Satoko Fuji Quartet
Libra Rec. Satoko Fuji Quartet : Angelona (JAP,2006)****
I expected an almost controversial music release, but the music sounded so natural I was confused on how to approach the music, and put it down for a while. After another listen I began to realize the shapes, structures and goals in this partly improvised music. First of all I must say that the group hangs together perfectly, and it seems also that the ideas from the compositions as well as the piano style of Satoko Fuji fuses perfectly with the backgrounds and personalities of each member. Husband Natsuki Tamura on trumpet has his own improvised passages, keeps warm calm jazzy moods, but is also capable of making other parts wilder. Takeharu Hayakawa on electric bass adds a groovy rock feeling on the first track, and follows elsewhere pretty smoothly, and has his own improvisation part too. Yoshida Tatsyua is perfectly capable to play jazz, has his own small improvised part somewhere, in jazz style. Satoko’s piano uses an intelligent wide range of piano styles, ranging from a simple-in-idea- but-fast, partly atonal and bewildered clustered pianoplaying, to contemporary melodic passages, to improvised and more recognisable jazz, forming a wide range of expressions, which brings the group from calm moody jazz, to more improvisation, to almost complex jazzrock with breaks and just a few avant-rock like varieties. “Cicada” has a very small free part as introduction to build upon a tension for the track. For me this is very logical and enjoyable jazz.
