eJazzNews Archive

Ayako Shirasaki: Falling Leaves, Live in Hamburg

Originally published on eJazzNews · · By Edward Blanco · CD Reviews

On October 19, 2010, eJazzNews published Edward Blanco’s review of Falling Leaves: Live in Hamburg, a solo piano concert album by the Japanese-born pianist Ayako Shirasaki, who lived in New York. The concert was recorded at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg on October 17, 2009, and released by Jan Matthies Records on September 7, 2010. Shirasaki followed it in 2013 with the trio album Some Other Time. She died in New York on November 29, 2021, at the age of 52.

What the review said

Blanco introduced Shirasaki as a pianist who had played in Tokyo jazz clubs since the age of 12 and moved to New York in 1997, and noted that her previous solo album was Home Alone from 2006. He wrote that the concert opened with Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation,” which he said was the first piece she had played in concert at 12, and that she treated Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” with real force. Two Sonny Rollins tunes, “Airegin” and “St. Thomas,” showed her range.

He called the waltz “Mirror, Mirror,” which quotes the opening of “Someday My Prince Will Come,” the first truly calm moment, and followed the set through the Japanese folk song “Sakura Sakura,” Gershwin’s “Summertime,” three originals and “Sleigh Ride.” He enjoyed the audience clapping along on Barry Harris’s samba “Nascimento” and her request number, “Moonglow,” a tune she said she had not played in 20 years. The set closed with “My Romance,” a short “Take Five” and “St. Thomas.” Blanco described her as a lyrical pianist and the album as more than a typical solo outing.

Two details from the album notes fill out his account. “Mirror Mirror” is a Chick Corea composition, and “Sakura Sakura,” “Summertime,” the title track “Falling Leaves” and “Sleigh Ride” form a four-seasons medley, one piece for each season. The program runs to 15 tracks, most of them jazz standards.

About Ayako Shirasaki

According to her biography, Shirasaki started piano at five, learned jazz from her father, and won jazz contests in Japan as a child before majoring in classical piano at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1995 she took second prize in the first Heineken Jazz Competition. After moving to New York she earned a master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Kenny Barron and Ted Rosenthal. Her debut album, Existence (2003), featured drummer Lewis Nash, and in 2006 she was a guest on Marian McPartland’s NPR program Piano Jazz. The Hamburg concert came from her second German tour in 2009, after she had played the first International Jazz Solo Piano Festival in Hamburg, Munich and Berlin.

What happened next

All About Jazz reviewed Falling Leaves in April 2011, with Dan Bilawsky praising her commanding technique. In August 2013 Jan Matthies Records released Some Other Time, recorded in New York with bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Quincy Davis. Shirasaki co-founded the Sakura Music School in New York in 2010 and toured Japan and Europe with her trio. After her death in 2021, Bryant Park in New York, where she had played in the Piano in the Park series for ten years, held two tributes to her; at the second, her former teacher Ted Rosenthal and bassist Noriko Ueda played her music.

Where to start listening

  • Falling Leaves: Live in Hamburg (Jan Matthies Records, 2010): the solo concert reviewed here.
  • Some Other Time (Jan Matthies Records, 2013): her trio with Noriko Ueda and Quincy Davis, mixing her originals with Rollins’s “Oleo” and a solo “Sophisticated Lady.”
  • Home Alone (What’s New Records, 2006): her first solo piano album, with Monk’s “In Walked Bud” and Barry Harris’s “Luminescence.”

Sources

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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