Hiromi and Sonicbloom@The Jazz Bakery 10.02.08
By George W. Harris

In this day and age of musicians trying to gain fame as individual artists, it’s refreshing to see as cohesive a unit as Hiromi’s Sonicbloom, as their tight and clever arrangements, cohesively augmented by vigorous soloing, could only be successfully pulled of by a team that knows each others sound, fingerprints and dna plates. Touring in support of her latest release “Beyond Standard,” and opening with a ragtime to fusion take of “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise”, Hiromi attacked the keyboards with a joyous ferocity, coaxing sounds and rhythmic changes that would have intimidated the uninitiated, but John Shannon/g, Tony Grey/b and Martin Valihora/dr kept up to the task, and answered her right back with dynamic solos and interplay. The 70’s Japanese pop ditty “Sukiyaki” was fortified by Shannon’s wild guitar effects, Grey’s snapping bass and Hiromi’s double fisted keyboard work, while the band delightfully galloped through a flowing “My Favorite Things.” The gentle and ethereal “Clair de Lune” segued into a solo piano take of “I Got Rhythm” that wand from stride to glide to outside in seconds flat, as if one were witnessing the evolution of jazz piano on U Tube. The closing hectic and dementedly rocking “Caravan” closed the evening with musical assertiveness, demonstrating the Japanese custom of the power of teamwork always superseding individual ambition.