Almost a month ago, Libra Records released the latest solo album recorded by Japanese trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. Tamura is probably best known to readers of this site as the husband of pianist Satoko Fujii, and the two of them share highly adventurous takes on their approaches to composition and improvisation. Since 1997 the two of them have released seven duo CDs. Tamura has released three prior CDs, and the title of the new one is Koki Solo. As has been the case with most of Fujii’s recordings, Amazon.com has thus far been oblivious to Tamura’s new release, meaning that the best source is the CD Store Web page on the Libra Records Web site.
“Koki” is the Japanese noun that denotes one’s 70th birthday. Thus, those familiar with Fujii’s work are likely to compare it with the pianist’s “Kanreki Cycle,” when she released an album for every month in the year of her 60th birthday. Tamura seems to have decided to confine himself to a single album, but there is no shortage of diversity across the eight tracks on that recording. The back cover of the album lists his performing resources as “trumpet, piano, wok, voice.” The press release I received included the following sentence:
On “Karugamo,” for instance, he playfully explores the sonic potential of his assembled kitchen implements, curiously examining and combining high hollow rings, repeated taps, and dry scrapes into sequences of odd, but lovely, sounds.
I have no trouble with the description of all those sonorities; but, on the basis of what the album jacket printed (combined with my own acquaintance with woks), I would at least conjecture the possibility that all those sounds came from a single wok with probably a variety of different objects for striking it!
As is usually the case with Fujii albums, the real joy in listening to Koki Solo comes from that prodigious diversity of sonorities that unfold over all eight of the tracks. Whether or not that diversity amounts to retrospective contemplation by the soloist is left as an exercise for the attentive listener. Given that Tamura turned 70 on July 26, 2021, it may well be that his work on Koki Solo followed up on the recordings he made with Fujii for their “duo lockdown album” Keshin. Like that album, Koki Solo is not a “casual listening” offering; but those familiar with both Fujii and Tamura probably already know that! Given that these tracks were a “landmark” for Tamura, perhaps they will serve similarly for the rest of us as we experience the gradual transition from lockdown to a return to concert performances.
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