The Squid's Ear Magazine

Fujii, Satoko

Torrent (Piano Solo)

Fujii, Satoko: Torrent (Piano Solo) (Libra)

The ninth solo album from pianist Satoko Fujii, the most recent in a "torrent" of solo releases over the last six years, this album a remarkable display of force and beauty in improvised playing on the keyboard and inside the piano, captured live at IYO Yume Mari Kan Bunka Hall in six improvisations of cascading notes and introspective passages; spectacular!
 

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Satoko Fujii-piano


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Includes a 6-page foldout color booklet with liner notes by Mizuki Misumi in English and Japanese.

UPC: 456162308722

Label: Libra
Catalog ID: 201-072
Squidco Product Code: 33237

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2023
Country: Japan
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at IYO Yume Mari Kan Bunka Hall, on October 10th, 2022, by Toshihiro Toyoshima.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"In the past six years, Fujii has released five solo albums. Prior to that, she had made only four solo releases since 1997. This increased focus on unaccompanied playing has two main sources according to Fujii. "During the pandemic I wasn't able to play with others, of course, and I learned how to record myself at home, so I made some solo albums. That's part of the reason I continue to record solo after the pandemic," she says. "But also, I feel more comfortable now playing unaccompanied. It's like looking down into myself. It is deep and quiet-and sometimes very dark."

This album was recorded during a concert set up by Fujii's friend, Mitsuru Itani, a music lover who also produced the concert that resulted in Solo in 2018. "This time, I wanted to play totally different," she says. "I didn't decide anything in advance-I just went on stage and played. None of the pieces had names when they were played. I named them later. Somehow I ended up giving them all titles suggesting travel or a voyage by sea.

In contrast to the spacious and introspective Solo, Torrent is more dense and energized, but still very much the work of an improvising composer. For instance the title track opens with an introductory splash of notes, then sprints forward with dancing, sinuous lines that cover the entire keyboard. Fujii develops the music freely, intuitively, but with intention and purpose, an approach of which she is a master. "Voyage" journeys from isolated, twinkling plucked piano-wire tones to melodic lines propelled by galloping left-hand patterns. Fujii makes the evolution from no beat to driving rhythms sound entirely natural and unforced. On "Light on the Sea Surface," as notes ripple in the lower register and short phrases wink on and off, you can hear how the improvisation inspired the title. Fujii turns the piece into a foreboding tone poem of restrained power and menace. She seamlessly integrates many ways of making music on the piano, blending unconventional sounds made on the inside of the piano with lyrical melodies played on keyboard, to create "Cut the Painter." The lovely "Horizon" showcases her precise phrasing, clear articulation, and her sure sense of development and drama. On Torrent, all Satoko Fujii's strengths come together in a major statement on the state of her art."-Libra



Pianist and composer Satoko Fujii, "an improviser of rumbling intensity and generous restraint" (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times), is one of the most original voices in jazz today. For more than 25 years, she has created a unique, personal music that spans many genres, blending jazz, contemporary classical, rock, and traditional Japanese music into an innovative synthesis instantly recognizable as hers alone. A prolific composer for ensembles of all sizes and a performer who has appeared around the world, she was the recipient of a 2020 Instant Award in Improvised Music, in recognition of her "artistic intelligence, independence, and integrity."

Since she burst onto the scene in 1996, Fujii has performed and recorded prolifically. In 2022, she released her 100th album as a leader. On the way to this impressive milestone, she has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music. Highlights include a piano trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black (1997-2009), and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins (2001-2008). In addition to a wide variety of small groups of different instrumentation, Fujii also performs in a duo with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, with whom she's recorded eight albums since 1997. She and Tamura are also one half of the international free-jazz quartet Kaze, which has released six albums since their debut in 2011. Fujii has established herself as one of the world's leading composers for large jazz ensembles. Fully a quarter of her albums have been with jazz orchestras, prompting Cadence magazine to call her "the Ellington of free jazz."


Includes a 6-page foldout color booklet with liner notes by Mizuki Misumi in English and Japanese.


This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Artist Biographies

"Born on October 9, 1958 in Tokyo, Japan, Fujii began playing piano at four and received classical training until twenty, when she turned to jazz. From 1985-87, she studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music, where her teachers included Herb Pomeroy and Bill Pierce. She returned to Japan for six years before returning to the US to study at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where her teachers included George Russell, Cecil McBee, and Paul Bley, who appeared on her debut CD Something About Water (Libra, 1996).

Since then Fujii has been an innovative bandleader and soloist, a tireless seeker of new sounds, and a prolific recording artist in ensembles ranging from duos to big bands. She has showcased her astonishing range and ability approximately 80 CDs as leader or co-leader. With each new recording or new band, she explores new aspects of her art.

