Pianist Satoko Fujii (right) with her trio colleagues Takashi Sugawa (left) and Ittetsu Takemura (center)
This coming Friday will see the release of the first studio album of performances by the Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio, whose other members are Ittetsu Takemura on drums and bassist Takashi Sugawa. Some readers may recall that two albums have already been released of concert recordings: Moon on the Lake in May of 2021 and Jet Black in December of 2023. The title of the new album is Dream a Dream. It is scheduled for release this coming Friday. It can be found on a Dusty Groove Web page, where it is currently listed as “Temporarily Out Of Stock.” Presumably, the site will start processing orders on Friday!
Some readers may recall that when, this past November, I wrote about Andrew Hill’s latest album, A Beautiful Day, Revisited, I recalled joking about telling the difference between jazz as “chamber music by other means” and chamber music as “jazz by other means.” That recalled a previous joke from one month earlier about the President being like ”the King and the Prime Minister all rolled up into one,” which gave rise to the question, “One what?” Fujii’s performances tend to involve combos in jazz clubs; but, as I have previously written, she was one of the first to perform at the Center for New Music, not long after its founding in 2012. I suppose it would be fair to say that I listen to her tracks as if they were chamber music; but, in my collection, I keep her albums in my jazz section!
Dream a Dream presents a program of five extended trio improvisations. The shortest of these, “Rain Drop,” is only somewhat longer than five minutes, while the longest, which is the title track, closely approaches twenty minutes. While Fujii definitely leads from the piano, she allows generous intervals of time for both Sugawa and Takemura to explore their own inventions. It is also worth noting that, in his bass work, Sugawa is generous in his use of his bow. Indeed, were it not for the percussion riffs, most listeners would probably recognize this as adventurous chamber music, rather than jazz!
In other words, Dream of Dream comes across as a perfect embodiment of Duke Ellington’s response to those arguing about the difference between chamber music and jazz:
It’s all music.
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