Satoko Fujii, photo by Bryan Murray.
Satoko Fujii is a Tokyoite pianist who is a component in the free-improvisational project Kaze in addition to Natsuki Tamura (trumpet), Christian Pruvost (trumpet), Peter Orins (drums), that released most recently the album Unwritten, which is characterized by a more meditative approach that is related to the austere side of avant jazz freedom. Fujii is an iconic artist, specializing also in the accordion, who debuted in 1996 with a Paul Bley collaboration, developing her career into an ever-changing creativity from the viewpoints of form and expression. Moreover, her anarchical spirituality has consented to define an organic complexity that permeates every single release in the relative discography. So, in Yama Kawa Umi, with the Spanish drummer Ramón López and the above-cited Natsuki Tamura’s collaboration (Not Two Records, 2025), the continuous flow by Fujii encounters the associated almost-approximating beat by López and the more contrapuntal approach by Tamura in a relevant stochastic sense; otherwise the most recent release Dream a Dream by Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio is dominated by more constant lyrical or broadly classical elements.
In the following interview, there will be analyzed in depth the cited topics with the empathic impressions and descriptions by the artist about her poetry and collaborations.
Let’s start from the beginning. Your first release is a collaboration with Paul Bley, which is called Something About Water (1996), where the elegant and serialist piano lines encounter the concept of rarefaction. A first step for the relative stochastic flow that will converge to more elastic dynamicity by a sonic viewpoint. So, can you talk about this debut and the music contribution in association with the historical Canadian composer?
“I studied with Paul Bley from 1994 to 1996 at New England Conservatory in Boston. I’ve always been a big fan of his music, so studying with him was a very special experience. If I hadn’t met him, my life would probably be very different. We recorded this album just as I graduated from NEC. It’s completely improvised. We played without talking about the music beforehand, so it was really about listening and communicating. What you hear on the album is a completely organic product of deep musical connection.”
In relation to your discography recent part, Hakuro (2023) is a work in collaboration with you and the saxophonist Ryoko Ono. The relative music is an immersion in free improvisation music, with poetic elements from jazz and avant-garde music. There is creative freedom in addition to more technical parts, where sax lines by Ryoko and your piano performance demonstrate intense practical experiences. Yamato Oto could be seen as a chamber composition with a large creativity. Footsteps on the Sea is interesting for the first part with prepared piano and with oblique rhythms and serialist melodicism. Moreover, Autumn Rain Front is signed by ever-changing characters, where an odd heterodoxy encounters softly harmonic parts. How did this collaboration and this idea of sonic heterogeneity, expressed by fervid ideas with static timbers, happen?
“Ryoko and I had known each other for a while, and she sometimes played in my orchestra Nagoya. I was always amazed by her creative improvisation as well as her compositions. She came up with the idea to play duo, and I happily agreed. We got a concert in Kobe, our first time playing in duo format. As with me and Paul Bley, we improvised without deciding or discussing anything beforehand. Ryoko was another person like Paul that I could speak to in in a language that was pure music. We weren’t afraid to let the music evolve in the moment. On the contrary, it was loads of fun!”
Kaze
Crustal Movement (Circum-Libra Records, 2023) by the French-Japanese quartet Kaze is characterized by freely improvisational sound accompanied with occasional counterpoint by the Ikue Mori electronics in addition to analogic sonic patterns, which naturalism denoted a certain conservative perspective in sight of more traditional music. Stochasticity by Ikue has permitted the creation of a musical added value which has given elastic expressivity to the total result. So, how this collaboration was born, and were there specific guidelines on this free improvisation performance?
“Kaze asked Ikue Mori to play with us for some concerts in Europe in 2019. I had already played with Ikue and had a feeling that Ikue and Kaze might sound good together. Right after that tour we recorded Sand Storm in 2020. During the pandemic, we couldn’t play together because Ikue was in America, Natsuki and I were in Japan, and Christian and Peter were in Europe. To solve that problem, Ikue and I came up with the idea to make music by swapping audio files. That’s how Crustal Movement was made, across three continents. The music is actually quite composed. We didn’t use much traditional music notation, but we used other ways of designating structure, like timing. The trumpet, for example, might be featured during a 40-second section of very soft playing. Things like that.”
Your last album by Kaze, Unwritten (Circum-Libra Records, 2024), has a rarified consistency, in association with meditative writing. Can you talk about the producing phase behind this release?
“Kaze’s music has a lot of improvisation, but we had never tried complete improvisation until May 2023, 13 years after the unit formed in 2010. That’s how long it took for us to finally feel we were ready to improvise completely. Unwritten is our first complete unwritten un-composed album.”
Kaze, from right to left: Natsuki Tamura, Peter Orins, Christian Pruvost and Satoko Fujii. Photo by Alexandre Noclain.
The first track Thirteen Years has a cinematography development, where the suspended, ambient start evolved into grandeur-ish chaoticity with free jazz shades. In the sign of a noisy swinging attitude, this track remembers a certain orchestral magnificence by Sun Ra and his Arkestra, especially at its ending. So how did its chaotic and baroque suite format happen in this piece?
