Jazz Articles about Satoko Fujii

Satoko Fujii Orchestra: Blueprint

by Jerry D'Souza
January 22, 2005

Ideas flow by the brimful for Satoko Fujii. If her spate of recordings is not enough evidence, then take a look at the bands she heads. There's the Orchestra East and the Orchestra West (divided between Japan and the USA), the trio with Jim Black and Mark Dresser, her Quartet, and her solo work. You get the picture. Her new venture is with the New York big band, which comes full circle in a dazzling display of composition and improvisation.

Satoko Fujii Orchestra: Blueprint

by Dan McClenaghan
January 15, 2005

Japanese-born pianist Satoko Fujii's Blueprint, featuring her New York Orchestra, opens with the title cut, a hard-driving, dark-toned, stop-time tune full of gathering momentum and menace, giving the impression of a world plummeting in the direction of chaos--though it never quite goes there. It's the same feeling one gets in listening to Dumas' “The Sorcerer's Apprentice," done most famously for the Disney film Fantasia --the sentient brooms relentlessly bringing buckets upon buckets of water, out of control but for their ...

Satoko Fujii Trio: Illusion Suite

by Jim Santella
November 3, 2004

Jazz's modern mainstream continues to grow with the help of creative artists such as those featured on this lively session. Pianist Satoko Fujii leads with a powerful force that captivates. Accessible for traditional bebop as well as avant-garde listeners, her music stirs the imagination. Scenes of various emotional themes cast a long shadow over the trio's work. Containing ample space between changes in mood, her interpretations have plenty of room to breathe.

Bassist Mark Dresser expresses with myriad ...

Satoko Fujii Trio: Illusion Suite

by Dan McClenaghan
September 11, 2004

Nobody does the piano trio thing like Satoko Fujii. Almost every other effort out there in this category can be related to Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner... to name just a few. With Fujii, the sound is a category of its own. Free, to be sure, with classical tinges, an the occasional influence of rock--though this is more apparent in her quartet work.I'll flip-flop here (to use a currently popular verb): though my first experience ...

Satoko Fujii: Sketches

by Jerry D'Souza
August 2, 2004

On her first solo record in eight years, Satoko Fujii gives free rein to her impulses. Her approaches are many and she constructs each piece with careful articulation. Her thoughts may run rampant or flow in placid ripple, but there is no denying that she brings in a strong technique that creates some magnetic moments.

Fujii makes judicious use of space. She can invent room so that they fall into the nooks she has shaped or drop clusters ...

Satoko Fujii: Sketches

by Jim Santella
July 3, 2004

At times drifting through the celestial ether, and as times roaring dramatically through the intense fires below, Satoko Fujii lets her ideas flow freely and spontaneously in real time. Improvising in its purist sense, she caresses her piano and coaxes the music out of it.

By employing repetition with each turn of ideas, the artist provides acceptable foundations upon which to build. Hence, the session turns out quite accessible. Fujii’s sketches tour the spectrum of natural wonders, ...

Satoko Fujii: Sketches

by Dan McClenaghan
June 23, 2004

Satoko Fujii begins her mornings at home with twenty minutes of piano improvisation. When I heard that, I wanted to find out where she lived, grab a good cup of coffee, find a seat on the sidwalk outside her window, and listen to her keyboard ruminations. The release of her Sketches gives us all the opportunity--without risking a loitering charge--to listen in to Fujii's lyrical and introspective solo musings. Satoko Fujii trained as a classical musician in her ...