Jazz Articles about Satoko Fujii

About Satoko Fujii

Album Review

The year-long Satoko Fujii sixtieth-birthday project enters its final quarter in autumn 2018 with the stellar Weave. In a year of surprising and unusual releases, her newly assembled quartet--Amu--represents Fujii at her most unconventional yet accessible. The group includes Fujii's husband and frequent partner Natsuki Tamura on trumpet and percussion, drummer and percussionist Takashi Itani and percussive dancer Mizuki Wildenhahn. The mixed-media release consists of an audio disc and a DVD that features six of the seven audio pieces; the ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii: Triad

by Neri Pollastri
October 24, 2018

Tra la serie di dischi pubblicati, uno al mese, per festeggiare il compimento dei suoi sessant'anni, Satoko Fujii presenta anche questo Triad, registrato a Milano e uscito per l'italiana Long Song Records, che vede accanto a lei e al magnifico contrabbassista statunitense Joe Fonda il nostro Gianni Mimmo, che conferma di essere tra i migliori sassofonisti soprano e liberi improvvisatori in circolazione. Il lavoro, interamente improvvisato, si divide in cinque brani, quattro dei quali relativamente brevi (si va ...

Album Review

Alister Spence / Satoko Fujii: Intelsat

Read "Intelsat" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
September 30, 2018

Three quarters of the way through Satoko Fujii's year-long celebration of her sixtieth birthday, she once again moves in an unpredictable direction, this time in the company keyboardist Alister Spence. Having met in Australia in 2007, the two went on to record with the Raymond MacDonald International Big Band the following year. Intelsat marks the second meeting of Spence and Fujii in the year-long fête; their previous release Bright Force (Libra, 2018) was in Fujii's Kira Kira quartet. The Intelsat ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii: Live at Big Apple in Kobe

Read "Live at Big Apple in Kobe" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
August 26, 2018

Another new formation marks the eighth entry in the sixtieth-birthday series of monthly releases from Satoko Fujii. As part of the pianist's year long celebration, she has released albums as a solo performer, a duo (with Joe Fonda), a new trio configuration with Fonda and Italian saxophonist Gianni Mimmo and another with Tamura and drummer Takashi Itani. Add in her Kira Kira quartet and Orchestra Berlin and you get a sense of the multiplicity of creative avenues that Fujii explores. ...

Album Review

This is It!: 1538

by Jerome Wilson
August 9, 2018

For 2018, the year of her 60th birthday, pianist and composer Satoko Fujii has set herself the task of releasing a CD every month in all sorts of configurations, from solo piano and duos to small groups and orchestras. Her trio, This is It!, is a new group derived from an earlier quartet that featured bassist Todd Nicholson. Nicholson left, leaving behind a trio of Fujii on piano, her husband Natsuki Tamura on trumpet and Takashi Itani on drums which ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii / Joe Fonda: Mizu

by Karl Ackermann
July 29, 2018

Listening to Mizu, it is hard to believe that, just two years ago, Joe Fonda and Satoko Fujii were not only unacquainted with each other, but also with one another's music portfolios. With their Libra label debut Duet (2016) and their recent Libra trio collaboration Triad (2018) with saxophonist Gianni Mimmo, it rapidly became apparent that these very different innovators shared a common bond resulting in some very remarkable music. Mizu--the Japanese word for “water"--is the seventh installment ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii / Joe Fonda / Gianni Mimmo: Triad

by Mark Corroto
June 23, 2018

It's difficult to cherry pick recordings from pianist Satoko Fujii's 60th-year birthday celebration releases that are coming at us every month in 2018. There are solo recordings, sessions with her various jazz orchestras, duos, trios and quartets. Can you pinpoint her as a composer, arranger, or improviser? Yes, yes, and yes. She's accomplished in every aspect of jazz, from free to noted and folk to avant-garde. Her creative energies burn as brightly as that of David Murray in the 1990s, ...