“As I mentioned, this is improvised music. We didn’t talk and write anything beforehand, so explaining its creation is difficult. We just followed our ears and hearts and embraced what we made.”
We Waited has again an elegant free jazz aesthetic with influences from several minimalist intuitions. In particular, the related minimalism was expressed by more accessible melodic and old-fashioned patterns, which were recalled in the second half of Charles Mingus’s poetics. So, can you explain the subconscious reasons behind this free composition?
“In free improvisation, we use whatever we can to express ourselves. Often, we surprise ourselves. It’s just a magical process, so I leave the explaining and analyzing to others.”
Evolving is a track almost completely permeated by counterpoints, where the relative melodic un-expressivity encounters piano ideas from the austere creativity by Cecil Taylor. Drumming by Peter is very peculiar and intelligently organic in its stochasticity, where a profound subconscious sanded rhythmic patterns in a meditated way. So, how did its unorthodox creativity achieve a delicate elegance?
“Peter is very intelligent and his music, of course, shows his personality. Kaze is a very special musical experience, and he’s a big part of that. When we started playing together, we didn’t know each other so well, but after playing together for more than 13 years we have a strong connection. Music comes from deep in the heart, so it’s the best way to communicate.”
Satoko Fujii GEN, Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio, Satoko Fujii This is it!
Satoko Fujii GEN is a collective directed by you formed in addition to a string quartet (Yuriko Mukoujima, Ayako Kato, Atsuko Hatano, and Hiroshi Yoshino) and a drummer (Akira Horikoshi). There is in the album Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra Records, 2025) a broad spiritual-jazz-ish component, with craftsmanship writing that taps into hard bop creativity. Can you talk about the intention behind this last work on behalf of this group?
“I had been dreaming of forming a strings ensemble for a long time. When I was asked if I had a special project for my 65th birthday, I thought it might be a good chance to make this dream happen. I stayed in the mountains with my elderly parents to escape from the heat during the summer of 2023, and on that trip I focused on composing for the project. Staying in the mountains is such an inspirational experience, feeling the breeze, the air, and the climate. That’s where I got the inspiration to compose Altitude 1100 Meters.”
Satoko Fujii, photo by Bryan Murray.
The track Early Afternoon from Altitude 1100 Meters oscillates between free jazz or abstractist pattern and a certain elegant conservatism that taps into Mingus-esque poetics. A music flow that is similar to a cinematic sequence shot shows a characterization of contrast between dynamism and suspension, instilling, especially a contemplative meaning. So can you talk about how this double-faced character in this piece happens?
“I wanted to feature string instruments by using the unique timbre they can get. I combined that with my own musical taste. Since I could get great improvisers for this project, I also wanted to hear their voices in my music. I like my compositions to be wide open for musicians. All this gave the music many faces.”
After the granular free impro consistency of the Light Rain tracks, the piece Twilight is formed by the entanglement of string lines which will be developed into a harmonically suspended experimentation characterised by a wavering recurrency. So how does this last part of the album generally happen in the sign of extemporaneous creativity?
“I was inspired by the air in the mountains. The feeling I felt on and under my skin comes out as music.”
Classical elements, with free jazz shades, are iconic in the album Dream A Dream (Libra Records, 2025), on behalf of Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio. A more intuitive approach dominates the writing, with rarified and lyrical consistency, where a wooden beating of percussions has a directional role. So, can you talk about this synthetical idea?
“I write very few parts for the pieces for Tokyo Trio now because I know my bandmates are amazing improvisers and we listen and hear other in deep ways. My written material is primarily for inspirational purposes, a kind of glue to connect us to each other. It of course can indicate a direction, but my goal is always for the music to direct the way we play in the moment, not some compositional decision I made in advance. We all like noise and sonic texture, so that becomes part of our creative vocabulary.”
Otherwise, Message by Satoko Fujii This Is It!, released by Libra Records this year (2025), explores more intriguingly the potential of freedom in music expression. The titletrack, digressing with hypnotic piano lines, develops itself in angular and majestic composition where the rhythmic chaos of jazz encounters a Manichean and elegant writing on harmonic component, unifying synthetically two sides of the related sonic dualism. So can you talk about the creative process behind this piece?
“I have been playing with this trio for a long time. Takashi is a crazy percussionist, and Natsuki is such a free, expressive artist. I actually write out a lot of the parts, including melodies, harmony and rhythm. I love to hear how the trio breaks and assembles the pieces.”
Following the atonal randomness in Never Mind, which taps into sounds by orchestral rehearsals, Orange Flicker represents another change of direction in the album; lines by vibraphone describe bright and enlightening patterns that arise gently in the listening, developing themselves in a more general jazzish coldness, thanks especially by the trumpet part. Can you talk about the epiphanic poetry in the conclusive track from the Message album?
“”Orange Flicker” is old repertoire for me. I had been trying to find a new way to play it. When Takashi told me he could play glockenspiel, I got an idea. His glockenspiel starts the piece, and others gradually join, then we disappear one by one and it comes full circle with Takashi closing the piece. It’s an organic form and I wanted an organic ending for the end of the album.”