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Tomas Fujiwara
He has worked as a leader of and composer for various ensembles, as a sideman, as a composer for theatre, film, and dance, and as a teacher and clinician. With "a quiet energy that propels" (All About Jazz) and a style that is "both volatile and watchful" (New York Times), Tomas' "alert drumming has propelled some excellent ensembles on the new-music landscape" (New York Times).
His current projects include: Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up, Taylor Ho Bynum / Tomas Fujiwara Duo (True Events, 482 Music, 2007, Upcoming release on Nottwo Records), The Thirteenth Assembly ((un)sentimental, Important Records, 2009), Taylor Ho Bynum Trio and Sextet (The Middle Picture, Firehouse 12, 2007, Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths, hatOLOGY, 2008, and Double Trio with the Stephen Haynes Trio, Engine Records, 2009), Matana Roberts' Mississippi Moonchile, Coin Coin, and Quartet (The Calling, Utech, 2006), Ideal Bread (Ideal Bread, KMB Jazz, 2008), The Throes (The Throes, CIMP, 2009), Matt Bauder's Day In Pictures, Positive Catastrophe (Garabatos Volume 1, Cuneiform Records, 2009), Red Baraat, Soo's Collage (Soo's Collage, Audioguy, 2006), Matt Welch's Blarvuster, Exegesis, and Aji No Moto.
Tomas has performed at venues and festivals across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East including The Moers Festival, Jazz Em Agosto, Tampere Jazz Happening, Rochester Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Suoni Popolo Festival, Urlichsberg Festival, Taktos Festival, Umbrella Festival, and Vision Festival. He has performed with Anthony Braxton, Arnie Lawrence, Joe Chambers, Norah Jones, Ravi Coltrane, Herbie Mann, Makanda Ken McIntyre, Mike Longo, Jimmy Greene, Joe Morris, Roy Campbell, William Parker, Burnt Sugar, Vernon Reid, Butch Morris, David Murray, Warren Smith, Irene Aebi, Kwaku Kwakye Obeng, Nicole Mitchell, and Vijay Iyer.
In 2008, Tomas toured the Middle East as part of the U.S. State Department / Lincoln Center program, The Rhythm Road. From 2000-2005, Tomas was a cast member of both the touring (2000-2003) and New York (2003-2005) companies of the Off Broadway hit STOMP.
As a teacher, Tomas has taught workshops, master classes, and drum clinics throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as well as private instruction for over 10 years.
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Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts
by Doug Collette
Since Mary Halvorson began her prolific affiliation with Nonesuch Records, she has refused to repeat herself except with a purpose. The simultaneous release of Amaryllis & Belladonna (Nonesuch Records, 2022) was the precursor to the expansive Cloudward (Nonesuch Records, 2024), while About Ghosts represents a retrenchment, albeit a productive one. On five of these eight cuts, the identical Amaryllis Sextet that appeared on the latter LP interacts smoothly with guest saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins and Brian Settles. Such synchrony ...
Continue ReadingAdam O'Farrill: For These Streets
by John Sharpe
With For These Streets, trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill presents a sharply contoured, richly imagined statement for mid-sized band--his most complete vision to date. Drawing on an eclectic range of influences, from 1930s-era music, literature and film to the rhythms of contemporary urban life, O'Farrill leads a wily crew of his peers through a program that moves with narrative cohesion. Though not a suite in the formal sense, the album unfolds like one, the pieces linked by emotional throughlines and ...
Continue ReadingAdam O'Farrill: For These Streets
by Mark Corroto
Trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill distills a heady mix of inspirations into For These Streets, the debut release from his new octet. Drawing on music, literature and the ambiance of the 1930s, the album reflects his immersion in the era--Henry Miller's prose, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, and the sonic worlds of Stravinsky, Ravel, Carlos Chávez and Kurt Weill. None of this background is necessary to appreciate the music, nor is it mentioned in the packaging. But knowing it adds a ...
Continue ReadingMary Halvorson: About Ghosts
by Mike Jurkovic
It has become more than an urban legend that Brooklyn's genius-in-residence Mary Halvorson is supernaturally up to something. Some new route around something else. On her second resiliency test of the year--her first, the fiery Bone Bells (Pyroclastic, 2025) alongside hot-house pianist Sylvie Courvoisier still rattles the playlist--Halvorson's About Ghosts tells of wide open spaces with a wide open lens. Its intricate inner architecture is so comfortably ethereal that you sway freely within its charm and frenzy. About ...
