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Short Biography
Satoko Fujii
BIOGRAPHY
SATOKO FUJII
“Fujii is clearly one of the most exciting musicians to come along
in a while.” ― Robert Iannapollo, Cadence
“Unpredictable, wildly creative, and uncompromising…Fujii is an
absolutely essential listen for anyone interested in the future of
jazz." ― Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
“100 Years…100 Alumni” ― Profiling New England Conservatory’s
Most Successful Alumni
Critics and fans alike hail pianist and composer SATOKO FUJII
as one of the most original voices in jazz today. A truly global
artist, she splits her time between Berlin and Tokyo and tours
internationally leading several ensembles. Just as her career spans
international borders, her music spans many genres, blending jazz,
contemporary classical music, rock, and traditional Japanese music into
an innovative synthesis instantly recognizable as hers alone. Her
wide-ranging compositions can incorporate the simple melodies of folk
song, the harmonic sophistication of jazz, the rhythmic power of rock,
and the extended forms of symphonic composers. Although Fujii’s
compositions are full of sudden shifts in direction and mood, the
extremes are always part of a greater conceptual whole. As an
improviser, Fujii is equally wide-ranging and virtuosic. In her solos,
explosive free jazz energy mingles with delicate melodicism and a broad
palette of timbre and textures.
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, Joe Maneri, Jimmy Giuffre, Charlie Banacos, and
Paul Bley, who appeared on her debut CD Something About Water
(Libra, 1996).
Since then Fujii has proved herself 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 on nearly 60 CDs as leader or
co-leader in less than 20 years. With each new recording or new
band, she explores new aspects of her art.
Between 1997 and 2008, her New York trio with bassist Mark Dresser and
drummer Jim Black released seven critically acclaimed CDs. Cadence
magazine described the group as “Beautiful and exciting by turns, and
sometimes both at once.” Jason Bivins in Signal to Noise, praised the
“dynamite unit” for its “improv delirium, hot grooves, and melodic
dances. In 2004 trumpeter/husband Natsuki Tamura joined this trio to
form the Satoki Fujii Four, which released the critically acclaimed Live
in Japan 2004 and 2006’s When We Were There.
At the same time, she and Tamura began documenting their intimate duo
music. By now, the pair had made five CDs for various labels in Europe
and Japan. In his four-star DownBeat review of their fourth release, Chun
(2008), Ted Panken wrote, “Fujii’s orchestral technique, clear
chromatic lines and “prepared piano” devices contrast effectively with
Tamura’s arsenal of extended techniques which he executes with a warm,
vocalized tone throughout the trumpet’s full range.”
In 2001 came the radically different Vulcan (Libra Records), an
avant-rock/free jazz fusion album by a new group, the Satoko Fujii
Quartet featuring Tatsuya Yoshida of the Japanese avant-rock duo, The
Ruins. “The sensibility here is aggressive to the point of primitive,”
said Bill Bennett in JazzTimes. “Vulcan is … a masterpiece of jazz
expression.” Between 2001 and 2007, each of the Japanese quartet’s five
albums, including Zephyros (Polystar, 2004) and Angelona
(Libra, 2005), received equally enthusiastic approval. Toh-Kichi, her
duo with the quartet’s drummer Yoshida, released CDs in 2002 and 2004.
Even as she led these disparate small ensembles, moving with equal
vigor in widely divergent directions, Fujii also embarked one of the
most important aspects of her career―composer, leader, and soloist with
some of the most innovative large jazz ensemble of the past twenty
years. In 1996, she founded 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.
Over the course of eight albums, Fujii has “reinvigorated the big-band
concept for the new century – and placed herself at the forefront of
the style at the same time,” according to Marc Chénard in Coda. Jordan
Richardson in Blinded by Sound called their most recent release, ETO
(Libra), a “piece of big band magic.”
Orchestra Tokyo, founded a year later in 1997, draws on that city’s
best improvisers, and has recorded four CDs to date. Writing in All
About Jazz, Dan McClenaghan praised the band for its “Power,
exuberance, fierce soloing…moments of beauty, serenity, delicacy
interspersed with seismic Elvis Costello ‘Pump it Up’ percussion/bass
modes that lead into gentle classical harmony… Fujii is an absolutely
essential listen for anyone interested in the future of jazz.”
