Eri Yamamoto opens free jazz series at Hartford Public Library Sunday, Jan. 8. (Handout / January 4, 2012)
On a visit from her native Japan to New York City in 1995, the young, gifted pianist Eri Yamamoto first heard and was astonished by pianist Tommy Flanagan. It was a once-in-a-lifetime epiphany, a miraculous musical conversion that inspired the classically trained pianist to move to New York City and devote herself entirely to jazz.
Since then, the Osaka native's deft, inventive recordings and performances at premier jazz clubs and festivals and her stint with the William Parker Sextet, as well as personal triumphs with her own trio and duo, have earned the New York-based, thoroughly Americanized musician high praise, including plaudits from the legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. (Read more)
