As you’re reading this, the Yoko Miwa Trio is at WGBH recording in their studio. We’re so happy to be there again and to share our music with their audience.

We’ve been pretty busy lately. If you follow our Facebook page, you saw a few shots from a documentary video that Yoko is participating in. The Yoko Miwa Trio also took part in Berklee College of Music’s piano faculty concert this spring. Here’s a video from that performance of “Mox Nix”:

What else is keeping us busy? Asking our friends, family, and fans to vote just one more time for us in the Boston Phoenix contest. Tomorrow is the last day to vote. We would love to get the vote of every single Facebook fan and blog reader to finish out the contest for Best Jazz Act. Click here to vote. It take just a few seconds. We were first runner up last year, so we know our fans’ votes can bring us a win this year. Thanks to all who have voted!

The first ever International Jazz Day was on Monday, April 30th.  Last November, UNESCO decided to dedicate a day to highlight the cultural importance of jazz.  It’s such a unique blend of cultures and traditions, and UNESCO wanted a way to celebrate the significance of jazz in a way that will remember the greats of the past while encouraging new performers and fans to take part in this amazing art form.

We’d love to hear what you did to celebrate this great day.  Take a look at some of the videos of these historic performances celebrating this huge day in the jazz world: http://jazzday.com/videos/

The New Orleans Jazz Fest kicked off on Monday, maybe you were there or following along online?  Or perhaps you took in a local show or just listened to your favorite artists while at work?  Share how you participated either in the comments here or on our Facebook page.  Jazz is a universal art form, and we’d love to hear how our fans, who are spread across the globe, took part in celebrating.

Forgot about the day?  It’s okay, it was the first time it was celebrated, and we’re hoping it will grow as the years go on.  We’d love a vote for Best Jazz Act in Boston to make it up (wink, wink).  You can vote for us here.  Every vote helps.

We’re so excited to announce that we’ve been nominated by The Boston Phoenix for the favorite Jazz Act category this year!  You can vote for us once a day, every day with the contest ending on May 18th.

In order to win, we must get more online votes from friends and fans than the other nominated artists.  We were first runner up last year, so we know we can win with your help!  To vote, click here.

Thanks in advance for your votes, support, and enthusiasm for our music!

We recently joined the Pinterest craze, and we would love to have you all follow us over there, too.  Haven’t heard of Pinterest?  It’s a social media platform that lets you pin images and videos to virtual inspiration boards.  If you’re a creative type or a visual thinker, it’s a great way to discover new things to inspire you.  We’ve just got 5 boards at the moment, but we’ll add more pins to each of them quickly.  Click here to follow us.

We’re happy to announce that the Yoko Miwa Trio will be playing several concerts at the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District as part of their culture and concert series.  We’re set to play starting in May and will continue through October.  With warm weather soon returning, what more excuse do you need to head over to the BID to hear some great jazz this summer?

Stay tuned for specifics on this series as well as several other upcoming performance dates.  And don’t forget about our regular shows at the Ryles and Les Zygomates.

April is full of so many things: showers, spring holidays, flowers blooming.  Did you know that April is also National Jazz Appreciation Month in the US?

Here in Boston, we have Jazz Week from April 27th – May 6th.  JazzBoston, working with the mayor, started this annual event celebrating Jazz in Boston.  We’ll be performing at Les Zygomates on May 5th for Jazz Week.  Check the here for details.

If you’re new to jazz, this is a great time to explore the jazz world through Youtube, concerts, and connecting with other jazz fans around you.  Check out the artists that we like on Facebook and the videos that Youtube suggests on our channel to see artists that are similar to our style.

If you’re a long-time jazz aficionado, reach out to your friends who may not know much about the genre and share the artists you admire and why.  Sharing the why is so important to bring in new faces and fresh air to the genre.  Especially with instrumental jazz where the backstory or meaning of a song isn’t as readily apparent as a song with lyrics.  Just like learning the backstory behind a work of art brings new found appreciation, so can sharing the stories and meanings of your favorite jazz pieces.

