Satoko Fujii Orchestra, Jo - 1h 3m 28s

Tracks & Durations

1. Jo	10:58
2. Kyu	5:49
3. Okesa-Yansado	7:59
4. Wakerasuka	7:14
5. Reminiscence	8:28
6. Jasper	5:25
7. Around the Corner	4:25
8. Sola	13:03

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Review

Pianist Satoko Fujii has steeped herself in both the traditional music of her native Japan and the evolving, expansive language of free jazz, and the fruits of that exploration are apparent on this second recording of her orchestra. Hers is a traditional jazz big band in instrumentation--five reeds, four trumpets, three trombones, and a rhythm section of piano, bass, and drums--but it keeps doing new things with the genre. With intense players from the New York downtown scene, including Chris Speed and Briggan Krauss on reeds, the band consistently blurs the lines between the written and the improvised. They summon up the raw energy of a Mingus group (Mingus veteran Jack Walrath is prominent) as well as the contrapuntal density of Carla Bley's Jazz Composers Orchestra. But it's the striking ways that Fujii and her husband and musical partner, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, find to use those resources that matter most. This isn't an adaptation of traditional music, but a novel interspace, mixing majestic and static modes with dissonant chords, multiple keys, and rhythms to create moods of extraordinary depth and tension. Tamura's "Okesa-Yansado" combines the gravity of an ancient court orchestra with accumulating glimpses of chaos, while Fujii's "Jasper" fuses a Balinese scale with Middle Eastern-sounding dumbek and clarinets. Fleeting glimpses of Japanese instruments keep appearing: Aaron Alexander manages to suggest kodo drumming, reeds imply shakuhachi, and Fujii's piano strings a koto. There's a liberated and chameleon-like creativity here ("Wakerasuka" substitutes call and response vocal cries for the instruments; "Sola" constructs a new setting for each soloist) that's a constant stimulus to the band and any listener who gets in the vicinity. --Stuart Broomer

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