Trouble Kaze, June, with Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura, etc.

Trouble Kaze is the newly expanded edition of the group Kaze, a cooperative free improv jazz venture that includes pianist Satoko Fujii and her trumpet wielding life partner Natsuki Tamura. For this inaugural effort the band is in effect a double-trio, with two trumpets (Tamura and Christian Pruvost), two pianos (Fujii and Sophie Agnel) and two drummers (Peter Orins and Didier Lasserre).

They distinguish themselves in a sort of utra-focused, carefully considered five-part improvisation recorded live. The album is entitled June (Helix LX009) and it is a good one.

The expanded unit allows a series of double duets and six-way confluences. And so to begin we hear twin prepared pianos, twin trumpets in breathy expressions, and twin drums creating distinctive barrages. As the set proceeds we get the intermingling of the pairs and their recombinations in various foreground-background-bothground possibilities.

All six play with a sureness, an impressive authority that at no point sounds tentative, always intricately definitive, sure in their choice of timbral color, periodistic presence and note-sound nowness.

It is free music in no hurry to state it all at once, but rather to open and develop with a gradual inevitableness that is continually rewarding in what it chooses to include (and of course by that to also leave out in any given segment).

With a collective sense of instrumentation-orchestration there are dramatic event arcs, coming to a quiet peak in the two-piano expressions of part four, which we have been prepared for by definitive journeys into this clearing. It is brilliant and by a period of quietude and then the end of part five we are pleasantly satiated and satisfied, appreciative that not ALL has been said, but all that is necessary to give us Trouble Kaze's June.

It leaves me wanting more in the end, but happy also that this glimpse feels complete in itself. meted out inspiration and sound design of a high nature, a thoughtful forwardness.

June gives to us itself, the six instrumental voices interacting singularly, the group asserting its collectivity in self-less yet self-ful completeness-incompleteness.

This is a prime example of the innovative presence of Fujii, Tamura, and four extraordinarily receptive countervoices. Trouble Kaze is a kind of miracle of listening and acting, both by the performers and by you, the listener.

High improvisational inspiration, this is. Be sure and hear it repeatedly if you can. Kaze and now Trouble Kaze are a seminal group in the new improvisational fold today!

Kaze, with Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, Uminari

Kaze is the quartet formed by pianist Satoki Fujii, her trumpet playing partner Natsuki Tamura, fellow trumpetist Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins. I named their Tornado a record of the year on these pages in 2013 (see the October 17, 2013 post for the review) and now this spring we have a new one, Uminari (Circum-Libra 203). It in many ways continues where Tornado left off, with a compositional framing that is strong and strongly present, with thoughtful avant solo work and a group freedom-in-structure that showcases the personalities of all four players. Everyone contributes a composition except Fujii, who gives us two.

The direction is forward moving on the modern avant front, with each piece showing its own trajectory in ways that blend new music and free jazz in a potent original mix. Fujii is a pianist that defies easy definition and her playing on this one is as much an important part of the proceedings as one might expect. This however is very much the group effort. The distinctive two-trumpet tandem of Tamura and Pruvost give a special sound when playing compositional passages and then give us two very distinctive sound colorists as they solo. Orins is a well-schooled and genuinely original drummer in how he avoids cliche and maintains percussive thrust throughout, whether playing time or in full rubato mode.

Put the whole thing together with the compositional motives, moods and varied sequencing of who plays and who lays out and you get something avant in ways that are well thought through. It all keeps the serious listener busy and fascinated, involved from moment-to-moment following the many event developments and their very musical and often unexpected twists and turns.

Another great one from Kaze! Give this one your ears and it will give back in kind.

KAZE, Tornado, with Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura

KAZE is a dynamic new quartet that blazes trails while they blaze. It perhaps is what you expect from pianist-composer Satoko Fujii and her trumpeting-composing cohort Natsuki Tamura, but maybe not exactly? Actually this is the second album by KAZE, but they sound so together it could be the tenth. Along with the two are trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins. The four together meld with single-minded creativity.

It's free-avant music but very much directed by compositional arches. There are five numbers performed on the disk, two by Fujii, two by Orins and one by Tamura. There is something Zen-rock-garden-like in this music, only set on fire at times. Every note has concentrated power and the spaces in between no less so.

The performances are exhilarating. From Orins' sensitively dynamic drumming, Satoko's highly supercharged, creative, well-timing piano outbursts to the edge-of-the-sound-and-back trumpeting of Tamura and Pruvost, this is outstanding avant music.

One of the best I've heard this year!

Gato Libre, Forever, with Natsuki Tamura and Satoko Fujii

When jazz doesn't seem like most jazz, is it still jazz? The answer that comes to mind is "Who Cares, Talk About Something that Matters!" The truth is, "jazz musicians" make MUSIC. That is their primary concern. Whether or not what they do at any point sounds like jazz is supposed to sound or not should not overly concern us.

Turning to the new CD by Gato Libre, Forever (Libra 104-030), we find music that relates to the above. It's trumpetist Natsuki Tamura and his running partner Satoko Fujii (for this occasion on accordion), along with Kazuhiko Tsumura (guitar) and Norikatsu Koreyasu (acoustic bass). They engage a series of compositions by Natsuki that sound rather folk-like (not necessarily specifically Japanese folk, but folk in a wider sense) and sometimes with a touch of minimalist mesmeric repetition.

Now it's not that there isn't improvisation involved on these performances. There is. And what of it there is is quite fitting and interesting. There is not as much of it as on a typical "blowing date," and the emphasis is on the music as music so to say. It doesn't come across as readily identifiable "jazz," free, avant, or otherwise.

But it does come across as ensemble music of interest. It's an unusual sort of folksy sound that grows on you as you listen repeatedly. And it is well done. So hurrah for it. I am glad Maestro Tamura gave us this to enjoy!