crooked Vultures at The Fillmore Detroit

The profile of Them Crooked Vultures is cast fairly low right now, considering the personnel. The trio of John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters/Nirvana) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) relied on word of mouth and internet chatter to build a buzz for a tour and an album that isn’t even out yet. After some scattered shows across Europe the, shudder to say, supergroup, is now heading across the US and then back to Europe. All the while the group’s most official releases are a few thirty second youtube teasers.

What is apparent as Them Crooked Vultures took the stage at Detroit’s Fillmore is the joy on Grohl’s face as he sits behind the drum kit looking over to see John Paul Jones as the other half of his rhythm section. The two mesh up perfectly as Grohl smashes through his drums while peering occasionally to lock in with Jones’ nimble basslines. Homme, who carries the majority of the lead singing, is also joined on guitar by fellow QOTSA multi-instrumentalist Alain Johannes, for the group’s vintage tinged dual guitar attack. Homme, Jones and Johannes all took their share of slide guitar work as well.

Not surprisingly, it is Jones who pushes the band into some interesting territories. Most of the show is fairly straightforward hard rock, with Grohl leading the charge behind the drumkit. However there were a few curveballs with Grohl utilizing his e-drums and Jones on a keytar during the eerie crawl of “Interlude With Ludes.” Jones spent the show bouncing around from bass, keyboards and slide guitar. With the exception two slower tunes, it was the hard rocking tunes like the needling of “Scumbag Blues,” (which had Homme snap a string as he wailed away on his final solo,) and the extended closing “Warsaw,” that fueled the eighty minute set with no encore.

So, the always popular question for any supergroup, is the sum greater than the parts? When it comes to Them Crooked Vultures, the live feel of the band is, in the words of a front row fan, “to make you feel every fucking decibel.” While the live quartet feeds off each other well, Grohl is still ravenous behind the drumkit and Jones’ basslines and keyboard work create a lot of unique riffs for the Queens’ guitar work to build off. However, it seems as the studio will really be where the depth and the unique musical talent of the tunes this band has written will be able to shine the brightest.

by Pietro C. Truba

Originally for Relix Magazine