Hitomi Nishiyama “Many Seasons”

"Many Seasons"

(Spice of Life 2007)

Hitomi Nishiyama – Piano

Hans Backenroth – Bass

Anders Kjellberg - Drums

From the first notes, you can tell Nishiyama comes to play. Her enthusiasm and energy bubbles over into every note. Seemingly petite from the cover photos, Nishiyama must have monstrous hands! Certainly, they are powerful. On her third recording, she and her Swedish friends, Backenroth and Kjellberg dig right into lean, nimble and gorgeously flowing tunes.

The trio plays with an intense flow, and do slow down, but only to rocket back up at high speeds soon after. At whatever speed, the emotional level stays high. Some sense of classical training comes through from Nishiyama's playing, but she always breaks it up with bluesy twists and a little rhythmic spice. On the opening tune, "Flood" the trio gets right into a very fast tempo. Nishiyama plays with constantly inventive and unceasingly agile melody lines, as if she could keep going forever. Her endless inventions need no break to reconsider direction. She plays quickly naturally.

The trio plays with great dynamics. Stormy, angry passages revert into impassioned fragility, with all the lines having a supple beauty. Playing like this comes from the heart, and you can hear the undiluted honesty in her tone. Bryant's "Sneaking Around" with a sly, double melody line, lets all three loosen up. Her playing usually has a beautiful barrage of notes stretching out to the horizon, but on this tune, she lets in a lot of space, and funkier rhythmic approach.

While most of the songs stretch out into long, lean tendrils of melody, "Many Seasons" and "Sakira" stand out in this regard, other songs have a stronger, fuller sound. "Loudvik" thunders with passion, though never forgetting gracefulness and pacing. Backenroth and Kjellberg follow Nishiyama in whatever quickly shifting direction she goes. They seem to know right where she is going and accent her agile sensitivity.

The compositions are wonderfully impressive, covering vast landscapes of feeling with carefully woven harmonies. Except for one tune by Pat Metheny and another from Ray Bryant, all the songs here are Nishiyama's originals, and she approaches her own tunes with delicacy and care, but also an experienced sense of how to mine them for endless variation. Nishiyama's nimble, focused solos embroider these self-penned harmonies with a real living force, constantly finding elaborations and internal patterns. Part of that comes from the complexity of the tunes, many of which feel as if based on classical forms and a few like "Waltz" sounding very European, but all deeply immersed in jazz.

On this third release, Nishiyama shows just how masterfully she can handle the challenging line-up of emotion, musicality, and, well, age and experience. She's only 28. Just wait until she hits her 30s!