Hitomi Nishiyama Trio: I'm Missing You

Mar 30, 2025

Rewinding from the previous article on Hitomi Nishiyama’s Echo from 2024, and connecting the dots (re: Dot, 2023), relistening to Hitomi Nishiyama Trio’s I’m Missing You from 2004 provides a fascinating reflection.

I’m Missing You is the prolific composer’s first album, which quickly sold out as she was gaining recognition for her distinctive jazz piano compositional style, a novel approach that melded her Japanese classical musical training, studies in jazz piano, and her affection for European modern jazz. The original 2004 album contained eight songs, all composed by Nishiyama, and was re-released in 2007 with three bonus tracks from around the same period. It came to be regarded as her breakthrough first trio recording, released 20 years before her latest CD Echo, and with more than two dozen albums released in between.

On I’m Missing You, her strong sense of composition for a piano trio jazz setting is already apparent. Her characteristic harmonies, melodies, section changes, and moderately, tastefully used brief polyrhythms and syncopated shifts evoke emotions and hook listeners, carrying them along through adventurous paths filled with medium tempos based on warm grounding bass, brushed drums, and intricate piano solos.

The different songs on this album share a lot of similarities in feel overall, acting like an album-length extended suite filled with Nishiyama’s lovely melodies, delicate touch, and the classical-sounding elements of lightly nimble scales, arpeggios, ornamentation in her improvisation. Along with the jazz improvisation, focus is also often drawn to the modulating key signatures illustrated by the reassuring drums and bass frameworks in straight-eighth 3/4 or 4/4 time. There is a minor-key feel to much of the music; even the major-key sections seem to possess a minor quality. But this is not painful sadness as in agony, but a tender soreness that’s almost a comfort, or the feeling of I’m missing you that invokes the person sweetly along with the ache. At the same time, the essential spice of upliftingly powerful major-key shifts at the right times serve as the bright rays of light, however temporary, in a mostly moody world.

For interested pianists and jazz musicians, Nishiyama also graciously provides simplified piano charts for some of her original songs in the Extra area of her website. This includes charts for “Blue Nowhere”, “Epigraph”, and “Passato”, three absolute highlights from I’m Missing You.

Liner Notes

(Translated from Hitomi Nishiyama’s and Hiroki Sugita’s original Japanese liner notes.)

I’m Missing You | Hitomi Nishiyama Trio

In 2004, a short while after this album was released, a person said to me “We played this song at our relative’s funeral.” I was moved to tears with feelings I didn’t quite understand.

After some time had passed, I thought composedly about the fact that someone, at a very important time with their loved ones, had wanted to say their final farewells as they were sending someone off with this song. As a musician, it was a blessing to hear. Although I knew that what I had created may have been artless, self-indulgent, and insignificant, a feeling was present that there are some people that may need me in some way. It must be a natural human emotion.

From the simple decision to start recording in my early twenties, the result of this emotional experience as a musician may have been the greatest asset produced by this early recording. Although the recording is full of shortcomings, I am extremely happy that this work, one that is so important to me personally and is a snapshot of myself at the time, is being re-released.

Three additional songs not related to the original release are also included. We’re a young trio that started from the Yokohama Jazz Promenade competition, through to this recording, and on to many experiences after that. I hope you enjoy these previously unreleased recordings from that time.

—Hitomi Nishiyama

This is a long-awaited re-release. Hitomi Nishiyama’s first trio album as a leader, self-produced, recorded, and released in 2004, was discontinued in 2007 when the album sold out. In 2006, Cubium, her first album for Spice of Life, was released. It was recorded with some highly-respected Swedish musicians in Stockholm and helped her to gather attention in this unprecedented setting for a young Japanese pianist. This event spurred sales of the original self-released recording, which led to selling out of all copies of that album. Yet, as often happens in the world, the desire for something not in circulation led to the phenomenon of used copies commanding higher prices in secondhand markets. The prices continued to rise as Hitomi Nishiyama’s popularity continued to grow. While original pressings of CDs, as with LPs, have their own intrinsic value, it goes without saying that it’s a good thing if the “music software”, even rare recordings, could always be available to be purchased at reasonable prices. The fact that this original recording is being released again after seven years is undoubtedly good news to many fans.

Hitomi Nishiyama was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1979 and started studying classical piano at the age of six. She first encountered jazz in her third year of high school. Her curiosity was triggered by listening to albums by Bill Evans and Chick Corea, and she continued on to take jazz piano classes at Osaka Junior College of Music. While studying, she started to engage in performances and hone her basic skills. The turning point for her career came after graduation when she discovered Enrico Pieranunzi. She became fascinated by the Italian master, studying his compositions thoroughly and incorporating his music into her own repertoire. This led to a style that was rare in Japan, becoming a boon to Nishiyama and Enrico Pieranunzi both. Nishiyama had been conducting live performing centered around her original songs since 2003 and was someone who wasn’t yet well-known among the general public at the time. Still, the following year, she felt the desire to record an album of all original songs as an account of who she was at the time. I heard from Nishiyama that she still had a special attachment for this album and would like to reissue it in some form, so I am pleased that this marriage with DIW Records has resulted in a commemorative release of this cherished album. The original album seemed to invite good fortune, and the following year the group was awarded the Grand Prix at the 2005 Yokohama Jazz Promenade Competition. This was a boost to her career and led to the album Cubium mentioned earlier. Her first independent release album was in August 2004, and her first recording in Stockholm was in May 2006. In just under two years, she had progressed to the next level with expanded horizons opening up. In 2007, her second Stockholm recording, Many Seasons, was released. I was able to accompany her then as a journalist gathering material. The release of In Stockholm, a live recording made at the same time, and Parallax, a recording with her regular Japanese trio with an additional member, resulted in four albums being produced by Spice of Life within two years. During that time, she moved her base of operations to Tokyo, and her experience was broadened and deepened through interactions with many other musicians. Her accumulated efforts in composing music resulted in the honor of winning third place in the International Songwriting Competition 2009 (USA) in the jazz category for her song “Unfolding Universe”, demonstrating her world-class ability in composition.

This album opens with “This I Promise You” and its theme of key changes and repeated modulation, followed by the gracefully melodic “Passato”, a story emerging from the motif of “Blue Nowhere”, and continues on to convey Nishiyama’s sincere admiration for Enrico Pieranunzi in “Epigraph”. The beautiful melodies continue in “Sand Castle” where time flows freely, leaving a particularly strong impression of her excellent sense of composition. This reissue also includes three bonus tracks, previously unreleased trio performances from the Jazz Promenade event. This marks the point where Hitomi Nishiyama’s distinctive talent started to bloom.

—Hiroki Sugita, June 2011

Obi Notes

Pianist/composer Hitomi Nishiyama achieved the great honor of placing third in the International Songwriting Competition 2009 (ISC), one of the world’s largest composition contests. Her first album I’m Missing You, considered to be the origin of her career and international recognition, is finally here!