Bassist Noriko Ueda was the B.E.S.T. scholarship recipient for the Berklee College of Music in Boston where she majored in Jazz Composition, graduating in 1997. After moving to New York, Noriko has performed at many historical jazz venues include “Carnegie Hall”, “Blue Note New York”,  “Jazz at Lincoln Center – Dizzy’s Club”, “John F. Kennedy Center”, “Hollywood Bowl”, “Birdland”, “Small’s” and “Blue Note Tokyo”.

She has performed, toured and recorded with various groups including the legendary “Frank Wess Quintet” and his Nonet, “Kenny Barron Quintet”, “ARTEMIS”, “Ted Rosenthal Trio”,  “The DIVA Jazz Orchestra”, “Five Play”, “Grady Tate Band”, “Harry Whitaker Band”, Makoto Ozone and Terumasa Hino.

Her first leader Trio album “DEBUT” features Ted Rosenthal (piano) and Quincy Davis (drums) has released from the Japanese record company “Terashima Records”.  Other highlights of her career include touring Japan with Ted Rosenthal Trio 13 times and his CD “Out of this World” which reached #1 on the national jazz radio charts and being featured on Japanese documentary TV show called “ Gutto Chikyu-bin” which introduced the life as a jazz musician in NYC.

Noriko was the winner of the third annual BMI Foundation’s Charlie Parker Jazz composition Prize for her original big band piece “Castle in the North”.