Pianist-composer Satoko Fujii’s Reunited Avant Jazz-Rock Quartet Offers a Wild Thrill Ride on their New CD, Burning Wick, out November 21, 2025 via Libra Records.
“The band has lost none of its edge; challenging though the music is, it is also nuanced, as the quartet continues to find new ways to navigate uncharted areas between musical genres. —Troy Collins, Point of Departure
“One of the most justified reunions of this century.” — Eyal Hareuveni, Free Jazz Blog
On Burning Wick, pianist-composer Satoko Fujii steers her powerhouse avant jazz-rock fusion quartet with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, bassist Hayakawa Takeharu, and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida in new directions. Originally founded in 2001, the ferociously energetic all-star quartet was one of Fujii’s first working bands. They recorded five albums together before she put the band “on hold” in 2007. Reunited last year after a nearly 20-year hiatus, the band has lost none of its playfulness and daring as Fujii harnesses their unique energy for another joy ride into the unknown. “I have more fun playing with this band than ever before,” Fujii said. “We know each other better, we respect each other, and we enjoy the differences between our respective styles. We are not young anymore—our average age is 68 years old—but we have so much fun making music together that we feel like teenagers.”
Fuji’s compositions play an expanded role in shaping the music on Burning Wick. “For the last album, Dog Days of Summer, I ended up changing the arrangements a day before the recording in order to keep the band’s wildness,” Fujii said. “This time, I changed almost nothing, because in rehearsals the band sounded so good playing what I wrote.”
Right off the bat, “Solar Orbit” shows how Fujii’s composing honors the differences among players while melding them together at the same time. Fujii’s ethereal introduction, accompanied by muted rumbles from Yoshida, strikes a softer note than usual for this quartet. But what begins delicately builds slowly into a tumultuous clatter. As is often the case with Fujii’s composing, the piece takes many surprising twists and turns before Tamura, in one of the album’s highlights, returns to run the voodoo down over a slow-burn jazz-rock beat.
Hayakawa’s imposing opening bass solo on “Rain in the Wee Small Hours” ventures into abstraction and ominous electronic effects, in contrast to one of the most relaxed and jazziest compositions the quartet has ever played, striking a neat balance between contrasting elements within the band. The quartet puts its irrepressible stamp on “Walking Through the Border Town,” which juxtaposes eerie vocal and instrumental effects against a loping rock theme. Segueing into various odd meters and changing tempos, the piece climaxes with a full freak out by Hayakawa and Yoshida as Tamura and Fujii reprise the long, slinky main theme.
“Neverending Summer” begins with an introspective reverie from Fujii that gets rudely interrupted by a pounding melody. Fujii’s arrangement keeps the band jumping between different passages at a frantic pace, including a beautifully developed bass solo played with a fuzz-toned rock growl, and Tamura at his jazziest soloing over bruising rock rhythms. “Mountain Gnome,” both playful and menacing, slips in quietly with the fragmented ensemble interjecting one weird sound after another in a collage of colors and textures. But an explosion of energy hurtles the quartet into its most urgent playing on the album, peppered with frightening vocals shrieks, flashing piano runs, and roiling drums and bass.
“Three Days Later,” first heard on Confluence (Libra), Fujii’s 2019 duet CD with drummer Ramon Lopez, is a showcase for the group’s individual talents. Each band member gets an unaccompanied solo, then pairs off in duets before a quartet finale. The concluding title track is another kaleidoscopic whirl with Fujii featured throughout.
© Kazue Yokoi
The Satoko Fujii Quartet is truly an all-star ensemble. Drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, co-founder of The Ruins, has earned an international following as one of the most innovative rock drummers in the world. His ferocious energy has powered some of the most innovative bands in Japan, pushing the boundaries of prog-rock, noise rock, and improvisation. Trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura is recognized for a unique musical vocabulary that blends jazz lyricism with extended techniques. In addition to appearing with many of Fujii’s projects and recordings, he is a leader in his own right. Hayakawa Takeharu, one of Japan’s premiere new-music bassists, is a longtime member of the internationally celebrated Dr. Umezu Band and has performed with John Zorn. His many albums as a leader continue to blur genre lines in creative and surprising ways, sometimes hueing closer to avant-rock, sometimes closer to jazz and free improv.
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 nearly 30 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, including a piano trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black (1997-2009). 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 ten albums since 1997. She and Tamura are also one half of the international free-jazz quartet Kaze, which has released eight albums since their debut in 2011. Fujii has established herself as one of the world’s leading composers for large jazz ensembles, prompting Cadence magazine to call her “the Ellington of free jazz.”
Satoko Fujii Quartet – Burning Wick
Libra Records – Catalog Number: 204-082 Recorded September 2, 2025
Release date – November 21, 2025
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