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Jazz Articles about Natsuki Tamura
Natsuki Tamura: Dragon Nat
by Dave Wayne
The instrumentalist begins his career as, essentially, a solo artist. Whether is practicing long tones or scales or drum rudiments, nearly everyone who plays a musical instrument starts out unaccompanied. On the road to mastery, most musicians spend thousands of hours playing alone. In jazz, solo recordings by musicians other than pianists or guitarists are a relatively recent phenomenon, and the prospect of listening to a horn or drum soloist playing unaccompanied for an hour or more may seem daunting, ...
Continue ReadingNatsuki Tamura and Satoko Fujii: Muku
by Dave Wayne
It's surprising that trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii--partners in music and life--have only recorded five duet CDs during the course of their incredibly prolific and artistically fecund collaboration. As Fujii wryly explains in her liner notes, each of their duet recordings is different--some are entirely freely improvised, others consist solely of compositions written by either Fujii or Tamura. The location--an important metric in the Fujii/Tamura universe--of each duet recording has also been different. Recorded in New York City, ...
Continue ReadingNatsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii: Muku
by Dan McClenaghan
Trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii--partners in marriage and music--have an extensive discography together, spanning a broad array of ensemble configurations, from Fujii's calamitous big bands to Tamura's European folk song-flavored Gato Libre discs, and from Fujii's propulsive, window-rattling art rock quartets to Tamura's blistering electric quartet of Hada Hada (Libra Records, 2003). But it is in their simple duo of piano and trumpet, where they have recently created some of their most compelling music.Muko is the ...
Continue ReadingFirst Meeting: Cut the Rope
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Trumpeter Natsuki Tamura creates a vast expanse of sound on Cut the Rope, the first album recorded with his band First Meeting. Nothing is predictable on this wholly improvised album that ranges from aspects of a vision of being marooned on a desolate soundscape to the musicians ultimately finding their way into a melodic river of sound, after at first coming perilously close to losing all sense of direction. But Tamura is an expert guide: he wields his horn like ...
Continue ReadingGato Libre: Shiro
by AAJ Italy Staff
Il Gato Libre del trombettista Natsuki Tamura giunge al quarto capitolo confermando i caratteri di un'estetica transculturale che s'ispira alle musiche popolari europee per creare una sintesi dalle tinte radiose, giocata principalmente sulle suggestioni timbriche e la cantabilità melodica. Il primo nucleo del progetto era un duo costituito da Tamura e dal bassista Norikatsu Koreyasu. Dopo pochi concerti la formazione s'è ampliata al chitarrista acustico Kazuhiko Tsumura ed ha trovato la sua forma definitiva con l'ingresso di Satoko Fujii alla ...
Continue ReadingGato Libre: Shiro
by Dan McClenaghan
Japanese trumpeter Natsuki Tamura's name is most often mentioned in the press for his work with his wife, Satoko Fujii. The Japanese pianist casts a blinding light with her prolific output, and a fearless and unfettered musical vision. Tamura sits in as either a sideman or collaborator on many, if not most, of her CDs.If Fujii is superhuman in her output as a leader, Tarmura is closer to mortal, though no less adventurous. He has produced sets as ...
Continue ReadingJunk Box: Cloudy Then Sunny
by AAJ Italy Staff
L'ampiezza e la profondità della ricerca di Satoko Fujii lascia sempre ammirati, al punto che ogni suo disco esige una speciale considerazione. Autrice dei brani e ideatrice del progetto, la pianista giapponese è principale artefice di questo trio, giunto al secondo lavoro dopo il debutto nel 2006 con Fragment. Come spiega nelle note del disco, in quel lavoro Satoko ha iniziato a lavorare su un personale metodo di scrittura che include, accanto alle note, grafici e parole, e che lei ...
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