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Mamiko Watanabe

With exposure to the different styles such Jazz, Funk, Latin, Gospel and inspired from being surrounded by unique melodies and rhythm while working with Brazilian and African decent, pianist Mamiko Watanabe is trying to create uniquely her own sound and give "good vibration" to people through music.

Mamiko Watanabe was born in Fukuoka, Japan and began studying piano at age four at the Yamaha Music School. In 1999 she revived a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music and studied Jazz piano, Improvisation and Composition. She was a semi-finalist at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition in Montreux, Switzerland both in 2002 and 2003. She has toured Germany, Italy and Japan and has performed with several jazz greats such as Joe Lovano, Kevin Mahogany, Bobby McFerrin, Tiger Okoshi and Phil Wilson while in college. In 2003 she received the DownBeat Student Award in the Jazz Soloist Category before she made the decision to move to New York and expand her musical horizons. Since then, Mamiko has performed at notable venues such as The Kitano, Blue Note NY Sunday Brunch & Late Night Groove Series, 55 Bar, Garage, Zinc Bar, The Lenox Lounge, Blues Alley (in Washington, D.C.), The Kennedy Center, Victoria Theater (at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center), The Knitting Factory, Bitter End, Joe's Pub and S.O.B.'s.

Her exposure to several different styles of music such as Latin, Gospel, Reggae, Funk and R&B is the result of her working with several Afro-Brazilian and African bands and playing Gospel in Church every Sunday morning. She has worked with Roland Alexander Quintet, Joe Ford, Valery Ponomarev Big Band & His Quintet and Afro-Brazilian groups such "Ogans", "Dende" and "Velly Bahia & Kazwa Band".

As a leader, Mamiko recorded her album, "One After Another" in 2005 and released her second album,"ORIGIN/JEWEL” in 2007 which in fact is actually the combination of two separate discs; "ORIGIN" is a collection of the Funk and Latin influences compositions and "JEWEL" contains works recorded in a more straight-ahead jazz piano trio format. Her latest album "Mother Earth" was released in 2010.

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44
Album Review

Santi Debriano & Arkestra Bembe: Ashanti

Read "Ashanti" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Panama-born bassist Santi Debriano's Arkestra Bembe is a nonet whose centerpiece is the bembe music of west Africa. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Debriano began hosting weekly bembes (musical celebrations) in the basement of his Staten Island, New York home, gradually assembling a group of musicians who would comprise the Arkestra and perform Debriano's compositions and arrangements. The result is Ashanti, an impressive studio recording whose framework is jazz but whose heart and soul are clearly in bembe. ...

347
Live Review

Mamiko Watanabe at Fat Cat's, NYC

Read "Mamiko Watanabe at Fat Cat's, NYC" reviewed by Greg Henry Waters


Mamiko Watanabe Fat Cat Club New York City, New YorkNovember 7, 2007 Mamiko Watanabe is a wonderful jazz pianist, who is simply fun to watch in performance. She is a little woman--probably no more than 98 pounds but certainly 98 pounds of dynamite! It was Lyn Christie, a string bassist who once performed with Chick Corea, to whom I owe a phrase “not afraid to be original. Mamiko is such a person. She ...

166
Album Review

Mamiko Watanabe: One After Another

Read "One After Another" reviewed by Terrell Kent Holmes


With the release of One After Another, add Mamiko Watanabe to the list of talented jazz pianists that have come out of Japan in recent years. Watanabe composed all of the songs on this impressive debut and they show a strong, fully developed hard bop sensibility. Watanabe's composing MO is to start off a song with a strong theme or head, as a sort of attention-grabbing mechanism, then to pull it back to where it becomes an exploratory vehicle for ...

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“Unafraid to explore and incorporate different styles, Mamiko Watanabe plays and composes with passion and direction” - jazzreview.com

"Like the best piano trios,Watanabe’s threesome has the focus and interplay of a working band" -Jazz Inside Magazine

"Throughout Mother Earth Watanabe displays talents as a pianist, composer and arranger that makes a listener smile and shake their head with the pleasure of it all. And on this disc, the pleasures are many."-The New York City Jazz Record

“Watanabe's piano playing and leadership on both discs is deft, challenging and always solid.” - All About Jazz NY Magazine

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Primary Instrument

Piano

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Ashanti

Jojo Records
2023

buy

Mother Earth

Self Produced
2011

buy

One After Another

Self Produced
2007

buy

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