Miho Hazama - Imaginary Visions (September 24, 2021 Edition Records)

Imaginary Visions is the visionary new album from Grammy-nominated conductor and composer Miho Hazama, featuring The Danish Radio Big Band – one of the leading jazz ensembles in Europe.

For Miho, this album represents a new era as part of a growing and blossoming international career.

“This is a significant milestone-moment for me. Since I have a classical music background, my brain sound has been more symphonic. However, The Danish Radio Big Band changed my perspective. They are so open and enthusiastic to new music. They can play diverse music with organic flow. I am extremely excited to work on this album”

One might expect Miho to struggle with identity: a Japanese musician working in New York and Europe, a classically trained composer with a love of jazz and modern composition, but in fact she doesn’t think about identity – working with people and with music she likes is the important thing.

However the need to “make everything comfortable between people”, to balance the cultural values and musical demands of her work, feeds into her identity as a composer working in these different cultural and musical environments. Her ability to balance her own musical interests with outfits as different as the Metropole Orkest, The Danish Radio Big Band and her New York ‘chamber group’ m_unit symbolises her ability to square the identity circle.

“I live for music”, she says. “My hobby is to go to music shows, I always listen to music, I like to talk about music. Doing something that I like for myself and hoping that this is inspiring and encouraging to others”, this is Miho’s creed.

In 2019, Miho took up a post as the chief conductor of Danish Radio Big Band (DRBB) following in the footsteps of Thad Jones, Bob Brookmeyer and Jim McNeely (all early influences on Miho’s composing). Imaginary Visions is the first album with the DRBB to feature her compositions exclusively, and so is a career defining statement of her huge talent.

“These compositions are hugely inspired by DRBB members; their tone color, character of playing, strength, uniqueness and authenticity. Also, these are secretly inspired by compositions from the former chief conductors (music directors) of DRBB, such as Thad Jones, Bob Brookmeyer and JimMcNeely. Studying their compositions definitely made me remember their ways of harmony construction, music vibes, forms, rhythmic motives, orchestrations and composition/harmonization ideas. It’s not obvious “copy and paste”, but it is more of my way to explore and digest these master-composers’ ideas.” 

1. I Said Cool, You Said... What?

2. Your Scenery Story

3. Mingle-Mangle Goody Bag

4. Home

5. Mimi's March

6. On That Side

7. Green

Miho Hazama (Composer, Conductor)

Danish Radio Big Band

Peter Fuglsang (Alto saxophone, Soprano saxophone, Clarinet, Flute)

Nicolai Schultz (Alto saxophone, Piccolo, Flute, Alto flute)

Hans Ulrik (Tenor saxophone, Soprano saxophone, Clarinet)

Karl-Martin Almqvist (Tenor saxophone, Soprano saxophone, Clarinet)

Anders Gaardmand (Baritone saxophone, Bass clarinet, Flute)

Trumpet and Flugelhorn:

Dave Vreuls

Robin Rombouts

Thomas Kjærgaard

Mads la Cour

Mårten Lundgren

Trombone:

Peter Dahlgren

Petter Hängsel

Vincent Nilsson

Bass Trombone:

Annette Saxe

Bass trombone and Tuba:

Jakob Munk Mortensen

Per Gade (Guitar)

Henrik Gunde (Piano)

Kaspar Vadsholt (Upright bass)

Søren Frost (Drums)

Album artwork by Oli Bentley, Split

Photos by Nicolas Koch Futtrup

Søren Frost plays Yamaha drums, Istanbul Mehmet cymbals, Evans drumheads and Vic Firth sticks

Produced by Miho Hazama

Executive Producer: Dave Stapleton for Edition Records, Birger Carlsen for Danish Radio Big Band, Hiroaki G Muramatsu for JamRice Inc.

Recording & Editing engineer: Lars C. Bruun

Recording director: Morten Büchert

Mixed on April 6th-8th, 2021 at Sear Sound NYC, New York, NY, USA

Mixing engineer: Chris Allen

Assistant engineer: Steven Sacco

Mastered on April 20th, 2021 at Sterling Sound, Edgewater, NJ, USA

Mastering engineer: Greg Calbi & Steve Fallone

Photography: Agnete Schlichtkrull, Nicolas Koch Futtrup

Pre-order

Miho Hazama & Metropole Orkest Big Band - The Monk: Live At Bimhuis (SUNNYSIDE RECORDS August 31, 2018)

The best week of the young composer/arranger Miho Hazama’s life was a hectic one. In 2011, she was invited as one of eight arrangers from around the world to take part in the famed Metropole Orkest’s residency program, led by the legendary Vince Mendoza. There were master classes and rehearsals all week for arrangements the residents would write, in four days, to be performed by the Big Band conducted by Mendoza and featuring vocalist Roberta Gambarini. 

