Satoko Fujii Quartet – Live at Jazz Room Cortez (CORTEZ SOUND October 20, 2017)

Satoko Fujii Quartet breathes new life into old compositions

On Live at Jazz Room Cortez, available October 20, 2017

Joining Fujii are trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, drummer Takashi Itani and violinist Keisuke Ohta 

Pioneering Japanese free jazz violinist Keisuke Ohta joins pianist Fujii for a delightfully unpredictable live recording of previously recorded tunes.

“Satoko Fujii is one of the most original pianists in free jazz…” – Steve Greenlee, Boston Globe

“Unpredictable, wildly creative, and uncompromising…Fujii is an absolutely essential listen for anyone interested in the future of jazz.” – Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz

"★★★★. There's a sense that freedom and lyricism are always elbowing for room on Fujii's page; how she controls those instincts is a large component in her ability to craft enormously thought-provoking music. Fujii's music is —by turns— primitive, exhilarating, and sensitive, but not in a quixotic manner. It is within her well-managed eccentricities that Fujii challenges the listener with inventiveness meant for open ears." – Karl Ackermann, All About Jazz

Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts. And that’s what pianist Satoko Fujii did when she assembled the quartet heard on her latest album, Live at Jazz Room Cortez available October 20, 2017 via Cortez Sound. She could have put together a traditional band with rhythm section and a horn player. She knew she wanted to use longtime compatriots trumpeter Nasuki Tamura and drummer Takashi Itani. But something told her to use violinist Keisuke Ohta instead of a bassist and she went with her gut feeling. The result is an album with a unique group sound and vision that brings fresh insight into her compositions.

Teruhiko Ito had invited Fujii to come back to his Jazz Room Cortez in Mito, Japan, scene of her triumphant 2016 solo performance captured on Invisible Hand (Cortez Sound), this time with a band. Fujii had performed with Ohta, who is something of a patriarch on the Tokyo free jazz scene, back in 1997 and 1998, around the time she returned to Japan after earning her graduate diploma from New England Conservatory in Boston. “He came to my mind and I couldn’t picture any other person to join us,” Fujii says. “I didn’t think about it much. My inspiration created this line-up.”

Over the course of the evening, the quartet played a wide range of Fujii’s compositions, but for the CD she chose versions of two pieces that she’d previously recorded because, “they give you the clearest and deepest examples of each musician’s ability.”

Indeed, everyone shines, both individually and as members of the ensemble, throughout the disc. “Convection,” first heard on Fujii’s New Trio album, Spring Storm (Libra, 2013), receives an extended treatment full of contrasting events and surprising changes in direction. A series of improvised sections which Fujii signals the end of with a gorgeous, ringing chord, “Convection” mixes absurdity and surrealism with lyricism and pure sound in a virtuoso ensemble performance. Fujii reaches all the way back to her first trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black for “Looking Out the Window,” the title track of their 1997 debut recording. The track opens with a playful mix of voices, folk influences, and unusual timbres and textures before segueing into a sequence of unaccompanied solos by each member of the band. The piece culminates with a rapturous reading of the tune’s melody.

Critics and fans alike hail pianist and composer Satoko Fujii as one of the most original voices in jazz today. She’s “a virtuoso piano improviser, an original composer and a bandleader who gets the best collaborators to deliver," says John Fordham in The Guardian. In concert and on more than 80 albums as a leader or co-leader, she synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock and Japanese folk music into an innovative music instantly recognizable as hers alone. Her most recent group, Satoko Fujii Tobira with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, bassist Todd Nicholson, and drummer Takashi Itani, released their debut recording Yamiyo Ni Karasu in 2015. “There are pulse-pounding rhythms, vibrant tones and dark chords woven together into a multi-shaded tapestry of sound…What an absolute pleasure to listen to Satoko Fujii,” wrote Travis Rogers Jr. in The Jazz Owl. Over the years, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music, including the ma-do quartet, the Min-Yoh Ensemble, and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins. She has also established herself as one of the world’s leading composers for large jazz ensembles, leading Cadence magazine to call her, “the Ellington of free jazz.” Her ultimate goal: “I would love to make music that no one has heard before.”

Fuji has a well-deserved reputation for assembling unconventional bands of kindred spirits to bring her musical vision to life. The product of a moment’s inspiration, the quartet on Live at Jazz Room Cortez realizes her vision with sensitivity, imagination, and total commitment.

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