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Natsuki Tamura: Koki Solo
by Dan McClenaghan
In 1983, pop vocalist Cyndi Lauper said, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun." She probably still sings it. Trumpeter Natsuki Tamura has always wanted to have fun, too, playing--in his early days--jazz standards in Japanese clubs where hostesses in negligees sat at stage-side tables drinking room temperature tea masquerading as whiskey at the expense of ardent customers. From there, Tamura's artistry evolved to making trumpet noises that sound like a love sick duck, or a flatulent hedgehog (and so much ...
Continue ReadingNatsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii: Keshin
by Dan McClenaghan
The Covid-19 virus tightened its grip on the world in 2020, bringing the old “one door closes, another one opens" trope to mind. The door into touring, to presenting music in live venues, slammed shut. But the extra time afforded by the lack of live music opportunities let the recording studio doors swing wide open--especially in a time when the technology has made home studios a viable and relatively affordable option. Pianist Satoko Fujii's studio is located in ...
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii / Ramon Lopez / Natsuki Tamura: Mantle
by John Sharpe
Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii rarely stands still. When she and Spanish drummer Ramon Lopez toured Japan in 2019 on the back of their duo album Confluence (Libra, 2019), they took the opportunity to add Fujii's partner trumpeter Natsuki Tamura to the line up. To make things fresher still, they set themselves a challenge: to each write a new piece for the trio every day. Mantle, recorded in the studio the day after the tour concluded, collects their favorite numbers, three ...
Continue ReadingNatsuki Tamura, Satoko Fujii and Ramon Lopez: Mantle
by Troy Dostert
Trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii have made so many records together that it seems impossible to keep track of them all. Partners in life and in music, they have collaborated on everything from duo recordings to Fujii's large-scale orchestras. In 2020 alone, their Kaze quartet released Sandstorm (Circum-Disc) featuring electronics specialist Ikue Mori, and Mori teamed again with Fujii and Tamura on Prickly Pear Cactus (Libra). They also added another duo release, Pentas: A Tribute to Eric and ...
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii / Natsuki Tamura: Pentas: Tribute To Eric and Chris Stern
by Glenn Astarita
Unquestionable beauty and grace are two of many attributes that help define this pioneering duo's seventh duet album. Pianist/composer Satoko Fuji and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura enjoy acclaimed legacies as leaders. They are contributors to large and small ensembles often cast in futurisms, encompassing progressive jazz, neo-jazz, improvisation and offshoots of world music and indigenous folk. And on this release, their sonic explorations encapsulate gorgeous melodies, memorable hooks, and conventional processes that include symmetrical improvisational dialogues and song-based extensions.
Continue ReadingIkue Mori / Satoko Fujii / Natsuki Tamura: Prickly Pear Cactus
by Dan McClenaghan
Musical collaboration is problematic in Covid-19 times. Rubbing elbows with fellow musicians can translate to positive test results. But the music must roll on. At least that is how electronics wizard/laptopist Ikue Mori, pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura feel. Instead of getting together body and soul, the trio decided to swap sound files on the internet--Mori from her home base in New York, Fujii and Tamura from their household in Kobe, Japan. So sounds flowed across ...
Continue ReadingKaze: Sandstorm
by John Sharpe
French-Japanese cooperative Kaze continues to thrive on Sandstorm, its fifth release. This time out, the enduring line-up of pianist Satoko Fujii, trumpeters Natsuki Tamura and Christian Pruvost, and drummer Peter Orins, is supplemented by New York-based electronic artist Ikue Mori, on a program of seven cuts from a NYC studio session in February 2020. While previous albums have either presented charts from across the band or off-the-map explorations, here they combine both. Three short collectives separate four longer ...
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