Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Satoko Fujii: Mosaic

6

Satoko Fujii: Mosaic

By

View read count
Satoko Fujii: Mosaic
Another Covid-19 pandemic year, 2021, seems to have brought about a revival of Japanese pianist Satoko Fuji's duo work, with her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura on Keishin, and with vibraphonist Taiko Saito—a pairing dubbed "Futari"—on Underground and Beyond. All three discs are on Libra Records. As the year winds down, she teams once again with Tamura, and brings another artist, Takashi Itani, into their duo orbit, to form a piano trio of sorts, in a group they call "This Is It!," to create Mosaic.

Since Fujii and Tamura, being married, "dwell in the same domicile" (using Covid-speak here), their part of the recording went down in the same room, Fujii's piano practice room in Kobe, Japan. Itani did his part four hundred miles away, in Tokyo, via the internet. It must have been a challenge, since we are talking about spontaneous improvisation here. But the results are a rousing success.

The music is joyful and fresh, multi-layered and unpredictable, life-affirming and daring. Mosaic by any measure would surely be labeled as avant-garde. That is how Fujii rolls. But more and more over the years her artistry has achieved a gathering approachability, a melodic grace combined with bursting "out there" excursions featuring breaking glass piano eruptions, Tamura's groaning, wind-breaking, quacking duck trumpet noise which rotates with interludes of straight ahead blowing, beside Itani's rattles and clanks which sound like a cook in a madcap kitchen, when he is not providing seismic rock backdrops.

The music waxes and wanes, moments of pensiveness sit beside riotous assaults. Sometimes you are in the eye of the hurricane, sometimes you are in the full force gale. For those of a religious frame of mind, there is a saying, "Let go and let God." With this music in mind we could well paraphrase that and say: "Let go and let Fujii, and "This Is It!" and Mosaic. And ride that wave.

Track Listing

Habana's Dream; Dieser Zug; Kumazemi; Sleepless Night; 76 RH.

Personnel

Album information

Title: Mosaic | Year Released: 2022 | Record Label: Libra Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.