Encountering Gato Libre for the First Time

The “mascot” illustrated on the cover of the new Gato Libre album (courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications)

Those that have been following my writing for some time probably know that I am seriously hooked on the work of Japanese jazz pianist Satoko Fujii. Indeed, she has become significant enough to earn a place in the Labels list found in the right-hand column beside any of my articles, a list that she shares with the likes of Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Lennie Tristano, and Wadada Leo Smith. Part of her appeal has to do with the ongoing struggle that emerges with every release of a new recording: Do I classify this as jazz or classical? To date, I think that her only appearance on the classical side has been the solo piano album is Diary 2005–2015: Yuko Yamaoka plays the music of Satoko Fujii, since this is the clearest case of a “classical” pianist playing Fujii’s compositions.

This month I again found myself confronted with that classification problem with the release of the latest Gato Libre album. This group was founded in 2003 by Fujii’s husband, the trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. It has gone through a variety of personnel changes; and on the new release, entitled Koneko, it is a trio with Fujii playing accordion and trombonist Yasuko Kaneko. As has been the case with almost all of Fujii’s releases, Amazon.com has yet to acknowledge this new recording; but it is available for download from a Bandcamp Web page. (Indeed, Bandcamp may be the best resource for listeners interested in getting to know the full canon of recordings presenting Fujii’s work.)

Over the course of the album’s eight tracks, there is a prevailing rhetoric of mournful solitude. All tracks are composed by Tamura; and, while they all involve improvisation, it is not easy to discern when the improvisations depart from the marks on the staff paper. Hence my usual predicament: Has Tamura written chamber music in which improvisation is part of the performance, or is this jazz improvisation with more detailed charts than usual? To the extent that one jazz critic cited “the extended techniques of Wadada Leo Smith,” I decided that, if Smith is in my jazz category, then Gato Libre belongs there too!

Nevertheless, it is important to note that Fujii’s accordion work is decidedly different from that of a piano providing “rhythm” for the two brass soloists. Indeed, her extended solo work on the album’s title track makes it clear that, as an ensemble, Gato Libre makes it a point to cultivate solos for all members of the trio, all possible duo combinations, and the trio as a whole. As all of these subsets are explored across the entire album, the attentive listener is likely to be drawn in to the conclusion that the eight tracks, presented as a single continuum, make for a listening journey worth taking.