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Announcing Yoko’s single release
Largo Desolato

Click here to listen

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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.

Miwa has released eight highly acclaimed CDs: In the Mist of Time (Tokuma, 2000); Fadeless Flower (Polystar, 2002); Canopy of Stars (Polystar, 2004); The Day We Said Goodbye, recorded live at the studios of WGBH-FM (Sunshine Digital, 2006); Live at Scullers (Jazz Cat Amnesty, 2011); Act Naturally (JVC Victor Entertainment, 2012), Pathways (2017), and Keep Talkin’ (2019). 

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/

 


BOOKING

Worldwide Booking
SGENT NATION
Stephan Gehrig
Ph: +1 (561)254-4338
stephan@sgentnation.com

Worldwide Management 
Ellora Management
PO Box 755
Lakeville, CT 06069 USA
Ph: (860)435-1305
Fx: (860)435-9916
laura@elloramanagement.com

VIDEO

 

PRESS


New Jersey Jazz Society Newsletter Review [read here]

 

 

Keep Talkin’ – Reviews

CD Review: Keep Talkin’ (from Downbeat – Carlo Wolff)

“Yoko Miwa’s ebullient Keep Talkin’ showcases the drive and lyricism of a pianist and composer at home in bebop, gospel, pop and classical.” Read More »

CD Review: Keep Talkin’ (from NYC Jazz Record – Donald Elfman)

“a brilliant display of compositional moods … Miwa is a virtuoso pianist with dazzling technique always in the service of interaction and exchange of ideas.” Read More »

CD Review: Keep Talkin’ (from Audiophile Audition – Robbie Gerson)

“Keep Talkin’ represents jazz at its finest! … impressive array of stylized interpretations” Read More »

“Pianist Yoko Miwa displays unpretentious melodies, elegant phrasing, and the lyrical sensibility of a jazz poet.” –Jazziz Magazine


“She has the enviable ability to play in any context with authenticity, clarity, and spontaneity…” –Wilbert Sostre, JazzTimes


“impressive technique and a tuneful lyricism that combines an Oscar Peterson-ish hard swing with Bill Evans-like introspection.” -Downbeat Magazine


“Simply a first class, straight up, straight ahead player whose sole mission is to step up and deliver the goods.” –Midwest Record Review


“jaw-dropping degree of technique.” -JazzTimes


4 stars “a beautifully constructed album…the drive and lyricism of a pianist and composer at home in bebop, gospel, pop, and classical.” -Downbeat Magazine


“I greatly appreciate and respect the clarity and strength in Yoko’s playing, it is very apparent – the honesty, care and depth of foundation she touches the piano with.” –Benny Green


"A jaw-dropping degree of technique..." – J.D. Considine, JazzTimes


"A brilliant display of compositional moods... The individual artistry of Miwa and her trio...is bold and powerful...Miwa is a virtuoso pianist with dazzling technique always in the service of interaction and exchange of ideas." – Donald Elfman, New York City Jazz Record


4 stars “A beautifully constructed album…The bandleader clearly revels in the challenge of rearranging tunes she loves, as well as the blend of intimacy and power this unusually gifted trio can muster.” – Carlo Wolff, DownBeat


"One of Boston's finest jazz trios." -Kevin Lowenthal, Boston Globe


She has a firmly original style, rooted in classical training but

demonstrating respect for Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Jaki Byard, and even locked-hands master Milt Buckner. She never failed to turn a clever phrase in her solos, …Charles Mingus’s “Boogie Stop Shuffle” is a challenging composition for a pianist to carry off without a team of horn players, since it has a driving ostinato bass figure topped by a complex melody line. Miwa dug into it as if she had written it. -Steve Elman, ArtsFuse


“Keep Talkin’ represents jazz at its finest! … impressive array of stylized interpretations” -Robbie Gerson, Audiophile Audition


“If ever there was a studio recording with the freshness and vitality of a live set, this is it. The group dynamic bounces with joy, and Oscar Peterson and Benny Green come to mind, stylistically, with Miwa’s always engaging melodies dancing around propulsive rhythms. This is Yoko Miwa at her extroverted best.” -Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz


“A highly affable experience featuring three seasoned and spectacularly attuned musicians, Pathways is a timeless album that goes down smooth from start to finish.” -Amy Cavalier, NYS Music


“Yoko’s ability to create moods, or bring them back to mind, is simply astounding… and her co-players, bassist Will Slater and drummer Scott Goulding, compliment her keyboards in every way!” -Dick Metcalf, Improvijazzation Nation


“The new album, “Pathways,” is bright and accessible, largely composed of originals but augmented with selections by Joni Mitchell and the Beatles. Miwa’s technical chops are evident, yet she’s anything but showy; she prizes space in her sound, and leaves room for the deep interplay her group has honed over the years.” -Boston Globe


Discography

Yoko Discography
Songs of Joy
Songs of Joy

Track Listing:

Freedom (Richie Havens)
Largo Desolato (Yoko Miwa)
Song of Joy (Billy Preston)
Small Talk (Yoko Miwa)
The Lonely Hours (by Yoko Miwa)
No Problem (Duke Jordan)
The Rainbirds (Yoko Miwa)
Think of One (Thelonious Monk)
Inside a Dream (Yoko Miwa)
Tony’s Blues (Tony Germain)
Babe I’m Gonna Leave You (Anne Bredon)

ORDER

Keep Talkin'
Keep Talkin'

Track Listing:

In Walked Bud
Secret Rendezvous
Sunset Lane
Boogie Stop Shuffle
Golden Slumbers / You Never Give Me Your Money
Tone Portrait
Casa Pre-Fabricada
Conversation
If You're Blue
Sunshine Follows the Rain

ORDER