Satoko Fujii: Message

Even within the remarkably consistent output of prolific Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii, certain ensembles command special attention. The This Is It! Trio —named for her conviction that the group represented an ideal working unit has become one such forum. Message, the trio's third release, reunites Fujii with her crew -husband and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and drummer Takashi Itani -for a program that underscores her strengths as both composer and catalytic improviser. Unlike in some of her other bands with the same format, Fujii's inventive charts play a dominant role. Here, structure and spontaneity converge with a deliberation that gives the music its tensile drama.

Fujii's writing fuels the action. The thematic materials appear in shifting guises -sometimes as fleeting hints that bloom into full statements only at the end (the appropriately named "Cryptography"), sometimes as the anchor for Itani's propulsive fever dreams ("Never Mind"), occasionally as bookends that frame more open explorations ("Message"). What distinguishes the trio is how consistently all three musicians draw from the composed elements when shaping their improvisations. Fujii's command of color and voicing, even with the spare instrumentation, allows her to orchestrate the ensemble in ever-changing permutations. She mines the contrast between prepared and unprepared piano, between crystalline melodicism and gestural abstraction, with the clarity of a composer who understands how detail animates form.

Itani accentuates the character of each piece through sharply differentiated timbres; "Falafel Feast," with its crisp snare and tabla-like thuds, becomes a study in percussive contour. Tamura, a master of expressive nuance, deploys his vocabulary of half-valve cries, slobbered smears, and burnished tones with playful purpose rather than novelty. His unconventional sonorities are never ends in themselves but threads woven into the ensemble fabric. Fujii, typically mindful of architectural considerations, still finds abundant room for personal dazzle -from prepared-piano salvos to thunderous crescendos and precisely etched lyric lines.

The pianist's sense of design ensures that no piece unfolds predictably. The closing "Orange Flicker" exemplifies this quality, opening with Itani's bowed vibraphone and moving toward a spare, almost pentatonic theme echoed by Fujii's chiming intervals and Tamura's vibrato-rich commentary. As the central melody swells, the ensemble recedes, leaving the vibraphone alone to articulate a conclusion at once unexpected and quietly affecting.

Message reaffirms the Trio as one of Fujii's most incisive vehicles. The album distills the attributes that have defined her work for decades- -rigorous composition, fearless improvisation, and an ever-expanding palette of sonic possibility—into a compact statement that both intrigues and inspires and ensures the group does indeed continue to be it!