Satoko Fujii: Torrent

  Blessed with a fecund musical imagination and fleet fingers wedded to impeccable technique plus formidable determination, the prolific pianist Satoko Fujii is at her best on Torrent. The pandemic limited her to playing at home, either solo or with her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. This solo piano recital was recorded in the municipal theater in Iwo City, Japan, and was totally spontaneous. As she notes, after the restrictions due to Covid, she says she feels “more comfortable now playing unaccompanied. It’s like looking down into myself.” The audience, both in Iyo City and now at home, reaps the benefits of her introspection. Besides playing the piano at home, she must have done a fair amount of experimentation with pedals and playing the insides of the instrument. Some of the sounds she produces for this concert are other-worldly, almost electronic in places. The use of extended techniques is most pronounced on the endlessly fascinating Cut the Painter, with manipulation of the strings, bangs on different parts of the instrument, and a curious drone effect, plus gentle melodies from the keyboard. All of her music is wildly unpredictable, as short phrases lead to dense passages and calm sections are contrasted with turbulent bursts of sound. Light on the Sea Surface is one of the more impressive pieces on the program. In the first half, a constant flow of ripples from the right hand is contrasted with some heavy and dark chords from the left hand. The second half of the performance is somewhat solemn, with lots of silence and more strong work at the bass end of the piano. The track ends with a thunderous attack, heavy on the bass, before dissolving into silence. The first few minutes of the peaceful Horizon combine a gentle melody with occasional light strums directly on the piano’s strings. Slowly, the music becomes more aggressive and stormy. The finale, Wave Crest, starts out with a call-and-response pattern between the two hands. The approach is reminiscent of Cecil Taylor’s solo performances, both at the start and as the piece evolves into dense and busy flurries of notes in a sumptuous display of Fujii’s formidable and occasionally forbidding playing. Torrent is a total triumph, beautifully recorded, and a journey worth savoring again and again. 

Libra 201-072; Satoko Fujii (p); Iyo City, Japan, October 10, 2022; Torrent/ Voyage/ Light on the Sea Surface/ Cut the Painter/ Horizon/ Wave Crest; 52:56. satokofujii.bandcamp.com www.librarecords.com

Ikue Mori/Satoko Fujii + Natsuki Tamura: Prickly Pear Cactus (Pandemic duos and trios, #2)

  Ikue Mori/Satoko Fujii + Natsuki Tamura have their own file-trading project, Prickly Pear Cactus. Step right into their world of bleeps, bloops, distorted piano, and a myriad of other-worldly noises on the opening title track, where electronic musician Mori and pianist Fujii are joined by Fujii’s husband, the audacious trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. It’s the kind of onslaught that separates the potential audience into those who are merely curious and those who are thrilled by the passionate creativity that’s displayed. Count me among the fiercely committed, open to whatever weirdness these radically adventuresome players provide. The blend of Fujii’s piano musings, full of surprising leaps and startling shifts in tempo, with Mori’s everything but the kitchen sink electronics is unusually absorbing. Tamura’s bravura trumpet stylings add another layer of craziness to the proceedings on four tracks. With Fujii and Tamura at home in Kobe City, Japan, and Mori at home in New York, the pieces evolved in various ways, with Mori providing the final mix and edits. The line between composition and improvisation, shaky at best in a wide variety of situations, becomes more blurred in the deliberate and time-delayed nature of the file sharing process. Even more than usual with improvised music, a blow-by-blow description of the music on Prickly Pear Cactus would be totally beside the point. So I’ll just say that Prickly Pear Cactus is a gas, and one of the few positive ramifications of the Earth’s plague year. Great on headphones, too! 

Libra 203-062; Natsuki Tamura (tpt on *) Satoko Fujii (p) Ikue Mori (elec); NYC (Mori) & Kobe City (Fujii & Tamura), 2020; Prickly Pear Cactus*/ Sweet Fish/ Guerrilla Rain/ Mountain Stream*/ Overnight Mushroom/ Empty Factory/ In the Water*/ Turning/ Muddy Stream*/ Sign; 53:50. librarecords.com

Gato Libre: Koneko

    The current incarnation of Gato Libre is a trio with trumpeter/composer Natsuki Tamura, accordionist Satoko Fujii, and trombonist Yasuko Kaneko. Koneko, recorded last December, begins with Kaineko. Tamura’s plaintive trumpet and Kaneko’s mournful trombone trade lines to begin, with Fujii’s touchingly fragile accordion joining in. The nearly seven minutes of the tune take them through a maze of musical locales. There are passages of frenzy and others of peaceful co-existence as the trio creates a wholly original soundworld based on Tamura’s seemingly simple concoctions. The eight pieces on the disc unfold as a sort of suite, a long round of solos, duos, and trios. Tamura has said that he wants the “improvisations of the band to carry the atmosphere of the compositions, which is serene and calm.” In its own relatively quiet and slowly paced way, the music on Koneko can be surprisingly intense. With carefully recorded sound that’s fully revealing of the nuances of each instrument, and the often startling beauty of the music, Koneko is an exceptional listening experience. Highly recommended. 

