Yoshi's presents Hiromi
2014-11-01
Yoshi's
Jack London Square, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, CA
9:30 PM, Saturday, November 1, 2014

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2014 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2014 event list! ☸ On to the next event! ☸

[9:34 PM preshow announcements; 9:40 PM Dan back at the desk; introduction]

1. [9:41 PM] Move
2. [9:52 PM] Endeavor #
3. [10:05 PM] Wanderer
4. [10:14 PM] Seeker
5. [10:27 PM] Place to Be
6. [10:41 PM] Alive
   [set ends 10:53 PM]
    
   Encore
7. [11:54 PM] ? (gospelish)
   [show ends 11:03; applause and curtain calls to 11:06 PM]

• Anthony Jackson: contrabass guitar;
• Steve Smith: drums, percussion;
• Hiromi Uehara: piano, # Nord keyboard.

Friggin' Andronoter/Simplenote handshake issue caused me to lose my notes on this gig… lessee what I can recreate at a few day's distance…

Sigh, uh, I“m blank. Maybe I can retrieve a fragment or two though. First thing I recall was recognizing the first two tunes, though not enough to bring up the names – that was filled in after the fact with Hiromi's help. The rest of the set was less familiar, though seeing the names now, it's entirely possible that I should have remembered them too.

Anyways, it was a fun set, and I'm glad I jumped in on it, even if the tariff was a little high after adding the sushi dinner to the ticket. So, uh, yeah, dinner! I met TC and Kaoru at Beer Revolution for a pre-show libation, in my case, a tasty pint of the Triple Voodoo Gotta JiBrown. Would have liked to linger over a second pour of something else from that long tap list (50 choices, oh my!), but we had a dinner reservation at Yoshi's, counting on that to get us better seats than the GA line.

So we ambled over, worked things out with the ticket reservation, then ordered a small pile o'fish. I was really happy with my sampler plate – five pairs of nigiri – especially the mackerel, which was delciously evocative of the ocean. Yum! And the buttery hamachi, oh my!

Turning back to the setlist, Seeker, started off with a very funky solo intro – Hiromi smiling and laughing as she played – then the trio kicked in and took us off to the stratosphere. Wow, what fun! In the long outro section, Hiromi seemed to be tossing in teases of other tunes, but the only one I can remember right now is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which lasted no more than a second!

For Place to Be, the house lights dimmed almost to black, leaving just a soft halo around Hiromi as she played this solo piece. It was nice to have a quieter bit here late in the set, and Hiromi acknowledged the change in mood by warning us all to buckle our seatbelts before launching into Alive, the closing tune of the set. Good stuff! Glad to be returning tomorrow!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2014 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2014 event list! ☸ On to the next event! ☸