We hope you all get out and support jazz musicians in your area this month.

Cherry blossoms or sakura. Photo by Erin Halvey

Tuesday’s performance at the Regattabar was a huge success!  We’ve received great feedback from audience members on our Facebook page, and our take on the traditional Japanese piece, Sakura, seemed to be very popular.

With that said, we’d like to thank the following for their support not only of this performance but of our work overall:

Regattabar, Brenda Prescott, Fred Taylor, Eric Jackson, Ann Braithwaite, Bob Blumenthal, Jon Garelick, Joe Zupan, Erin Halvey, Lauren Muscarella, Helen Feng, Anri Toda, Martin Hanley, Greg Loughman, Scott Goulding, Arthur Dahl, George Beale, Japanese Association of Greater Boston, The Japan Society of Boston, Scullers Jazz Club, Berklee College of Music, Ryles Jazz Club, Les Zygomates, Stellina, Mount Auburn Club

You have all been so instrumental, if you’ll pardon the pun, in leading us to where we are today.  A deep, heartfelt thank you to you all!

As you read in yesterday’s post, Yoko Miwa is part of a select few women in instrumental jazz. Last year, Yoko and her trio debuted at the Regattabar in celebration of Women’s History Month. This performance was dedicated to jazz great, Sheila Jordan. Sheila was unable to make it to the performance, but Yoko was able to perform a duet with her which we featured as part of last year’s Women’s History Month posts.

Sheila did record an introduction for last year’s performance that we’d like to share as part of our gearing up for next week’s Regattabar performance.

We look forward to seeing you next Tuesday, March 27th, at the Regattabar! Please be sure to support women in the arts this Women’s History Month and all year round.

“Hal Galper said something that was interesting . . . somebody said, ‘So, Hal, you know jazz has pretty gone as far as it can go, right? I mean what’s left to change?’ . . . he goes, ‘I guess the only thing left to change is women. More women.’. . . I kind of feel the same way.” -Jazz trumpeter Ingrid Jensen

March is National Women’s History Month, and Yoko Miwa debuted at the Regattabar last year as part of their celebration of women musicians. Yoko’s talents set her apart in the jazz world. Not only is she a woman instrumentalist, but she is a composer and the leader of her trio. The instrumental jazz world, like many art forms, has long been dominated by male performers. But if we let go of preconceptions of what instrumental jazz should be or used to be, the talent of Yoko Miwa and other women can shine through and welcome new fans to the genre. Jazz in the 21st century should change, evolve, and welcome new ideas just like other art forms such as photography, film, etc. If you exclude 50% of the population, you can only push the envelope so far and reach so many people.

Here’s a clip of Yoko performing Girl Talk. It’s a powerful juxtaposition to have a title associated with something often brushed off as trivial with such a strong, confident performance on the piano.

Yoko and her trio will again be performing at the Regattabar during Women’s History Month (March 27th). So come out and support her acclaimed talent and change the perceptions of who should perform jazz. Click here for tickets and more information.

Image by Listen Missy! via Creative Commons

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Japan’s gift of cherry trees to the United States. Boston is receiving a gift of cherry trees from Japan this spring to celebrate this 100th anniversary of the friendship between Japan and the United States.

Berklee College of Music, where Yoko Miwa is an assistant professor and also her alma mater, is participating in this celebration. Yoko’s music evokes the symbolism of the cherry blossoms, or sakura, themselves. Take The Day We Said Goodbye for example. Cherry blossoms represent the ephemeral nature of life in Japanese culture. Here, Yoko expresses this concept through the poetry of instrumental jazz.

You can see the Yoko Miwa Trio play on March 27th at the Regattabar. The Yoko Miwa Trip plans on playing a traditional Japanese song about sakura in honor of this important occasion. Click here for more information.

Photo by Listen Missy!.