Leo Genovese / Takashi Sugawa / Alfred Vogel - Unleashed (Boomslang, 2026)

 

By Eyal Hareuveni

In April 2025, Argentinian, Brooklyn-based pianist Leo Genovese just finished a concert with The Mars Volta at Madison Square Garden and had ninety free minutes before the tour bus would move on. He called his friends - Japanese, Tokyo-based double bass player (and cellist) Takeshi Sugawa, one of the busiest musicians in the Japanese scene, leader of his Banksia trio, who hosted Genovese in his debut album as bandleader (Outgrowing, 2018, with drummer Tom Rainey), who was in New York as part of the Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio North American tour, and Austrian drummer Alfred Vogel, of How Noisy Are the Rooms? And Vanish trios, the founder of Boomslang Records and the Bezau Beatz festival, who was visiting New York and had previously recorded with Genovese (Eyes to the Sun, Boomslang, 2024, with fellow Argentinian sax player Camila Nebbia).

Sugawa and Vogel did not know each other, and the ad hoc trio met for dinner in a small restaurant and immediately felt the need to play together.  Genovese, Sugawa, and Vogel promised each other that they had to repeat this experience. It did not take long. In May 2025, Genovese played in Berlin with Esperanza Spalding, Sugawa was touring in Europe, and Vogel booked the Bonello Studio in Berlin for an all-night, free-improvised recording session that produced Unleashed.

The music is quite spacious and understated, sketching its movement with delicate, skeletal strokes, without a plan and with no aim of reaching cohesive structures or grooves, as if asking the listener to be an active part of its creation and imagine where it can land. Genovese, Sugawa, and Vogel are attuned to every sound and gesture, as each one opens more sonic threads, but without attaching themselves to any of them. Melodic veins rise and dissolve organically, but the deep listening, deeply poetic, spontaneous, primal, and collective, egalitarian process is the essence of this trio. The trio distills its dynamics on the poetic, 13-minute “A World of One Colour”. Letting go and just being in the moment when everything opens, or, as Sugawa puts it, “A spirit that wanders, that lives across times and places.”

Hopefully, Genovese, Sugawa, and Vogel would find time in their busy schedules to take this trio on the road, letting it blossom even more on a tight tour.

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These Things Happen - A Gentle Reminder (Corbett vs Dempsey, 2026)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

It's rare to come back home empty-handed from a foray into Corbett vs Dempsey’s territorial waters, and this mission is no exception. Today, we're talking about the Atlantic Pact, set between the ever-erupting, volcanic Chicago scene and the anarcho-free stronghold of Amsterdam, that nothing and no one will ever conquer. No drones, tanks, Patriots, or F-35s, but the only weapons useful to humanity: reeds, pianos, drums, and basses. These Things Happen provide them with their sophomore album, "A Gentle Reminder", following their 2022 self-titled debut. 

This album, recorded at Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago and at WNUR Studio, Northwestern University, confirms the band's recipe: original songs interspersed with renditions of Misha Mengelberg and Thelonious Monk, presented not in a slavish, calligraphic manner but through a contemporary reinterpretation of tradition. 

The players on the field deserve to be met up close. Keefe Jackson, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet. Born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he arrived in Chicago in 2001 and performed across US and Europe with the likes of Tomeka Reid, Tim Days, Dave Rempis, Mike Reed, Jeb Bishop, Jason Adasiewicz, Satoko Fujii, Ab Baars and Bill Meyer. His partner in crime on the other side of the Pond, Oscar Jan Hoogland, piano, is a top notch badass. A leading figure on the Dutch impro scene, Hoogland sprung onto the Amsterdam landscape around 20 years ago, at the forefront of a new group of improvisers to arrive and simultaneously uphold the tradition of New Dutch Swing even while tearing it apart. As always, collaborations define the breadth of a musician's chromatic palette and so, read here about Oscar: improvisation with Senegalese singer Mola Sylla and percussionist Frank Rosaly; sound installations and performances with Practical Music and his Phonograph Orchestra; cumbia with Ibelisse Guardia Ferraguttis’s Superinca and the Galactic Green; Ethiopian jazz and Eritrean traditional music with Semer Welday’s Adulis. His work with Arnold de Boer and the duo with mythologic Han Bennink incontrovertibly attests to the caliber of the artist. The rhythm section that supports the two pals features Jason Roebke on double bass (collaborations with Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Jeff Parker, Chad Taylor, and Rob Mazurek), who replaced Joshua Abrams during the process, and Mikel Patrick Avery on drums (Rob Mazurek, Marshall Allen Tomeka Reid, Jeff Parker, and Kurt Vile on his CV). 

