Jazz Articles about Satoko Fujii

About Satoko Fujii

Album Review

Futari (Satoko Fujii / Taiko Saito): Beyond

Read "Beyond" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 10, 2021

Satoko Fujii has found a new sound. The prolific and always adventurous pianist-composer teams with vibraphonist Taiko Saito--tagging their duo Futari--for a beautifully surreal journey called Beyond. “Futari" means 'two people" in Japanese. The two people involved connected in the early 2000s, in Berlin, when Saito was a student at the Berlin University of the Arts. A friendship strengthened when Fujii and her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, moved to Berlin in 2011, settling under the vibraphonist's wings in ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii / Ramon Lopez / Natsuki Tamura: Mantle

by John Sharpe
December 24, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Natsuki Tamura, Satoko Fujii and Ramon Lopez: Mantle

by Troy Dostert
December 11, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii / Natsuki Tamura: Pentas: Tribute To Eric and Chris Stern

Read "Pentas: Tribute To Eric and Chris Stern" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 1, 2020

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.

Album Review

Ikue Mori / Satoko Fujii / Natsuki Tamura: Prickly Pear Cactus

Read "Prickly Pear Cactus" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
November 23, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Kaze: Sandstorm

Read "Sandstorm" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 16, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii / Natsuki Tamura: Pentas: Tribute To Eric and Chris Stern

Read "Pentas: Tribute To Eric and Chris Stern" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
November 4, 2020

Pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura came off a European tour in 2019 and went into the studio in Krakow, Poland, and recorded Pentas, their seventh duo disc, an effort that joins the Fujii/Tamura pairings How Many (Libra Records, 1997), Clouds (Libra Records, 2002), Like In Krakow, In November (Not Two Records, 2006), Chun (Libra Records, 2008), Muku (Libra Records, 2012) and Kisaragi (Libra Records, 2017). Freshness and adventurous spontaneity are the trademarks of Fujii's music, whether ...