Continue ReadingAdam O'Farrill: For These Streets
by Angelo Leonardi
Con questo nuovo disco Adam O'Farrill scrive una delle pagine più avvincenti del 2025, confermando di non essere solo un magistrale trombettista ma un compositore d'alto spessore anche per medio organico. Nei quattro album col quartetto Stranger Days, ha dimostrato di saper integrare con coerenza le forme del post bop degli anni sessanta con gli sviluppi delle avanguardie successive e in questo ottetto stellare prosegue, ampliando lo spettro armonico e timbrico con l'uso di vibrafono (Patricia Brennan), chitarra ...
Continue ReadingTomeka Reid Quartet: 3+3
by Chris May
Jazz cello has come a long way since Fred Katz's pioneering work with Chico Hamilton in the 1950s. Back then, the instrument was looked on as a novelty turn. In 2024, while still relatively avant-garde, its presence in a lineup is less exceptional. A pivotal point was American cellist Adbul Wadud's By Myself (Bishara, 1977), an album Tomeka Reid has acknowledged as an inspiration, and which may have played a part in her transition from classical music to jazz around ...
Continue ReadingMary Halvorson: Cloudward
by Doug Collette
The title of guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's Cloudward alludes to the sense of optimism she has stated she felt when writing the bulk of the material in fall of 2022. And while this palpable sense of faith in the future is in marked contrast to the tangible air of eerie foreboding that surfaced so often on this LP's predecessors, the presence of largely the same personnel lineup--the Amaryllis Sextet-- provides a stable link of continuity. The reappearance of prior collaborators recording ...
Continue ReadingJazz At Atlas Kicks Off 2019 Season With Thumbscrew
Source:
James Keepnews
This cooperative project features a trio of gifted musicians and composers—guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer/percussionist Tomas Fujiwara—performing their own compositions and selected standards with an exacting prowess wed to a liberated swing that is glorious to behold. Thumbscrew performs on Saturday, March 30 at 8 PM. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door—advance tickets are on sale now. Atlas Studios is located at 11 Spring St. in Newburgh, NY. Ample onsite parking is available. ...
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Jazz this week: SFJAZZ Collective, Bill Frisell, Tomas Fujiwara's The Hook Up, and more
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features three noteworthy touring acts with widely disparate styles, plus a couple of Sunday big band performances, some free jazz, some vintage swing, and more. Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, April 26 The SFJAZZ Collective opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. The all-star ensemble's featured composer this year is Miles Davis, and they'll be performing a repertoire drawn from their latest ...
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Interview: Tomas Fujiwara
Source:
Ars Nova Workshop
For our final concert of the year, Ars Nova Workshop presents a fantastic double-bill with Ideal Bread and Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook- Up. A former student of legendary drummer Alan Dawson, Fujiwara has worked with artists such as Anthony Braxton, William Parker and Vijay Iyer. Fujiwara's quintet The Hook Up – with Brian Settles, Mary Halvorson, Jonathan Finlayson, and Danton Boller—released their first record, Actionspeak, on 482 Music earlier this year. Fresh off the road from several dates with ...
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Tomas Fujiwara and the Hook up - Actionspeak (2010)
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Something Else!
By Mark Saleski Many years ago, while stuck in traffic during the evening commute, I heard a radio segment on microtonal composer Easely Blackwood. I had read about things like microtones, 24-note equal tunings, and the like, but somehow none of the music had ever made it's way into my ears. Some of the pieces played that evening were so striking to my ears, so otherworldly, that I almost had to pull over onto the side of the road to ...
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Tomas Fujiwara Exploring the Drums' Potential as an Orchestra in Miniature
Source:
Michael Ricci
The drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting.
Over the last five years he has established a busy profile on the experimental end of the jazz spectrum, where such perspective is vital; before that he was a cast member of “Stomp," the polymorphously percussive Off Broadway show. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting ...
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Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara CD Coming on 482 Music
Source:
Improvised Communications
On February 27th, 482 Music will kick off its 2007 release schedule with True Events (482-1052), a recording of duets by cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. These longtime collaborators first worked together 15 years ago while still in high school, and have since performed together hundreds of times in a variety of ensembles. “I feel like I can anticipate what Tomas is going to play," says Bynum of their relationship in the liner notes, “yet I'm continually ...
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Photos
Music
Pack Up, Coming for You
From: MarchBy Tomas Fujiwara
Walls and Roses
From: Artlessly FallingBy Tomas Fujiwara