The trial by fire was exhilarating and made Hazama crave another chance to arrange for the world’s only jazz philharmonic orchestra. In 2017, Hazama got another chance to write for the Metropole Orkest Big Band when her project to arrange original pieces and orchestrate solo pieces by the pianist Thelonious Monk, in his centennial year, was selected for the orchestra. The results of the collaboration can be heard on the new recording, The Monk: Live at Bimhuis. 

The Tokyo born, New York based Hazama has made quite a name for herself as an arranger, composer and conductor. She has composed pieces for the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Siena Wind Orchestra and has arranged for artists and ensembles as diverse as the Danish Radio Big Band and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Hazama has also led and recorded with her own large ensemble, the m_unit. 

Since Hazama’s first foray with Metropole, the entity had gone private. The Big Band had remained extremely active and reached out to Hazama on a number of occasions to continue her work with them. In the summer of 2016, she visited Rotterdam to visit musical director Gert-Jan Blom; she proposed a project around the centennial of Monk’s birth. Blom thought it was a good idea but that it also had to be extra special, as there would be many similar projects in 2017. 

Hazama began to immerse herself in Monk’s music. Initially, she looked to the larger works, including Hall Overton’s arrangements for The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall (1959) and Oliver Nelson’s from Monk’s Blues (1969). But it was Monk’s solo performances that began to capture her attention more and more. Hazama decided to orchestrate four recorded solo performances for the Big Band. She also arranged three of the idiosyncratic pianist’s fantastic compositions. 

Monk’s solo performances intrigued Hazama, as the performer thought compositionally as he played, developing the themes and advancing the harmonies. Hazama began by transcribing the solos and then broadened the scope of the pieces to allow for solos from the Big Band members, utilizing Monk’s frequent use of the two-beat stride sections. 

Blom and pianist Hans Vroomans were instrumental in planning, developing and implementing the arrangements and orchestrations. There was also ample time for rehearsal, so the pieces were solid for performance and the ensemble was able to translate Monk’s language into a large ensemble setting. With Hazama conducting, the Big Band then went on the road to Hilversum, Amsterdam (where the recording was made), Rotterdam and Den Bosch. 

The program has a perfect beginning with Hazama’s arrangement of “Thelonious,” in which she kept the arrangement simple by building its harmony around the tuning key tone of B-flat and continuing from there. Her orchestration of Monk’s performance of “Ruby My Dear” from Alone In San Francisco (1959) is an intriguing adaptation of his ascending melodic interpretation, led by clarinet and climaxing with trombone. Adding a little Latin blend to the program, Hazama’s arrangement of “Friday the 13th” is a dynamic toe tapper with some intriguing dramatic segments. The version of “Hackensack” that Hazama orchestrated comes from Monk’s first solo Paris performance in 1954 and shows how active Monk’s playing was early in his career, which allowed Hazama to exaggerate his dynamics in a dramatic way, from a quiet beginning to percussively loud. 

The orchestration of the pianist’s take on his collaborative piece with Bernard Hanighen and Cootie Williams, “’Round Midnight,” comes from Thelonious Himself (1957) and Hazama plays it simple allowing Vrooman space to create, which he does adding a beautiful cadenza and interlude. Appropriately, Hazama focuses on the rhythmic aspect of Monk and Kenny Clarke’s “Epistrophy” by taking the poly-rhythms of the original and creating a new rhythm modulation from the triplet feel to the swing of the theme. The recording concludes with a special orchestration of a 1969 solo from French television’s Jazz Portrait of “Crepuscule with Nellie,” an important piece from Monk’s repertoire, as it was a tribute to his wife. Like all the takes Monk ever recorded of the tune, this version has only the piano as a solo voice. 

It had long been Miho Hazama’s dream to work with the Metropole Orkest Big Band. The opportunity presented itself in a tribute to the great Thelonious Monk, which was masterfully performed and recorded in Amsterdam as The Monk : Live at Bimhuis.

Miho Hazama - conductor, arranger

Metropole Orkest Big Band

Marc Scholten - saxophone, clarinet

Paul van der Feen - saxophone, clarinet

Leo Janssen - saxophone, clarinet

Sjoerd Dijkhuizen - saxophone, clarinet

Max Boeree - saxophone, clarinet

Ray Bruinsma - trumpet

Martijn de Laat - trumpet

Nico Schepers - trumpet

Rik Mol - trumpet

Jan Oosting - trombone

Look Boudesteijn - trombone

Jan Bastian - trombone

Martin van den Berg - bass trombone

Marcel Serierse - drums

Aram Kersbergen - bass

Peter Tiehuis - guitar

Hans Vroomans - piano

1. Thelonious

2. Ruby My Dear

3. Friday The Thirteenth

4. Hackensack

5. 'Round Midnight

6. Epistrophy

7. Crepuscule With Nellie