Live & Local: Miki Yamanaka at Dazzle

Abi Clark: I'd love to dig a little bit into your world. You've been living in playing in New York City for a little over a decade. Actually. Several of our hosts were just there for the Jazz Congress and Winter Jazz Fest, which is exciting. So I'm sure you're out all the time, collaborating and playing on stages around the city. And your latest album, that I'm excited to learn more about in this conversation, is a collection of some of your favorite standards, compositions you probably get to experience playing in different ways around New York. Can you tell me about the music scene in New York and the energy of digging into these songbooks that really inspire the new release?

Miki Yamanaka: Yeah, such a great question and thank you for checking out my record. So New York City has a special energy. There are so many musicians that just come and go, you know? Even if they used to live here, they might live somewhere else, but they come back to New York City all the time. So there are so many different kinds of musicians all the time. But even within jazz realm, we have so many variety of musician. So therefore we all would like to play each other, play together. And what do we play? That will be tunes. So tunes that we know. So if you do New York City gigs, local gigs like play at Smalls or Mezzrow, Fat Cat, well now it's called Cellar Dog, or other restaurant gigs or whatever, cocktail bar gigs.. Some of the legends still do those gigs. Some of the most amazing acknowledged musicians would still do gigs like that. Sullivan Portner still plays at Mezzrow, late sets sometimes. (02:14)If he wants to. New York City has special energy that, like I said, everybody wants to play with everybody else. So it's crazy. We know so many musicians and there's no shortage for musicians. So when we would like to play on the spot, that will be tunes. And then I did so many of those and I'm still doing it. So when I decided to make another record Celler Live, talked to me, "Hey, let's make another record." And I was like, 'you know what? I want to do tunes. I want to play those tunes that I've been playing with my trio and it's going to be lit.'

AC: And it is! We've been playing it here at KUVO. It's a really, really nice record and exciting that you're now on your fifth album. Reading up about you though, you were going to do something completely different. You were pursuing a career in science and then you decided to go for the music. And I know that's a boat a lot of musicians can relate with. Maybe they love two different things, they have two different callings trying to please both. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that journey with some of our musician listeners?

MY: Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of musicians that I know here have been playing music since they were three. They knew that they were going to do music somehow and they kept doing that. But for me, yes, I took piano lessons because my mom forced me, but it was never... like I didn't mean to pursue this career. So that's why I was like, I wanted to be rich! I wanted to be rich before. So I was like, 'yeah, lemme be a scientist. Do something that is meaningful for the society.(04:09)And then also I can get compensated, right?' So when I thought about that when I was in middle school and high school, I was like, 'you know what? Science is it!' Because I was really good at it too. So I was like, 'yeah, lemme go for it.' And then I finished my bachelor's degree. I was even in master's degree.. Well, I didn't get it because I quit. But yeah, I was just like, yeah, let me be that, and then also I could play music on the side. That was my initial intention. I really, really loved playing music thanks to my mom forcing me to take piano lessons. I just didn't even imagine that I would be making living and touring world by playing music. It's really crazy how it happened, and I'm still amazed that I'm doing this. I'm still in the process of like, 15 years ago of Miki didn't even imagine a tiny bit of what I've been doing right now. So, if you like playing music, do it. If you like science or whatever your major, whatever your calling is, do both. Just do both and enjoy them both, and somehow one takes over, I guess. But it's been great. I'm so so so grateful.

AC: I mean, you're putting that work in though. I know it's a grind to be a musician, but obviously something brought you back to that place. You said you started playing music with your mom's "gentle nudging" to do piano lessons, but can you share more about your relationship with your piano? I mean, is it something that you feel like is an extension of yourself or is it a relationship that you have to work at? I'm sure you play all the time being now that you're a living/working musician.

MY: Yeah, I always consider piano as my friend. Any piano. So piano pianist, drummers, bass players on the road. We cannot pick instruments, not like horn players. Drummers can bring symbols, but pianists, especially pianists and bass players, we really cannot pick instruments. So sometimes people get mad or upset about the piano situation. It's not good or whatever. But for me, if there is any instruments being prepared for me right in front of me, I would like to make friends with them. (06:51)So I would like to kind of get to know the piano every time I sit down at the new piano. Well, I'll get to know the piano in Denver at Dazzle, I've never been there, so I don't know the piano. I'm going to be exploring together with the piano just to see what they are good at, what they're not good at. And everybody is like that, you know? Nobody's good at everything. So no piano is good at everything, in my opinion. So I just want to find their strength and what they shine (at), you know? It's like, 'oh, you have such nice touch,' or 'you have such a heavy touch, but really a nice muddy sound that I like.' I could find goodness in piano all the time because I'm just really grateful that piano is everywhere. This instrument is everywhere. It's incredible. I love it, I love every piano.. I am in love with every piano. So even if out of tune, I find it kind of fun to explore like, 'oh, this string's broken.' It's like, 'let me play with it.' I am always down to play any piano. So yeah, I guess they're my friends.