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Alister Spence and Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: Imagine Meeting You Here
by Dan McClenaghan
The year 2018 saw two “sounds-you've-never-heard-before" collaborations between Australian composer/pianist/electronics master Alister Spence and Japanese pianist/bandleader Satoko Fujii, the duo recording Intelstat (Alister Spence Music), and Kira Kira (Libra Records) by the Fujii quartet Bright Force. These recordings were part of Fujii's “one CD release per month" celebration of her sixtieth birthday year. The duo opened 2019 with the Spence-led Imagine Meeting You Here, featuring the Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe, one of many (it's hard to keep count) ...
Continue ReadingAlister Spence / Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: Imagine Meeting You Here
by Karl Ackermann
On the heels of a monthly release year, celebrating her sixtieth birthday, Satoko Fujii takes no break as she dives into a new year. Imagine Meeting You Here is a five-part suite for Fujii's improvising Orchestra Kobe. The compositions are by pianist Alister Spence, who acts as producer and conductor of the fifteen-member ensemble. The suite premiered with Fujii's orchestra in Kobe, Nagoya and Tokyo in 2016 and was performed by the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra later that year. Orchestra Kobe ...
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii: The Kanreki Project
by Franz A. Matzner
Over four decades of experimentation, Satoko Fujii has made a lasting mark on the contours of modern jazz. The wave after wave of expressive force she has unleashed emanate from the aesthetics of her home country, but are never bound exclusively to it. They form a distinctive sound belonging only to her, yet comprised of wide-ranging influences drawn from the furthest reaches of the global free jazz movement. In 2018, Fujii turned sixty years old. In Japanese tradition, ...
Continue ReadingBig in Japan, Part 3: Satoko Fujii’s Year of Living Dangerously
by Karl Ackermann
In the first two parts of this series we looked at the origins of jazz in Japan and its adherence to the American style of composing, arranging and playing. Though jazz has been popular in Japan from the earliest days, it was--as in the United States--hardly met with unanimous approval in a country that prized classical and indigenous folk music. Yamada Kôsaku, Japan's best-known composer and conductor of the '20s through the '40s, disparaged jazz as “noisy and obscene." The ...
Continue ReadingJohn Sharpe's Best Releases Of 2018
by John Sharpe
Here are 12 new releases which stood out among the 200 or so discs that I heard this year, in no particular order. It's worth noting that Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii set herself the challenge to release a CD every month during 2018, to mark the milestone of her 60th birthday. Her output has been so remarkably consistent that a whole Year End list could be given over to her alone. I've reluctantly restricted myself to just two.
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii Orchestra Tokyo: Kikoeru - Tribute to Masaya Kimura
by Karl Ackermann
Satoko Fujii closes out the celebration of her sixtieth birthday with her final monthly album of 2018, Kikoeru: Tribute to Masaya Kimura. This album is more than a celebration of one life; it's a cathartic, full-circle tribute to lives that have touched the composer and been integral to her music. This sixth recording from Fujii's Orchestra Tokyo is the most powerful and accessible entry from the collective. Except for two changes in the reed and brass sections, and the absence ...
Continue ReadingAlister Spence / Satoko Fujii: Intelsat
by Glenn Astarita
This is the ninth of twelve CDs celebrating leading-edge pianist, composer Satoko Fujii's 60th birthday. On this album Fujii and Australian keyboardist Alistir Spence (Barre Phillip, Myra Melford) perform a series of over-the-top duets in front of a live audience in 2017 at the Intelstat jazz venue in Kiracho, Nishio, Japan. The artists first met when Fuji and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura toured Australia in 2007, leading to subsequent collaborations. The duo's charismatic alliance is teeming with unbridled resourcefulness. ...
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