However, Fujii’s creative ideas for large ensemble cannot be fully
encompassed by a mere two big bands, and she has gone on to work with
two others―Orchestra Nagoya, with which she as recorded three CDs since
2004, and Orchestra Kobe. Her big band activity climaxed in 2006, when
she released an unprecedented four CDs―one by each of these
orchestras―at one time.
As the new century progressed, Fujii continued to establish new
ensembles. In 2006 came the co-operative trio Junk Box with Tamura and
percussionist John Hollenbeck.
Then in 2007, Fujii formed ma-do, a quartet including Tamura on
trumpet, bassist Norikatsu Koreyasu, and Akira Horikoshi, the drummer
in the Orchestra Tokyo big band. The group showcased the latest
developments in her composition for small ensembles, while playing in a
more intimate acoustic setting that contrasted with the high-volume,
rock-influenced Quartet. They made three impressive CDs before the
tragic death of bassist Koreyasu in 2012. Alan Young in Lucid Culture
called their second release, Desert Ship, a “characteristically
fascinating, emotionally varied, richly melodic one by her pretty
straight-up small combo Ma-Do…. Another triumph for this extraordinary
composer.”
That same year, she established yet another acoustic quartet, the
Min-Yoh Ensemble with Tamura, trombonist Hasselbring, and accordionist
Andrea Parkins. Dedicated to developing written and improvised music in
the collective spirit of Japanese folkloric music, the band has made
two CDs. Writing in All About Jazz, Budd Kopman called their debut, Fujin
Raijin, “a stupendous, almost terrifying record that shatters any
and all expectations during its six tracks… If any music has the
ability to change one’s life, this is it, making Fujin Raijin a
powerful experience in which to revel.”
In addition to leading her small and large ensembles, Fujii has also
engaged in many collaborative duo projects and ad hoc groups, and
appeared as a member of ensembles led by others. With violinist Carla
Kihlstedt, she has made two CDs, including Minamo, which Ben
Ratliff of the New York Times called “extraordinary, a series of tight,
dramatic events.” She has also released a limited edition duo recording
with pianist Myra Melford, Under the Water. A meeting between
Fujii and Tamura and Dutch pianist Misha Mengelberg and trumpeter
Angelo Verploegen is documented on Crossword Puzzle. She has
also toured and recorded with saxophonist Larry Ochs’ Sax and Drumming
Core, and appeared on albums by drummer Jimmy Weinstein, saxophonist
Raymond McDonald, and Japanese free jazz legend, trumpeter Itaru Oki.
She is a regular member of Tamura’s Gato Libre quartet, in which she
plays accordion, and his band First Meeting, and played synthesizer in
his quartet between 2002 and 2004.
Fujii tours as relentlessly as she records. She has appeared at
festivals, concert halls, and clubs in Japan, Europe, and North
America. In 2013, she was honored with three nights on which to present
her music at the Beilefelder Festival on Germany. In August of that
year, she presented a week of music by several of her bands at The
Stone in New York City.
Most recently, Fujii founded a new international quartet, Kaze, with
trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins from France joining
her and Tamura. They made their debut recording Rafale in 2011.
“This is a stunning achievement from note one,” wrote Mark Medwin in
the The New York City Jazz Record, “the whole disc teams with life,
blistering free jazz tempered by moments of composed introspection that
roil with their own undercurrents, threatening to explode at any
moment.”
And in 2013, Fujii set off on a new musical adventure with the Satoko
Fujii New Trio, featuring bassist Todd Nicholson and drummer Takashi
Itani―her first piano trio since 2008. The group released their debut
recording, Spring Storm, that same year.
Fujii tirelessly continues to explore the possibilities and expand the
parameters of the many groups she’s established over the years, and
there is certainly more provocative and exciting listening in store as
she pursues her ultimate goal: “I would love to make music that no one
has heard before.”
5/25/13