Regular collaborations include her New York trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black, augmented by trumpeter/husband Natsuki Tamura to form the Satoki Fujii Four; her duo with Tamura; the Satoko Fujii Quartet featuring Tatsuya Yoshida of the Japanese avant-rock duo, The Ruins; Orchestra New York, which boasts the cream of New York's contemporary avant garde improvisers, including saxophonists Ellery Eskelin and Tony Malaby, trumpeters Herb Roberton and Steven Bernstein, and trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, among others; Orchestra Tokyo, drawing on that city's best improvisers; Orchestra Nagoya; Orchestra Kobe; the co-operative trio Junk Box with Tamura and percussionist John Hollenbeck; ma-do, a quartet including Tamura on trumpet, bassist Norikatsu Koreyasu, and Akira Horikoshi; the Min-Yoh Ensemble with Tamura, trombonist Hasselbring, and accordionist Andrea Parkins; the Satoko Fujii New Trio, featuring bassist Todd Nicholson and drummer Takashi Itani― plus countless engagements and collaborations with some of the world's most important improvisers."

-Satoko Fujii Website (http://www.satokofujii.com/bio.html)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Torrent 7:24

2. Voyage 12:07

3. Light On The Sea Surface 10:28

4. Cut The Painter 10:05

5. Horizon 5:34

6. Wave Crust 7:16

Related Categories of Interest:


Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura's Libra Label
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
Asian Improvisation & Jazz
Piano & Keyboards
Solo Artist Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items

Search for other titles on the label:
Libra.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Kira Kira (Fujii / Tamura / Spence / Yoshida)
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Picking up from their 2018 album Bright Force, the quartet of Libra label leaders Satoko Fujii on piano and Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, with Australian improviser Alister Spence on Fender Rhodes electric piano, and now with Magaibutsu/Ruins legend Tatsuya Yoshida on drums, are heard in two wildly powerful 2024 concerts at Koendori Classics in Tokyo and at Jazz Inn Lovely, Nagoya, with compositions from each member.
Fujii, Satoko Quartet (w/ Tamura / Takeharu / Yoshida)
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One of Satoko Fujii's wildest groups, the quartet of Fujii on piano, Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Hayakawa Takeharu (HAYAKAWA, Dr. Umezu Band) on bass and Magaibutsu label leader & Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida present their first album since 2007, expanding their assertive approach to improv in an adventurous set that merges rock and jazz forms with lyricism and power.
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Propelled by the confidence and intimacy that a familial relationship brings to two improvisers, imbued by each player's masterful technical skills and creative drive, the husband and wife duo of pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura expand their catalog with this set of magnificent dialogs, sometimes quirky, always powerful and implicitly lyrical.
Fujii, Satoko / Otomo Yoshihide
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Expanding their instruments into sonic sculpture, this first meeting between acclaimed Japanese improvisers Satoko Fujii, performing inside and out of the piano, and electric guitarist Otomo Yoshihide, demonstrates their incredible compatibly as heard in these live recordings at Tokyo's Pit Inn, part of an annual festival organized by Fujii & trumpeter Natsuki Tamura.
Futari (Satoko Fujii / Taiko Saito)
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Pandemic restrictions having cancelled their European tour, the Futari duo of pianist Satoko Fujii and vibraphonist Taiko Saito chose instead to develop a new collaborative album of improvisations exchanged by sound file, each intently listening to the other's recordings, their care and pensive responses creating an astounding and sublime album of stunningly beautiful music.
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Circumventing pandemic lockdowns, the trio of husband & wife, pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, recorded this album at their home in Kobe, Japan using an internet connection to perform in real time with drummer/percussionist Takashi Itani in Tokyo, their joyful and sophisticated improvisation a testament to close listening and magnificent communication.
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Satako Fujii's 2008 release introducing her then new ma-do quartet of Satoko Fujii on piano, Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Akira Horikoshi on drums, and late bassist Norikatsu Koreyasu, the band name signifying "window" and "the silence between notes", in an album of superb, lively, eclectic and absolutely exciting improvisation from 9 original Fujii compositions.
Wandering The Sound Quintet (Satoko Fujii / Guillermo Gregorio / Natsuki Tamuyra / Rafat Mazur / Ramon Lopez)
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The first Wandering The Sound album in 2018 was the trio of Argentinian reedist Guillermo Gregorio, Spanish drummer Ramón López and Polish bassist Rafał Mazur, here extended to a quintet with pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura for a 2019 concert at Alchemia in Poland, a masterful example of free improv based on a poem by Ikkyu Sojun, a Zen master from the 15th century.
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Pianist Satoko Fujii introduces a new trio with two younger and very active musicians on the Japanese jazz scene--bassist Takashi Sugawa and drummer Ittetsu Takemura--recording in 2020 at Pit Inn in Tokyo for their 3rd live date together, performing five lyrical Fujii original compositions, including "Aspirations" from her album with Leo Smith & Ikue Mori.
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Extending their previous collaborations during the time of pandemic, NY electronic improviser Ikue Mori and Japanese improvisers Natsuki Tamura on trumpet and Satoko Fujii on piano developed this extraordinary ea-improv album via file exchange, starting with Fujii's piano improvisations to which Mori & Tamura added their layers, with Mori mixing the final, startling results.
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While on a tour of Japan in 2019, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii and Spanish drummer Ramon Lopez asked trumpeter Natsuki Tamura to join them, and to join in a challenge to write a new piece of music for the trio each day while on tour; this studio album selects the finest of those compositions, performed with nearly telepathic control in a mix of fire and lyrical beauty.
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June
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