SOCIAL
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Yoko.Miwa.Trio
3129 followers
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/yokomiwajazz
1334 followers
Twitter
https://twitter.com/yokomiwa
1934 followers
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/YokoMiwaTrio
884 followers
223,805 lifetime views
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4xfIFGU467tYdyF6thGbLP
106,562 monthly listeners
1.3k followers
2019 Release Keep Talkin’ - 4.63 Million streams
Original composition Sunshine Follows the Rain - 4.54 Million streams and is featured on the Official Spotify Playlists “Coffee Table Jazz” and “Stations: Relaxing Jazz” as well as 2,000 listener playlists
Apple Music
Original composition Sunset Lane is on the Apple Music Jazz Playlist “Piano Bar”
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/piano-bar/pl.fc0d9d21c13c46149110dfd8dd844896
Tidal
Boogie Stop Shuffle from my 2019 release Keep Talkin’ is #5 on the “Jazz Piano/Keyboards Essentials” playlist on Tidal
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/2906c2e9-ca85-416e-9522-9e44ecdf41e5
Radio Airplay
2019 release “Keep Talkin” was in the top 10 of the jazz week radio charts for 7 weeks straight peaking twice at number 4 during that period.
https://www.jazzweek.com/releases/2019/06/yoko-miwa-keep-talkin-ocean-blue-tear-music/
2017 release “Pathways” was in the top 10 of the jazz week radio charts for 3 weeks straight peaking at number 6.
https://www.jazzweek.com/releases/2017/04/yoko-miwa-pathways-ocean-blue-tear-music/
bio
Internationally acclaimed pianist/composer Yoko Miwa 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 CD, 2019’s Keep Talkin’, showcases Miwa’s fine playing and artful compositions and the trio’s uncanny musical camaraderie. DownBeat gave the 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.” JazzTimes also reviewed the album favorably, 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 several 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 favorite 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 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 2019, 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, 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. Miwa quickly began playing with a host of talented students and teachers, and she formed a strong bond with vocal great Kevin Mahogany, who chose the pianist to serve as accompanist in his classes and on his gigs.
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
February 4th, 2022
Poli Club
Waterbury, CT
February 11th, 2022
The Iridium
New York, N.Y.
March 3rd, 2022
Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club
Portsmouth, N.H.
March 23rd, 2022
Dizzy’s Club
New York, N.Y.
May 27, 2022
Scullers
Boston, MA
press
"Songs Of Joy is an enthralling body of work that will become an important release for the year ahead, providing a welcome reprieve from the challenges that we have all recently faced, with inspiration and hope for what is to come.”
- Jazz in Europe
“The set's closer, the folk classic "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You," is a change of pace. Bassist Brad Barrett sits in, moving the sound a hundred and eighty degrees away from joy, with his mournful bowing painting a wash of tears brought on by the ramifications of the title's intent, while Miwa's piano notes are like teardrops breaking from that wash and falling to the floor.”
- Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
“consideration and a great spirit….very happy discovery for me, lots of power in her playing …I like it a lot”
- Julian Joseph, BBC Radio 3 (J to Z)
“Yoko Miwa has been gifted with both extraordinary musical skills and has the pure spirit that is necessary for great art. We love her musical gifts and her beautiful spirit as well.”
- Ahmad Jamal
“Remarkably, Miwa emerged from those first months of the pandemic with a new recording by her trio, her ninth, which, given the circumstances is remarkably upbeat and affirmative, living up to the album’s title, Songs Of Joy (Ubuntu Music).”
- Jon Garelick, DownBeat
Albums of The Year
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (Jazzcast.ca/Céline Peterson) Top 20 of 2021
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (JazzTimes/Steve Greenlee) Best of 2021
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (Textera) Best of 2021
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (Ken Frankling’s Jazz Notes) Best of 2021)
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (Downbeat Magazine Readers Poll)
4-5 Star Reviews (or equivalent)
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (Morning Star) 4 Stars
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (The Jazz Mann) 4 Stars
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (BBC Music Magazine) 4 Stars
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (Jazzwise - Editor’s Choice) 4 Stars
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (Ivan Rod DK) 4 Stars
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy (All About Jazz) 4 Stars
Notable Recognitions
Yoko Miwa Trio’s Songs of Joy becomes the most played album in USA jazz radio (Jazzweek).
Yoko Miwa Trio achieves Top 10 USA radio airplay in the full year 2021.
Yoko Miwa nominated for the 2021 New England Music Awards.
REVIEW OF 2021
Yoko Miwa Trio / Songs of Joy
Japanese pianist Yoko Miwa’s debut on the Ubuntu label features her 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 her original compositions.
Recognition: Album of The Year
(Jazzcast, JazzTimes, Textera, Frankling’s Jazz Notes, DownBeat Magazine), 4-5 Star Reviews (Morning Star, The Jazz Mann, BBC Music Magazine, Jazzwise, Ivan Rod DK, All About Jazz).
BOOKING
Worldwide Management
Ellora Management
PO Box 755
Lakeville, CT 06069 USA
Ph: (860)435-1305
Fx: (860)435-9916
laura@elloramanagement.com
Videos
Discography
