There are several artists with this name: 1) Hiromi Uehara, 2) Hiromi Miyak… Read Full Bio ↴There are several artists with this name: 1) Hiromi Uehara, 2) Hiromi Miyake (宏実), 3) Hiromi Yanagihara, 4) Hiromi Kurosawa (黒沢ひろみ) and 5) Hiromi Iwasaki (岩崎宏美) .

1) Hiromi Uehara (上原ひろみ, born 26 March 1979) is a Japanese jazz composer and pianist. She is known for her virtuosic technique, energetic live performances and blend of jazz with other musical genres such as progressive rock, classical and fusion in her compositions. She performs as a trio alongside bassist Tony Grey and drummer Martin Valihora. On October 19, 2006, the trio added guitarist David Fiuczynski (from the Screaming Headless Torsos), to form Hiromi's Sonicbloom.

Hiromi first mesmerized the jazz community with her 2003 Telarc debut, Another Mind. The buzz started by her first album spread all the way back to her native Japan, where Another Mind shipped gold (100,000 units) and received the Recording Industry Association of Japan's (RIAJ) Jazz Album of the Year Award. Her second release, Brain, won the Horizon Award at the 2004 Surround Music Awards, Swing Journal's New Star Award, Jazz Life's Gold Album, HMV Japan's Best Japanese Jazz Album, and the Japan Music Pen Club's Japanese Artist Award (the JMPC is a classical/jazz journalists club). Brain was also named Album of the Year in Swing Journal's 2005 Readers Poll. In 2006, Hiromi won Best Jazz Act at the Boston Music Awards and the Guinness Jazz Festival's Rising Star Award. She also claimed Jazzman of the Year, Pianist of the Year and Album of the Year in Swing Journal Japan's Readers Poll for her 2006 release, Spiral.

Hiromi continues her winning streak as Hiromi's Sonicbloom with the 2007 release of Time Control and her 2008 release of Beyond Standard.

Born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1979, Hiromi took her first piano lessons at age six. She learned from her earliest teacher to tap into the intuitive as well as the technical aspects of music.

"Her energy was always so high, and she was so emotional," Hiromi says of her first piano teacher. "When she wanted me to play with a certain kind of dynamics, she wouldn't say it with technical terms. If the piece was something passionate, she would say, 'Play red.' Or if it was something mellow, she would say, 'Play blue.' I could really play from my heart that way, and not just from my ears."

Hiromi took that intuitive approach a step further when she enrolled in the Yamaha School of Music less then a year after her first piano lessons. By age 12, she was performing in public, sometimes with very high-profile orchestras. "When I was 14, I went to Czechoslovakia and played with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra," she says. "That was a great experience, to play with such a professional orchestra."

Further into her teens, her tastes expanded to include jazz as well as classical music. A chance meeting with Chick Corea when she was 17 led to a performance with the well-known jazz pianist the very next day.

"It was in Tokyo," Hiromi recalls. "He was doing something at Yamaha, and I was visiting Tokyo at the time to take some lessons. I talked to some teachers and said that I really wanted to see him. I sat down with him, and he said 'Play something.' So I played something, and then he said, 'Can you improvise?' I told him I could, and we did some two-piano improvisations. Then he asked me if I was free the next day. I told him I was, and he said, 'Well, I have a concert tomorrow. Why don't you come?' So I went there, and he called my name at the end of the concert, and we did some improvisations together."

After a couple years of writing advertising jingles for Nissan and a few other high-profile Japanese companies, Hiromi came to the United States in 1999 to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. For as open as her musical sensibilities had already been when she came to the U.S., the Berklee experience pushed her envelope even further.

"It expanded so much the way I see music," she says. "Some people dig jazz, some people dig classical music, some people dig rock. Everyone is so concerned about who they like. They always say, 'This guy is the best,' 'No, this guy is the best.' But I think everyone is great. I really don't have barriers to any type of music. I could listen to everything from metal to classical music to anything else."

Among her mentors at Berklee was veteran jazz bassist Richard Evans, who teaches arranging and orchestration. Evans co-produced Another Mind, her Telarc debut, with longtime friend and collaborator Ahmad Jamal, who has also taken a personal interest in Hiromi's artistic development. "She is nothing short of amazing," says Jamal. "Her music, together with her overwhelming charm and spirit, causes her to soar to unimaginable musical heights."

