Fujii has always had a knack for celebrating career landmarks in style. In 2008, she marked her 50th birthday year by releasing a half dozen CDs. A decade later, she doubled that output, releasing a new CD each month for a year in celebration of her 60th birthday. Franz A. Matzner in All About Jazz likened the twelve albums to “an ecosystem of independently thriving organisms linked by the shared soil of Fujii's artistic heritage and shaped by the forces of her creativity.” It’s no wonder that this artist with such a highly developed sense of occasion should make a splash for CD number 100.
Since Something About Water with pianist Paul Bley, her 1996 recording debut as a leader, Fujii has released albums under her own name with a stunning range of bands. Among them are seven CDs with a trio featuring bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black; five albums by her electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins; eight solo CDs; and eight duets with her husband and creative partner, Natsuki Tamura. Fully one-fifth of her recorded output–more than 20 albums–feature her compositions for large ensemble.
Fujii says each of her CDs is “a dream come true.” On Hyaku (the Japanese word for “100”), she presents yet another of her beguiling visions—the wide-ranging “One Hundred Dreams,” a composition embracing swinging jazz, avant-rock, chamber jazz, and collective improvisation, that’s a prime example of Fujii’s unclassifiable music making at its peak.
Fujii treats her bandmembers as equal contributors to the composition and gives them generous solo time. Schoenbeck’s unaccompanied solo displays a lovely sense of melody and a unique vocabulary of colors and textures. The drummers engage in a duet that is not so much a dialogue as a joint statement. Wadada Leo Smith offers up a small jewel of subtle sound manipulation and structural discipline. Bassist Lopez, also a master of extended techniques, elicits new sounds from his instrument, and his low tones create considerable heft and presence. In her solo spot, Ingrid Laubrock feeds off the energy of Lopez and the drummers, coaxing short phrases into a long flowing statement that weaves in and out of the rhythmic network of her accompanists. Mori organizes her distinctive electronic sounds into incidents that possess all the drama and feeling of melody, even though there rarely is one. Tamura’s solo combines absurdly comic sounds and bop-inflected lines into serious music that isn’t self-serious.
As composer and conductor, Fujii is always listening carefully and guiding and shaping the performance. She cues in closely voiced ensemble chords that well up around Schoenbeck and buoy her skyward toward the end of her solo. The band punctuates the drum duet, driving the music to an exciting climactic burst. She fashioned a colorful backdrop for Smith that complements his mastery of sound, silence, and instrumental color. She brings in the band to punctuate Laubrock’s solo, but soon the short bursts of notes expand into a jubilant collective improvisation. She has also penned some bristling themes full of surprising twists and turns. She brings in a snaky, swinging melody that draws the band together after an extended passage in which she deconstructs the ensemble into smaller units. And the entire band pitches in on a rocking theme that brings everything to a celebratory ending.
Pianist and composer Satoko Fujii, “an improviser of rumbling intensity and generous restraint” (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times), is one of the most original voices in jazz today. “Fujii’s music troubles the divide between abstraction and realism,” Russonello continues. “Plucking or scraping the strings of the piano; covering them up as she strikes the keys…. All of this amounts to abstract expressionism, in musical form. But it’s equaled by her rich sense of simplicity, sprung from the feeling that she is simply converting the riches of the world around her into music.”
For more than 25 years, she has created a unique, personal music that spans many genres, blending jazz, contemporary classical, rock, and traditional Japanese music into an innovative synthesis instantly recognizable as hers alone. A prolific composer for ensembles of all sizes and a performer who has appeared around the world, she was the recipient of a 2020 Instant Award in Improvised Music, in recognition of her “artistic intelligence, independence, and integrity.”
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