The record: Jackson's opening track "20 Years Past 12 O'Clock," a sonic excursus that moves across multiple time scales, is followed by a piece by Hoogland dedicated to Ab Baars, "Upperclass Underground," and a reinterpretation of Monk’s "Green Chimneys," whose genesis is described as follows: "it started out as a punk song on the setlist before taking a thin-threaded turn on the night." Two original compositions keep the pace in the right mood, constantly balancing compositional rigor with a loose flow, free from excessive constraints. The revisitation of Mengelberg's "Een Beetje Zenuwachtig," from minor to major, pays homage to the legendary Ukrainian pianist's key change when he played "Round Midnight" in Chicago, while "Well You Needn't" pushes Monk "max so far," as Hoogland puts it, with a sculptural declination of an ongoing sonic pendulum swinging between modernity and tradition. The album closes with “Over het Zijn en het Hoera”, its title drawn from an absurdist story by Dutch writer and artist Armando. 

As it has rightly been said, this is music that knows its history inside out and wears it lightly. The generosity of spirit here, between players, between cities, between Monk and Mengelberg, between composition and the moment, is the real subject. You know, sometimes things like these happen.

 

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Satoko Fujii + Myra Melford - Katarahi (RogueArt, 2026) *****

By Paul Acquaro

This review should not be confused for a scientific study, regardless of how convincing it sounds, after all, it lacks all sorts of the necessary quality criteria for a scientific work. It's not really objective, it has questionable reliability and only I can vouch for its validity, but my results suggest that repeated listening to Katarahi, the duo recording from Satoko Fuji and Myra Melford, makes one a better person. The findings, I think, are very strong, I'd say, they are basically unassailable. When listening, one's thoughts become clearer, empathy increases, and creativity soars. A wonder for sure.

 

Myra Melford and Satoko Fujii have been acquaintances since meeting in the 1990s while Fujii was studying with Paul Bley. Over the following years, the two pianists have met and played many times, though they have released just one recording together, Under the Water (Libra) in 2007, which may seem unusual for two such highly prolific musicians. Fortunately, an appearance in 2024 at the Leibnitz Jazzfestival in Austria, captured the two in a dynamic performance that intertwined composition and improvisation in a seamless, living dialog.

 

Katarahi, which in Japanese is a word meaning a heart-to-heart conversation between friends, lives up to its name. Professional musicianship collides with a palpable personal affinity as the two create a work that captures myriad moments of unbridled joy as well as contemplative introspection. 

 

Opening track, 'Interlude 1', begins with a terse and tense repetitive figure on one piano, the other replies with light tinkling plucks from inside the instrument's soundboard, which then moves slowly outwards, becoming a pensive, slightly dissonant melody. It's expectant and barely resolves before crumbling into 'Signpost', at first equally reserved, but with a slight hint of serious playfulness.

 

Towards the middle of the recording, on 'Chalk', the approach changes. Lush chords lead to a dramatic flourishing melody. The notes stream effortlessly, building excitement and tension before a quick resolution and drop into the start of 'Kaiwa', a sharply syncopated piece with some hard edges and percussive foundations. This leads to even more intensity and shared focus in the penultimate 'IV' and finally 'From Sometime.' During these final two pieces, the intensity mounts with sudden arpeggiated bursts and explosive tonal clusters, until the sudden end, received with enthusiastic applause.

