courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications
Hazuki is the latest album of jazz pianist Satoko Fujii; and, unless I am mistaken, it is her first solo album since the release of Stone in June of 2019. According to the booklet notes, all eight of the tracks were recorded under lockdown conditions in her own home in Kobe this past August. Conditions were far from optimal, particularly since the recordings were made in an airtight room in the midst of intense summer heat.
Six of the tracks present music composed since the initial onset of COVID-19. One of these, “Twenty Four Degrees” reflects the Celsius temperature she had to endure during one of her recording sessions. The oldest piece, “Expanding,” was composed on December 22, 2014. Fujii selected it to revisit past approaches to compositional technique. The remaining track, “Ernesto,” was composed on January 15, 2019 and was inspired by having read a biography of Che Guevara (who was born with the first name “Ernesto”).
Hazuki was released in digital form on Bandcamp this past October 2. At that time no physical release was available; and, sadly, the Bandcamp release did not include the accompanying booklet. However, as of March 19 the “complete” album became available through the CD Store Web page on the Libra Records Web site. The only problem may be that shipping will take longer that it did before the impact of COVID-19.
Fujii’s booklet notes call all eight of her selections “compositions.” She does not discuss to what extent performance includes improvisation. Since her “Beginning” piece is based on a seventeen-measure theme, I suspect that there is broad variation between “total specification” and free improvisation. As I have written in the past, Fujii is particularly interested in the wide variety of sonorities that arise from playing a piano through means other than conventional keyboard technique. As a result, each of the tracks offers its own imaginatively-charted journey through a landscape of such sonorities.
As was the case in Fujii’s past solo albums, I found myself more than satisfied to pursue the journey presented to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment