"Mark Dresser opens the first track, "Trace A River", with high arco bowing, plaintive, brooding, with sparse piano chords by Fujii and soft accentuations given by Jim Black's drums, but then the slow flowing tumbles down the slopes of hills and mountains in torrents of hard-hitting chords and percussive power, with Dresser's bass taking over the momentum for a fast pizzi solo, without slowing down the cascading river, sinewing and moving left and right, while Fujii is building up the tension again, in full force, with a quite interesting orchestrated and unexpected unison core theme, then Black gets his cascading solo moment, after which quietness and sweetness return, the water has reached flatter landscapes, leading to a stunning arco solo by Dresser, which evolves into a slow beautiful repetitive plaintive theme, supported by a fixed rhythm uptempo percussion, Fujii restraining herself with some sparse chordal accentuation. Expressive and impressive. The second track showcases Fujii's sense of rhythm and rhythm changes.
[...] Satoko Fujii really has her own style, full of unexpected dynamics, twists and turns, a great melodic and structural approach while remaining very improvisational at the same time. This is the fourth release of the Satoko Fujii Trio since 1997 if I'm not mistaken, and it's a real pitty that they only record every few years. The interplay between these three musicians is excellent and full of surprises. Like with Tamura, the blending of sweet impressionistic moments with hard accents and expressionistic depth and power is unusual and it works really well. Just one more example : on "A Maze Of Alleys", the piano starts with an upbeat jazzy Mozartian theme, which then really comes crashing down the stairs, piano and all, hitting the wall on the landing, and hard, but then the tune resumes and the track goes on, and you can visualize the way the tune finds its way through the maze, taking turns, bumping into things, hesitating, slowing down, then taking up speed again if the exit appears to be clear. It's fun, it's clever. It's soft, it's hard, it's serious and it's not. The following track brings a solo piano piece : soft, sensitive and serene. Great."-Freejazz-stef@blogspot.com |