Jazz Articles about Satoko Fujii

About Satoko Fujii

Album Review

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio: Dream a Dream

Read "Dream a Dream" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
April 1, 2025

Ormai da diversi anni ricevere e ascoltare a ritmo battente nuovi lavori di Satoko Fujii è un'abitudine che peraltro, salvo rarissimi casi, ci risulta sempre gradita. L'occhio della pianista nipponica verso la musica, con o senza il suo pendant fisiologico, Natsuki Tamura, possiede infatti una profondità, un'intenzionalità di gesto, e ovviamente concettuale, che le consentono di produrre dischi sempre con una loro cifra stilistica, un'identità, ben precise. Qui è all'opera il Tokyo Trio, già protagonista lo scorso anno ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii: Altitude 1100 Meters

Read "Altitude 1100 Meters" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
March 25, 2025

Even after over one hundred leadership dates, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii still finds new avenues down which to take her invigorating music. For the first time she has composed for a string ensemble, though the inclusion of her own piano, as well as the drums of regular collaborator Akira Horikoshi, swiftly usher this set out of the chamber and into a more utilitarian space. The suite of five pieces was written during a sojourn in the highlands at the titular ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio: Dream a Dream

Read "Dream a Dream" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 18, 2025

Pianist Satoko Fujii's artistic vision has held a sharp focus since her recording debut in the late '90s. She has maintained that focus in almost every jazz ensemble configuration imaginable. That unwavering focus, combined with a superhuman creative momentum, has resulted--as of 2025--in a discography of more than a hundred albums. She has been especially effective in her work with the piano trio format, opening up that door via her Satoko Fujii Trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black, on ...

Album Review

Natsuki Tamura, Satoko Fujii, Ramon Lopez: Yama Kawa Umi

Read "Yama Kawa Umi" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
March 5, 2025

Il batterista franco-spagnolo Ramon Lopez, uno dei più personali della scena avant, specificatamente in quel suo approccio che definiremmo “tellurico" all'elemento percussivo, senza per questo mai esondare, si inserisce--si innesta, meglio ancora--su un duo d'arte e di vita largamente collaudato come quello formato da Satoko Fujii e Natsuki Tamura, generando un dialogo a tre voci decisamente sui generis, per la libertà che lo informa, a partire dal modo in cui vengono ribaltate le usuali gerarchie esistenti fra i tre strumenti ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii GEN: Altitude 1100 Meters

Read "Altitude 1100 Meters" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 1, 2025

With over a hundred album releases in her discography, featuring solo outings and big band bashes and everything in between, pianist-composer Satoko Fujii could be thought to have “done it all." But there was a missing link. Strings. Though she had recorded in duet outings with violinists Mark Feldman and Carla Kihlstedt, she had never written for or worked with a string ensemble. Always (always, always always) up for a challenge, she convened a group she called GEN, Japanese for ...

Album Review

Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii / Ramon Lopez: Yama Kawa Umi

Read "Yama Kawa Umi" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
January 7, 2025

In a nearly thirty-year career, Satoko Fujii (pianist, bandleader, composer, provocateur, sonic experimenter in the first degree) has shown herself to be one of the most daring and uncompromising artists in music. In a way, she is like Thelonious Monk in that--upon an initial experience with Monk's music (and Fujii's)--the uninitiated may not know quite what to make of what they are hearing, because neither of these artists follows a rule book. They were/are themselves. Best advice to those unfamiliar: ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii: Dog Days Of Summer

Read "Dog Days Of Summer" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
December 29, 2024

With its aggressively pushy opener, full of attitude, the reunion of Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii's Quartet, last heard on Bacchus (MZCO, 2007), seems to be asking: “well, did you miss us?" Certainly there is no missing the foursome on Dog Days Of Summer, completed by regular partner Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, along with the snarling electric bass of Hayakawa Takeharu and the bombastic drums of Tatsuya Yoshida of progressive rock duo Ruins fame. Although the PR material ...