Satoko Fujii / Natsuki Tamura: Pentas
Not Two Records

Even after playing as a duo for twenty-three years, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii, who's appeared on more than eighty albums as a leader or co-leader, and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, whose approach calls to mind similarly adventurous souls like Lester Bowie and Wadada Leo Smith, still manage to sound as if they're discovering new things about one another and finding novel ways to say it. Rather than repeat the past, the duo changed things up for their seventh album, laid down at DTS Studio, Kraków on November 19th, 2019: on earlier releases, Fujii is credited as the primary composer; on Pentas, writing credits are split evenly between the two. And even though their playing on the recording suggests free improvisation, its material had been rehearsed privately and performed in concert beforehand, which afforded the two a deeper understanding of the pieces plus a familiar foundation from which to extrapolate during the recording process.

The rapport between them is, naturally, strong. That connection enables the duo to play at a high-wire level, each confident that the other will provide the necessary support to prevent the material from fracturing. Fujii often lays a solid ground over which Tamura extemporizes, “Wind Chili” a case in point. Here, elaborate, impressionistic piano textures act as a flowing, almost oceanic base for the trumpeter's musings. After herky-jerky rhythms and staccato expressions introduce “Not Together,” the duo uses that structure as a scaffolding to build off, Tamura peppering Fujii's punctuations with clipped phrases and the pianist loosening the reins with a spidery, blues-inflected solo. Like the album in general, the tune exudes spontaneity and invention, no matter how pre-determined it might have been before the recording occurred. With his horn spanning multiple registers and blustering, screeching, and wailing like a wild animal, the full range of Tamura's playing is featured during “Rising,” or at least seemingly so. Bold mute techniques also twist the horn into unusual shapes for “Itsumo Itsumo,” one of the album's most explosive settings. Contemplative by comparison is “Stillness,” even if Fujii's chromatic soloing exudes no small amount of intensity.

Often it feels as if we're eavesdropping on a private, intimate conversation between the two, so intense is the to-and-fro. Just as the listener is unable to predict where the dialogue will go, the impression created is that Fujii and Tamura are as receptive to the directions the music takes them. Theirs is duo project in the truest sense, too, as each player is as prominently featured as the other. Pentas is billed as a tribute to Eric and Chris Stern for a reason. A passionate music fan, Eric had been the prime mover behind a concert series presented at the Black Box Theatre in NYC, which included a duo concert by Fujii and Tamura, their first after the recording's completion. After meeting Eric for the first time at the venue, the duo learned just before departing from JFK airport the next day for Japan that he'd died at home following the concert. This recording honours him in daring manner.

December 2020