At 26, Hiromi stands at the threshold of limitless possibility, constantly drawing inspiration from virtually everyone and everything around her. Her list of influences, like her music itself, is boundless. "I love Bach, I love Oscar Peterson, I love Franz Liszt, I love Ahmad Jamal," she says. "I also love people like Sly and the Family Stone, Dream Theatre and King Crimson. Also, I'm so much inspired by sports players like Carl Lewis and Michael Jordan. Basically, I'm inspired by anyone who has big, big energy. They really come straight to my heart."

But she won't, as a matter of principle, put labels on her music. She'll continue to follow whatever moves her, and leave the definitions to others.

"I don't want to put a name on my music," she says. "Other people can put a name on what I do. It's just the union of what I've been listening to and what I've been learning. It has some elements of classical music, it has some rock, it has some jazz, but I don't want to give it a name."

Hiromi's official website is located at http://www.hiromimusic.com.

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2) For the Japanese R&B singer Hiromi Miyake see 宏実 https://www.generasia.com/wiki/Hiromi

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3) For the Japanese pop singer Hiromi Yanagihara see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiromi_Yanagihara

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4) For the Japanese idol singer Hiromi Kurosawa see 黒沢ひろみ http://jpop.wikia.com/wiki/Kurosawa_Hiromi

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5) For the '70s Japanese pop singer Hiromi Iwasaki see 岩崎宏美 https://www.discogs.com/artist/1826046-Hiromi-Iwasaki

Unforgettable
Hiromi Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

歩き疲れて
足を止めた街
見知らぬ景色に
重なってゆくあの日
喉を枯らしながら
夢だけ信じていた
忘れかけてたPicture
取り戻しに行こう

Unforgettable
忘れないよ
あの頃見てた
空を今も
変わらないよ
ずっと
いつも
同じ場所で
(Unforgettable)
世界がまわってゆく程に
嘘つくことにも慣れて
Now I'm a lier
汚れにも目を伏せなくなった頃
あの日のままの君に恋をして
探してた想いが
溢れ出したら
動き始めたFuture
目の前に広がっていく
Unforgettable
忘れないよ
あの頃見てた
空を今も
変わらないよ
ずっと
いつも
同じ場所で
(Unforgettable)
どこへ向かっていようとも
色褪せない描いた地図は
何を手に入れたとしても
明日も変わらず
僕のままで Unforgettable
忘れないよ
あの頃見てた
空を今も
変わらないよ
ずっと
いつも
同じ場所で
(Unforgettable)

Unforgettable...

Unforgettable...

Unforgettable...

Overall Meaning

These lyrics, from Hiromi's song "Unforgettable," convey a sense of nostalgia and longing for a past that holds a special place in the singer's heart. The opening lines suggest a tiredness in the journey of life, symbolized by the weary feet that stop in an unfamiliar cityscape. Despite this weariness, the singer finds solace in the memories of a day overlapped by an unknown scenery. With a hoarse throat, they held onto their dreams, struggling not to forget a picture that had started to fade away. Determined to retrieve what has been lost, they embark on a journey.

The chorus emphasizes the enduring nature of these memories. The singer declares that they will never forget the sky they witnessed in those days, despite the passage of time. They remain steadfast in the same place, perhaps longing for the familiarity and stability that they once experienced. The mention of the world spinning, and the singer becoming accustomed to lying, indicates the disillusionment and jadedness that has come with time. They no longer ignore the flaws and impurities around them. However, even amidst this change, the singer still finds themselves in love with the person they were on that day, when they started looking for overflowing feelings that have now set the future in motion.

The bridge expresses the belief that no matter where they may be headed, the map they once drew retains its vibrancy. It signifies that the memories and experiences captured in the past remain untarnished, regardless of what they acquire in the future. The final repetition of the chorus reaffirms the singer's commitment to holding onto these unforgettable memories, forever gazing at the same sky in the same place.

Overall, the song "Unforgettable" encapsulates the longing for the past, the bittersweet nostalgia, and the determination to preserve the cherished memories that have shaped the singer's identity.

Line by Line Meaning

歩き疲れて
After walking so much and feeling exhausted

足を止めた街
I stopped in a town

見知らぬ景色に
Where the unfamiliar scenery

重なってゆくあの日
Overlaps with that day

喉を枯らしながら
While hoarse

夢だけ信じていた
I believed only in dreams

忘れかけてたPicture
A picture that was almost forgotten

取り戻しに行こう
Let's go and retrieve it

Unforgettable
It's unforgettable

忘れないよ
I won't forget

あの頃見てた
What I saw back then