At 17, Hiromi Uehara crossed paths with Chick Corea in Tokyo and was invited to share his stage the very next day. This episode follows the pianist from Hamamatsu, Japan’s city of music and home to Yamaha and Kawai, where teacher Noriko Hikida introduced her to jazz at age eight, through performing with the Czech Philharmonic at 14, years spent writing corporate jingles for Nissan, and study at Berklee College of Music under mentor Ahmad Jamal.

The conversation covers her gold-selling 2003 debut Another Mind, the synthesizer-heavy Sonic Bloom era with Tony Grey, Martin Valihora and David Fiuczynski, her 2011 Grammy as a member of the Stanley Clarke Band, and the Trio Project with Simon Phillips and Anthony Jackson, whose album Spark hit number one on the Billboard Jazz chart. It closes with Jackson’s death in 2025, the formation of her quartet Sonic Wonder, a revived Trio Project with a new bassist, her performance at the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, and her score for the anime film Blue Giant.

• How being introduced to improvisation at eight rewired a classical student’s brain
• Why writing 15-second Nissan jingles became a boot camp for melody
• What Ahmad Jamal taught her about space, dynamics and the notes you do not play
• Inside the Trio Project’s four albums: Voice, Move, Alive and Spark
• Composing and performing the music for Blue Giant and playing for billions at the Olympics