Satoko Fujii Kaze
Guelph Jazz Festival,
River Run Centre - Co-operators Hall,
Guelph, ON
September 7, 2013
DPA 4061's > DPA MPS6030 > Tascma DR-07 > usb > Audacity (normalize) > cdwav > FLAC
1. [28:47]
2. [31:02]
Satoko Fujii - piano, voice
Natsuki Tamura - trumpet, percussion, toys, voice
Christian Pruvost - trumpet, voice
Peter Orins - drums
KAZE
is a collaborative quartet that has been in existence since at least 2011,
pairing the longstanding duo of Satoko Fujii on piano and Natsuki Tamura on
trumpet with two members of the French MUZZIX (sounds like “musiques”)
collective, trumpeter Christian Pruvost and percussionist Peter Orins.
Nominally (on the programme) Satoko Fujii’s band, the group operates more as a
collective, showcasing compositions and concepts from each of its four members.
I had never heard them play, either live or on CD, before Saturday morning at
the River Run Centre in Guelph, although they have already recorded two albums
as an ensemble: Rafale (2011) and Tornado (2013), both released by
Circum-Disc in collaboration with Fujii-Tamura’s label, Libra Records. I have
to say that I was blown away by their collective virtuosity and by their
kinetic interaction, from the first notes they played. The two-trumpet line, in
some ways, hearkens back to Louis Armstrong and Joe Oliver, and there are
echoes of the playfulness and smart-aleckry of early music, although there is
little in their work, in my view, of the subversive. They play with sounds, the
trumpeters ebulliently incorporating “little instruments” and percussive
sound-makers into their arsenals of sound-sources, but the idea is never to
undermine or interrupt: disruptions are creative, centrifugal, happily unruly,
both provocative and strangely supportive. All four appear to celebrate and to
uphold each other’s contributions to the collective: no cutting, no ego. At the
same time, both trumpeters self-evidently have technique – extended technique –
to spare. Tamura and Pruvost are masters of their instruments, and then some.
And, well, if you like your trumpet by turns limpid and wicked, seductive and
fierce, this is the music for you. Satoko
Fujii’s virtuoso piano formed an integral part of the ensemble, negotiating
between polydirectional rhythms and entwined melodic lines, sometimes
subtending the performance harmonically, sometimes offering percussive
counterpoint. Her playing is dynamic, ever-present, but also open and
responsive; she is never at a loss for something to add in, but also never
crowds at her cohorts: a paragon of give and take, of response listening. Peter
Orins’s drumming was, for me, a revelation: he has a way of propelling a
performance forward, while striking each tympanum with an attack that somehow
individuates and momentarily savours, pulse by pulse, the elastic beat-patterns
he conjured. His style of improvising at the drumkit reminded me at times, if
this makes listening sense, of Ronald Shannon Jackson’s definitive touch.
The group played two or three extended suites – akin in
structure, though not in idiom, to the Indigo Trio’s set – combining, I
discovered afterward, most of the compositions featured on their recent disc.
(I think they recombined “Wao,” “Tornado,” “Imokidesu” and “Triangle,” although
I’m relying on memory here.) Each of their forays began with quiet hiss and
suck from the horns, breath feeling its way into tone, gradually ramping toward
more organized thematic statements or unisons, then negotiating a series of
polyglot interchanges and exchanges toward the next composition way-point. The
group operated as a living assemblage, an organism pursuing not so much
coherence or closure as open-edged symbiosis, a generative, sustaining
autopoeisis. Each piece did, of course, reach a tenuous end, but it felt that,
even after the concert was done, KAZE’s generative soundscapes still kept
roiling and resonating in our minds’ ears.
