A week ago, I dropped in at the legendary jazz club Birdland and caught a set by singer from Chicago. The player who really pulled me in was the pianist. Her name was Miki Yamanaka, and she was a delight to listen to and watch. It might be a stretch to say she stole the show, but she was its brightest part.
Ms. Yamanaka is from Kobe, Japan and moved to New York City in 2012. She received a Masters of Music from Queens College after which she did a composition residency at the Kennedy Center in 2015. She released her debut album as a combo leader in 2018 and her most recent one came out last fall.
At Birdland what caught my attention most was the lightness of her touch on the keys that gave an almost playful feel to the parts she was playing. Ms. Yamanaka consistently surprised me with the freshness of her sound and the way in which, during her solos, her right hand seemed almost to be frolicking on the upper reaches of the piano keys, unconstrained by any assumptions of what it was going to sound like or what shape her lines were going to take.
The lightness of touch extended to her left hand as well. Usually when you listen to a pianist, you can differentiate what you’re hearing between the left and right hands but with Ms. Yamanaka that was wonderfully difficult. Her
hands moved so fluidly that it sometimes sounded as if there were three hands playing instead of two. Her playing was never frantic or rushed though, and she never once gave the impression that she was being paid by the note.
She struck some very interesting chords in both her solos and her accompanying, and she wasn’t afraid to drift in
unexpected, creative harmonic and melodic directions. In many of her scampering solos she made use of notes that were outside of the chords—sometimes far outside—but the effect was always playful and effervescent, never discordant. I was immediately reminded of the work of the great pianist Thelonious Monk who was legendary for voyages outside of traditional chord structures, but Ms. Yamanaka played with a much lighter touch, and, I think, spirit than did the pioneering and troubled Monk.
I spoke with her briefly afterward and told her how much I enjoyed her playing and how fresh and sparkling I thought it sounded. I told her it reminded me of Monk and she smiled and said “I like Monk.”
On the way home I bought a couple of her recordings to listen to, hoping to find that sound again, and it’s certainly there. And sure enough, she covers a Monk tune on one of the albums.
It’s all a vivid example of what you’ve heard me say numerous times: in the arts, there’s literally always something new to discover. I now have another favorite pianist, of whom I’d never heard just two weeks ago.