Libra 103-060; Natsuki Tamura (tpt) Yasuko Kaneko (tbn) Satoko Fujii (acc); Tokyo, Japan, December 5, 2019; Kaineko/ Noraneko/ Yamaneko/ Koneko/ Ieneko/ Bakeneko/ Doraneko/ Kanbanneko; 51:18. www.librarecords.com

 

Mahobin: Live At Big Apple In Kobe

Mahobin literally means “magic bottle” in Japanese and is used as the word for a Thermos bottle. To keep the musical proceedings both hot and magical, Satoko Fujii is using it as the name of a new quartet with Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Lotte Anker on saxophone, and Ikue Mori on electronics. Their first release, and the eighth in Fujii’s 2018 marathon, is Live At Big Apple In Kobe. The disc offers a free-wheeling soundscape conjured by Tamura’s brash trumpet, Anker’s passionately fluid sax, Fujii’s complex piano stylings, and the utter unpredictability of Mori’s electronic manipulations. It all makes for an indescribable brew with new adventures in improvisation coming at you all the time. Most of the disc’s time is given over to a piece that they call Rainbow Elephant, an instantaneous concoction that finds its own balance in a natural blend of solo and collective improvisation. The comparatively brief Yellow Sky is edgier, a sort of sonic game with the players maneuvering to bounce the listener’s focus quickly from event to event. It all sounds like it was a great night for improvising at the Big Apple, with music now happily available for repeated home enjoyment.
Libra 204-050; Natsuki Tamura (tp) Lotte Anker (sax) Satoko Fujii (p) Ikue Mori (elec); Kobe, Japan, February 23, 2018; Rainbow Elephant/ Yellow Sky; 49:32. www.librarecords.com

Kaze: Atody Man

Satoko Fujii’s 60th birthday marathon continues with Atody Man, six tunes performed by Kaze, a coöp quartet with trumpeters Christian Pruvost and Natsuki Tamura and drummer Peter Orins joining Fujii on piano. Fujii seems to delight in unconventional instrumental groupings, and this lineup practically insures that no one is in their comfort zone, even after several previous releases and tours. Brassmen Pruvost and Tamura begin Orins’ composition Hypnotique Sympathie with long tones, in unison at first but slowly diverging. Fujii’s piano enters the music carefully at the 5 minute mark, with minimal accompaniment from drummer Orins. The sparse soundscape soon grows fuller and more heated as the trumpeters compete for space over an increasingly engaged piano and drums. Something like a groove eventually emerges in this curiously episodic piece. Orins’ fractured drumming takes the lead on Fujii’s Moving, an over-long excursion that includes a gritty trumpet duet, boldly dynamic pianistics from Fujii, and calmly sympathetic percussion work. The curious Méta-blizzard is another Orins composition. The music is very quiet and edgy to start, slowly developing into a trumpet showcase with clattery piano and drums before arriving at an actual melody with a quickened tempo and a feeling of hurried exuberance. By now, it should be quite clear that the only constant in the music of Kaze is continual change. As a listener, just when you think you have a good handle on what’s going on, the music shifts and moves in a new and wholly unexpected direction. Tempos stagger, the lead voice changes almost imperceptibly, themes emerge briefly only to be discarded, and the players frequently coax unusual timbres from their instruments. The quartet’s interplay is impressive, but for me the music of Kaze, while effective and admirable, is not necessarily lovable. Still, it’s definitely worth a listen.
Circum-disc/Libra 204; Christian Pruvost, Natsuki Tamura (tp) Satoko Fujii (p) Peter Orins (d); New Haven, CT, June 24, 2017; Hypnotique Sympathie/ Moving/ Méta-blizzard/ Morning Glow/ Inspiration 2/ Atody Man; 69:17. www.librarecords.com; circum-disc.com

Satoko Fujii: Solo

The prolific pianist/composer Satoko Fujii is celebrating her 60th birthday year with a deluge of music in the “CD of the month marathon.” The feast begins with her solo piano performance in Yawatahama, Japan, simply titled Solo. As she notes, the concert was performed with no particular program in mind. She writes that the “preparation might be that I’ve played piano for 55 years, over 30 of them as a professional musician.” Her music is intensely focused, frequently expressed in a calmly ruminative style, as if she’s never quite sure what she’s going to play next but confident in the suitability of whatever she comes up with. She’s also unafraid to utilize the totality of the piano as instrument, with her keyboard and pedal work punctuated by taps on the outside and direct string manipulation on the inside. Her relaxed approach to the solo situation results in extended investigations of older pieces including the opening Inori, first performed in a quartet from 2005, the dramatic Spring Storm, from a 2013 trio release, and Gen Himmel, premiered on a solo recording in 2012. The most energetic piece is a new one, the torrential Up Down Left Right. This concert in a small city in the southwestern part of Ehime Prefecture came about because of a simple wish by self-described music lover Mitsuru Itani. It was his “secret wish” to hear “Fujii play solo - on a concert grand piano, if possible a Steinway D274.” His liner notes describe the process of making his dream come true, and his reward, and ours too, is this gem of creative musicianship. Arigato, Mitsuru Itani, for making your secret wish a reality.
Libra 201-046; Satoko Fujii (p); Yawatahama, Japan, July 9, 2017; Inori/ Geradeaus/ Ninepin/ Spring Storm/ Gen Himmel/ Up Down Left Right/ Moonlight; 66:10. www.librarecords.com