Satoko Fujii

Pianist Satoko Fujii and her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, seem an unlikely couple to storm the citadel of jazz with challenging new sounds. Far from the typical  black-clad, scowling, self-absorbed manner of the avant-garde artist, they are surprisingly casual, the kind of people you immediately call by their first names.

Over the past five years, Fujii and Tamura have released a stunning series of recordings that have received vast critical acclaim, placing them consistently at the top of annual jazz polls both in Japan and America. They have toured constantly, performing at the most prestigious venues and festivals devoted to cutting-edge jazz.

When they sat down to talk about their music in a Shinjuku coffee shop, they were chatty in a lazy Saturday morning, old-pair-of-jeans kind of way. The contrast with the ferocious onstage intensity of their eclectic musical approach could not have been stronger. Was this the new face of the avant-garde?

"Is our music avant-garde?" asked Fujii with a laugh, then a thoughtful silence. "Avant-garde is usually a word people use when they don't understand something." Would you call it free jazz? I asked. "No, not really. That's from the 60s," she said. Terms aside, we moved on to how and why they love to create music.

Their live shows certainly defy categorization. All of their groups, the Satoko Fujii Quartet (captured on this year's "Bell The Cat"), the Satoko Fujii Orchestra (recorded with two bands, one American and one Japanese, on "Double Take") , and the Natsuki Tamura Quartet (whose electric noise-filled jazz will be released on CD early next year),  can leave the traditional jazz listener feeling ruffled and startled but usually very impressed.

Confounding expectations is one of their goals. Fujii tried to explain: "The most important thing is to make music interesting and exciting, so for that, we can do anything."  Tamura added, "Sometimes music is too much together. We don't like that. If the music is two or three minutes in the same mood, somebody in the band will play totally different."  First time listeners might be forgiven if they think it's two or three seconds.

Their live shows derive their intense flow from this child-like fascination with pulling apart jazz structures, like some new toy, and then putting them back together in their own playful way. This mischievous attitude makes their music consistently challenging and unpredictable, even for the musicians in the band. On stage, the musicians in Fujii's orchestra are constantly frowning at the charts, trying to determine where the music is going, and what they are supposed to play.

They found my question  about what they actually wrote on their charts to be hilarious. Fujii answered first, "Well, we write a little of everything. Of course, we write musical notes, but we also put in the mood, or sometimes only the rhythm or the feeling, and then let them figure it out." Tamura, who contributes many of the arrangements said, "I like to write something that surprises them, or confuses. Sometimes, I just leave things out. I want the musicians to think, 'How could they write something like this?'"

The orchestra's sound uses constantly shifting patterns that rarely return to previous melodic sections. The lack of repetition may be a little tiring to listeners more attuned to a straight 4/4 beat and pretty melody, but there are other benefits. One is a profound sense of humor. One long orchestral piece with a series of tricky, diverse sections, ended with a chorus of shouts from the members of the orchestra, "O-cha, O-cha, O-cha," straining their voices in a bewildering variety of tones, lengths and volumes. The song was, of course, titled, "O-cha, O-cha, O-cha."

Another aspect of their music is paradox. Fujii wanted to make clear their differences with other avant-garde musicians. "Some avant-garde musicians think we shouldn't use any tonality. I think that I can use everything I know, and everything I don't know," she laughed. Tamura added, "Some improvisers say you can't use this or that, but why not? I can use every note. And sometimes, if we feel like playing tightly together, we do that. But then, of course, it goes in different directions."

The Satoko Fujii Quartet thrives on these unresolved elements. The improvised sections of their solos push for a question and answer repartee between the musicians. They quote from old songs, sass each other with mimicked lines and ask provocative questions, all in their own unique instrumental voices. Drummer Jim Black likes to use a violin bow on his cymbal. Bassist Mark Dresser ranges between a mandolin-like sound and the boom of a kettle drum. Fujii's Cecil Taylor runs on the keyboard are consistently mind-boggling, and force everyone in the group to work at an incredibly fast pace. Then, Tamura cools things with a minimalist trumpet solo.

The other essential component to their sound is unvarnished emotion. Many "avant-garde" experimental players end up with music that is more intellectual than heartfelt. Fujii and Tamura's groups, though, clear away predictable musical forms to reveal personal feelings, instead of showing off their conceptual brilliance. Fujii said, "I like to be very open. Debussy said  that the only theory he used was his own ears. I like that idea. Even though I studied at Berklee [School of Jazz] and the New England Conservatory, those theories are just to get some material inside me. After that, I listen to myself."

And what about the audience? Tamura said, "The best audiences are from the countryside in Japan. Their ear is very pure and very open. After the concert, they say, 'I don't know what that was, but I had fun.' That makes us really happy."  Fujii added, "There's two kinds of people who listen to music. Most people would like to hear something that they've already heard before. They expect something to happen that they know. But other people, when they listen, look for something that they have never heard before."

(Originally published in The Japan Times October 2002)