Yoko Miwa: Songs of Joy (UBU0057)
Ubuntu Music is delighted to announce the signing of internationally acclaimed pianist/composer Yoko Miwa, to release her forthcoming album late this year.
Yoko is one of the most powerful and compelling performers on the scene today. Her trio, with its remarkable telepathy and infectious energy, has brought audiences to their feet worldwide. Their latest album, 2019’s Keep Talkin’, showcases Miwa’s fine playing and artful compositions and the trio’s uncanny musical camaraderie. DownBeat gave this recording four stars, calling it “a beautifully constructed album” and noting “the drive and lyricism of a pianist and composer at home in bebop, gospel, pop, and classical.” USA’s JazzTimes also reviewed the album favourably, praising Miwa’s “jaw-dropping degree of technique.” The album enjoyed seven weeks in the Top 10 on Jazz Week’s charts, much like its predecessor, Miwa’s 2017 release Pathways, which also made Jazz Week’s top 10 for a number of weeks. In a 2017 feature article on Miwa, DownBeat noted her “impressive technique and a tuneful lyricism that combines an Oscar Peterson-ish hard swing with Bill Evans-like introspection.”
For the past decade Miwa’s trio has played regularly at major jazz clubs in their home city of Boston, as well as venues around the world. A favourite of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Miwa was chosen to play on “Marian McPartland & Friends”, part of the Coca-Cola Generations in Jazz Festival. She was also chosen to perform at Lincoln Center’s annual Jazz and Leadership Workshop for The National Urban League’s Youth Summit. Miwa also appears regularly at New York’s famed Blue Note Jazz Club and Birdland, and has performed and/or recorded with a wide range of jazz greats including Sheila Jordan, Slide Hampton, Arturo Sandoval, George Garzone, Jon Faddis, Jerry Bergonzi, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kevin Mahogany, John Lockwood and Johnathan Blake among others. In 2018 she performed on the main stage at the Atlanta Jazz Festival and the Litchfield Jazz Festival, where her trio drew the largest audience of any act. She is a Yamaha Pianos Artist, JVC Victor Entertainment recording artist, 2019 Boston Music Awards Jazz Artist of the Year, and Boston Phoenix Best Music poll winner.
Miwa’s story of becoming a jazz musician is full of serendipity and happy twists of fate. In the late 1990s the classically trained artist auditioned for Berklee College of Music on a lark and ended up winning a full scholarship. She arrived at the school from her homeland of Japan in 1997, intending to stay for a year. In 2020, she’s still in Boston, enriching the city’s musical life and serving as one of the most popular professors in the Berklee piano department.
Act Naturally, the Yoko Miwa Trio’s major label debut in Japan, came out in 2012 on the JVC Victor Entertainment label and the band toured Japan that same year. “She is one of the best jazz pianists in Japan,” said Yozo Iwanami of Jazz Hihyo Magazine.
A native of Kobe, Japan, Miwa didn’t pursue an interest in jazz until she met and studied with Minoru Ozone, a popular television organist and nightclub owner who is the father of pianist Makoto Ozone. Miwa worked at Ozone’s club and as an accompanist and piano instructor at his music school until the great Kobe earthquake of 1995 destroyed both facilities. Then, while continuing to take private lessons from Minoru Ozone, she also pursued musical studies at the Koyo Conservatory in Kobe. From there she won first prize in a scholarship competition to attend Berklee.
Concerning Miwa’s signing with Ubuntu Music, the artist explains her decision: “Since my identity as a jazz musician cannot be simply expressed in a singular emotion or atmosphere, signing with the Ubuntu label is fate. The meaning, ‘I am because we are’, is already a natural fit with who I am as a musician and what I express through my music which is a wide-ranging palette. On my initial release I plan to show just that by merely being myself, playing in service of the music instead of self-serving. Connecting with audiences through music has been my mantra as long as I've been a jazz performer. My debut on the Ubuntu label will feature my signature calling card of playing in different jazz contexts with spontaneity and clarity…from Monk to Zeppelin, Milt Jackson to Milton Nascimento and more, as well as featuring a healthy dose of my original compositions.”
Laura Hess-Hay, President of Ellora Management, who manages Ahmad Jamal, Hiromi, Marialy Pacheco, Ubuntu’s Hakan Başar and now Yoko Miwa, said, " Ellora Management is so filled with gratitude to Martin Hummel and Ubuntu Music for the signing of our new artist, Yoko Miwa. Martin and Ubuntu have such high standards when choosing their artists as they also help guide each artist in developing their full potential. Ellora Management and Yoko Miwa are elated to be a part the Ubuntu Family!”
Martin Hummel, Director of Ubuntu Music, describes the Label’s latest signing: “I was first introduced to Yoko by Laura Hess-Hay, head of Ellora Management, which represents Ahmad Jamal, Hiromi, Marialy Pacheco and, most recently, Hakan Başar, one of Ubuntu’s talented young artists. Laura had just signed Yoko and waxed lyrically about her, inviting me to consider releasing Yoko’s music. It was love at first sight and first sound. Yoko is an exceedingly gifted individual, who effortlessly weaves between a variety of contemporary musical counterparts, while always expressing the music through her own voice. It is a joy to be working with Yoko and with Laura, as Yoko joins our growing and increasingly dynamic Ubuntu Music Family.”
