On Torrent, the ninth solo album in her prolific career, pianist Satoko Fujii sails into new musical territory in a completely improvised concert performance. With her command of all the piano’s resources and her seemingly boundless creativity, Fujii delivers a tour-de-force performance. Energetic and spontaneous, with dazzling displays of extended techniques, the music is also structured and tempered by Fujii’s sensibility as a composer. The result is an album by a disciplined experimentalist working at the height of her power. The album will be released June 2, 2023 via Libra Records
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.”
© Natsuki Tamura
© Natsuki Tamura
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.”