Satoko Fujii: Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra

In an always courageous three-decade career, pianist Satoko Fujii's recorded output has never wavered. She excels at solo piano, duo outings—mostly with her life partner, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura—quartets, quintets, and lastly, big band/orchestral recordings. The one exception to the unwavering description is her big-band output. Entity (Libra Records) came out in 2019. Then a seven-year orchestral dry spell ensued. Blame this, in part, on the COVID-19 epidemic. But Fujii intends to make up for that lull in 2026, beginning with the archival release of Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra. Four more orchestral albums are in the works for the year.

Bunker Umwall, a converted WW2 air raid shelter in Bielefeld, Germany, was turned into a concert venue by Wolfgang Gross. It was here that Fujii and Gross brought together a large ensemble comprised of professionals and students for a concert. This double-CD offering—Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra, recorded in 2014—is the result.

Fujii in a big band mode can result in cacophonic assaults, musical street riots breaking windows and punching holes in the walls, juxtaposed with moments of reflection and spacious soundscapes. Or, consider a beach scene, an asymmetrical phalanx of seagulls standing on an expanse of white sand, blue water as a backdrop. A whisper of small surf drifts in on the cool air. An occasional squawk rises from the grounded gulls. A fan palm in a planter box behind the beach rustles, as a man, finished with his brown bag lunch, pulls an extra slice of bread from his bag and Frisbee flips it over the gathering of white birds. They explode in a cacophony of shrieks and chatters as a third of them—those in closest proximity to the prize—rise up on silent wings and fight for the prize. 

This is how it is with Fujii's vision. There is always life, always an an ebb and flow. Here, on CD 1's 43-minute "Shiki," things lean more toward the deliberative. If previous large group outings sound like calamities and squalling arguments—like soundtracks to discursive groups breaking, alas, into mayhem—"Shiki," in its quieter moments, sounds like musings of the Gods, with interjections of a multi-timbre sea gull choir of instrumentation.

 For a 16-piece ensemble, the music boasts a good deal of spaciousness and introspection. Sometimes delicate and demure, sometimes powerful and even brazen—once again, ebb and flow. Of the extended piece, Fujii says, "I composed it for life, which has many stages and changes and dramas." "Life" here begins with a dreamlike reverie, Lucy Liebe's piquant electric guitar singing over a gentle orchestral backdrop. Collective murmurations—subtle instrumental contemplations—lead to brass/reed/percussion proclamations that evolve to the bombastic. Then space opens up again, followed by a torrid trumpet solo backed by a subtle and brooding accompaniment.

CD 2  features three bracing non-Fujii compositions: one from the orchestra's bass saxophonist Andres Kaling ("Yamantaka'); one from trumpeter Tamura ("Jasper") and one from alto saxophonist Luise Volkmann ("Antischwarm"). These fit well with the Fujii vision, with slightly different musical personalities.

The set closes with Fujii's "Gen Himmel" (Toward Heaven), which first appeared on her 2013 Libra Records solo piano album of the same name. Here, the sound is a sort of fractured exotica, chirping brass bird sounds in the opening, evolving into chest-thrusting majesty—a squall that blows a tropical forest then moves on to the distant mountains.