Jazz Articles about Satoko Fujii

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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 ...

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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, ...

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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 ...

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Satoko Fujii Quartet: Zephyros

by Jerry D'Souza
April 6, 2004

Satoko Fujii has the capability of making music in several different contexts and breathing life into each one of them. She is back with her quartet for a third album—and if hope springs eternal, that hope is fully realised. The elements of surprise and change are the constants which make listening to her and her band well worth anticipating.

Fujii likes to compose at a tangent. There are no straight-ahead manifestations in her writing. Whatever the approach, ...

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Satoko Fujii Quartet: Zephyros

by Jim Santella
March 4, 2004

Swirling with unbridled energy, Satoko Fujii’s quartet forges ahead with creative improvised music that swings. Jazz has to grow. Here’s an ensemble of forward-looking artists who assure us that it will.

Natsuki Tamura’s open trumpet provides a warm and resolute companionship to the pianist’s highly charged dynamism. Fujii moves around the grand piano’s polished keyboard fluidly, finding natural ways to express various themes. Suite-like, her compositions serve the imagination in much the same way that abstract art ...

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Satoko Fujii Quartet: Zephyros

by Dan McClenaghan
February 25, 2004

The opening cut on Zephyros, “The Future of the Past," rumbles in like a thunderstorm, full of bass/drum thunder and scattered piano precipitation, cold rain and spatterings of hail, sudden downpours and sharp cracklings of shattering icicles, a prelude to the eye-of-the-storm, ruminative bass solo full of dark omens and sporadic raindrops punctuating the warning. Meet the Satoko Fujii Quartet. Checking Fujii's biography on her web site, you'll read that her music combines elements of jazz ...

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Satoko Fujii Orchestra--East: Before the Dawn

by Dan McClenaghan
September 25, 2003

Settling down in an easy chair and pushing the play button to spin a Satoko Fujii disc is an experience akin to climbing aboard and plunging into a musical version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride: careening along a swerving and uncertain path, jerking into spine-jolting ninety degree turns, dipping, climbing, slowing onto the familiar smooth straightaway, where you're unexpectedly assaulted by jarring phenomena. This is especially true of her large ensemble work. Before the Dawn features, live in ...