Thursday, May 23, 2019

Australian pianist Alister Spence and Satoko Fujii's Orchestra Kobe Create a Big Band Masterpiece - Imagine Meeting You Here


Imagine Meeting You Here pairs two of the world's most adventurous composer-improvisers in a performance of a ground-breaking work for jazz orchestra. Pianist-composer Alister Spence, one of the leading voices in Australian new music, teams up with the Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe, one of several cutting-edge large ensembles helmed by prolific Japanese pianist-composer Satoko Fujii, on Spence's riveting five-part composition for improvising orchestra. Fine craftsmanship and resourceful imagination meet wild spontaneity and instrumental virtuosity in a disciplined yet liberating CD that is both accessible and boundlessly creative.  The album was released via Alister Spence Music.

"The project developed as part of my doctoral PhD in creative practice (music composition)," Spence says. "I decided to write a large-scale work for improvising ensemble and approached Satoko Fujii and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and offered to write this work for them: the same work, called 'Imagine Meeting You Here.' Both Satoko and GIO were very keen about the idea and straight away suggested performances in Japan and Scotland. In February 2016 the work was performed by three of Satoko Fujii's Orchestras in Nagoya, Kobe, and Tokyo, and in November Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra included the work in their annual festival, GioFestIX."

During a return trip to Japan in September 2017, Orchestra Kobe recorded the piece live at the Big Apple jazz club. Besides playing in the orchestra, Fujii handled most of the complex logistics for this international project. "Satoko performed so many tasks in this project!" Spence enthuses.

"I was trying to create what I considered to be a balanced work in terms of energies and weight, tempo, rhythm, my ideas versus the ensembles ideas," says Spence. "And I also was seeking to create different improvisational contexts for solos, duos, trios, and larger ensembles from within the orchestra. Sometimes these were designed as an exploration of textural elements such as breath or key click sounds, and sometimes were more tonal."

Imagine Meeting You Here does indeed strike an artful balance among a wealth of musical elements while blending composition and improvisation. "Part 1" showcases Spence's sure handling of melody and orchestration as it unfolds over a hypnotic heart-beat rhythm. The slowly building tension finally explodes in fiery solos from tenor saxophonist Eiichiro Arasaki and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. The opening trio for Arasaki on shakuhachi, alto saxophonist Yasuhisa Mizutani, and guitarist Takumi Seino blurs the distinction between composed and improvised by specifying notes to play while leaving register, tempo, and time up to the performers.

Spence - Imagine Meeting You Here "Part 2" offers contrast as contrapuntal melodies are layered over an odd-meter 5/4 beat and collective improvisations alternate with fully scored passages. Spence again erases boundaries in this movement, this time by specifying a rhythm for the nonsense vocalizing at the beginning while leaving all other elements up to the players. Then as the group switches to their instruments, they transition from random note choices to specific pitches on a given rhythm. The seamless merger of written and spontaneous is a tribute to how attuned composer and performers are. In "Part 3," the full ensemble is divided into four autonomous units, each with its own conductor-performer, that overlap group entries and exits until they all come back together at the end.

After the fluid interactions and out of tempo interplay of "Part 3," Spence again aims for variety with bold themes and propulsive drums in "Part 4." As melodies and countermelodies intertwine, wailing improvisations by trumpeter Rabito Arimoto and tenor saxophonist Tsutomu Takei sail over the band. When drummer Yoshikazu Isaki drops out, the full ensemble improvises, maintaining the intensity and drive. The final movement is a slow, serene postscript in which sustained melodic passages overlap with collective textural and then modal improvisation, a lush and lyrical example of how composer and orchestra work together to create a fully collaborative, organic piece of music.

"I always felt very welcome with SFO Kobe. We had quite a lot of fun getting this project together, in spite of innumerable hair-raising moments due to my complicated composition!" says Spence. "I am so grateful for the interest, energy, and application of all the members of the orchestra. It is such a wonderful band, full of brilliant, distinctive, dedicated improvisers. I count myself very lucky to have this opportunity to work with them."

Pianist-composer Alister Spence is recognized as one of Australia's most original and distinctive jazz pianist-composers. With a career spanning more than 25 years, his wide-ranging talents have led him to work with some of the world's most respected artists in the areas of contemporary music, improvisation, film, and theatre. For the past 20 years, he has devoted much of his energy to the Alister Spence Trio featuring bassist Lloyd Swanton and drummer Toby Hall. This celebrated group has recorded six acclaimed CDs and has a growing international reputation. The Australian called their most recent CD, Not Everything But Enough, "Music bordering on a jazz masterpiece." Their previous album, Alister Spence Trio: Live, recorded at the Sound Lounge, Sydney, in 2015, received a 4-star review in Jazzwise Magazine. The online jazz newsletter salt peanuts* has praised the group for its "brilliant musicianship, masterful playing, and imaginative improvisation skills."

Spence has also forged bonds with musicians around the world. Since 2008, he has collaborated with pianist-composer Satoko Fujii, appearing on two of her twelve 2018 kanreki year releases-intelsat, a duet on which he plays electric keyboards, and Bright Force by Kira Kira, a quartet including Fujii, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and drummer Ittetsu Takemura. Karl Ackermann in AllAboutJazz called the two pianist-composers, "kindred spirits in terms of boundless musical interests..." Spence's discography also includes several releases with Glasgow-based saxophonist Raymond MacDonald, including two duet CDs; an album with the trio, Sensaround. He holds a doctorate from University of New South Wales, where he is a lecturer in music.
  



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