Natsuki Tamura’s Trumpet-Drums Duo Album

Cover of Natsuki Tamura’s latest album

At the beginning of this month, jazz trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura released his latest album, produced with his wife, jazz pianist Satoko Fujii. Less than 40 minutes in duration, the performance consists entirely of two duo performances by Tamura with drummer Ittetsu Takemura. While everything involved in making this album took place in Japan, it has an English title, Lightning. It is available only for digital release (streaming and download) through a Bandcamp Web page.

Most of the album is devoted to a half-hour track of composed and improvised performance entitled “Ikazuchi” (the Japanese word for “lightning”). This is followed by a nine-minute track entitled “Kaminari” (the Japanese work for what one might guess, “thunder”). As I have previously written, Tamura has a richly inventive capacity for drawing out a wide variety of sonorities from his instrument, many of which one might not associate with the brass family. That diversity can also be found on the Lightning album, particularly when he is developing solo work.

Takemura, on the other hand, is not shy about deploying more traditional techniques. The album begins with Tamura playing a very brief fanfare to introduce an extended solo by Takemura. My guess is that those of my generation will quickly be drawn into that solo work, particular the extended riffs that suggest that the spirit of Gene Krupa has occupied Takemura’s body. There are also extended vocal passages, which I assume are performed by Tamura. If Takemura evoked Krupa, then Tamura’s vocalizations reminded me of Dizzy Gillespie’s incantation at the beginning of “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac.” It would not surprise me if this was not a demonstration of how one trumpeter’s technique inspired another’s.

I have always believed that “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” allowed Gillespie to have a bit of fun with his approaches to stylization; so it would not surprise me to learn that Tamura had similar motives in recording his latest album.