 

From track to track, the music is fluid, logically connected, but easy to get lost in. Elements of classical mix with free improvisation, some moments congeal while others deflect off each other. It does not matter where one jumps in to the recording, it can be equally rewarding to listen start to finish, as is to randomly choose a track. Regardless, one is instantly exposed to effects of the music, and the sympathetic and intuitive music making is infectious.

 

The study conducted here on Katarahi has involved very intense close listening as well as very distracted listening methods. While controlling for nothing by volume, I've listened while chopping onions as well as grading papers. One of which made me cry, and during the other, I felt incredibly productive. In conclusion, this release is completely appropriate listening for wherever you are and whatever your are doing, no matter, you're going to do it better. Katarahi is simply a fantastic album.

Myra Melford also speaks with David Cristol about Katarahi and much more in their interview here.

 

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An interview with Myra Melford

Photo by Gil Corre

By David Cristol 

The US pianist and composer is busier than ever. New albums, a freshly launched Bandcamp label, teaching in Berkeley, writing for large ensembles in Europe, new bands to tour and record with : Myra Melford is in control and on a roll. During a stopover between Paris and Italy, The Evanston-born artist talked to David Cristol on a sunny June morning in the South of France.

– Can we start with your new piano duo release with Satoko Fujii, かたらひ (Katarahi)on RogueArt ? You previously collaborated on Under the Water [Libra Records, 2009] . How did the connection come about and how do you go about playing together ?

Myra Melford [MM] – Satoko and I met in 1994. I was playing a solo concert at a little club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Club Passim. After the concert, I discovered that Paul Bley was there, and he had brought Satoko with him. She was a student or ex-student of his. So it was Paul Bley who introduced us. But she was in Boston and I was in New York, so we didn't see each other much, but stayed aware of what the other was doing. After I moved to Berkeley in 2004, she came to the Bay Area and we arranged to do a two-piano concert at the Maybeck House in Berkeley. That was our first meeting at the piano. That happened around 2007 and the record came out a couple years later. It was completely improvised. We didn't talk about anything, just played. And learned a lot from that experience. Over the years, I played some concerts with her in Japan, we played in San Francisco in 2015, and started getting concert invitations in Europe. We thought, instead of playing completely free, let's each bring compositions that allow for a lot of improvisation, but where we have some common focus and we can plan a little bit so that there's variety in what we're doing, so that it’s not so dense all the time. By having a roadmap or idea about what an improvisation might be about, we could create more space and feature one or the other, understand a little bit more how to go about it. We played in Europe maybe once every couple of years. And then got this opportunity to play at the Leibnitz Jazz Festival. That was supposed to happen during the pandemic, but it got postponed and only actually happened in the fall of 2024.

– And that’s the new recording?

MM -Yes. It was recorded by Österreichischer Rundfunk, the Austrian radio. They did a really great job, and it was in the back of our minds that we would consider it for a live record. But it wasn't until we heard the recording and were happy with its quality and with our playing that we decided we wanted to release it. Our playing is complementary and compatible. We each have a different way of playing, and a different way of composing. But when we get together, I think on this new record especially, sometimes you can't tell who's playing, even though we're on different channels. We also switch pianos in the middle of the concert, which makes it even more confusing. I like the idea that we're creating one sound together rather than being these two separate pianists who must be identifiable.

– There aren't many live recordings in your discography.

MM –I like live recordings, but haven’t released many. An early one was Alive in the House of Saints [Hat ART, 1993] . And then, 12 from 25 with the Blu-ray documentary [Firehouse 12, 2018] , from my 2015 retrospective at The Stone. It's nice when you get a good recording and you don't feel like you have to edit it too much. For the duo we only had to take out a few coughs, nothing major. 

Myra Melford Trio at The Stone, NYC 2015 - credit Gil Corre

DC – Did you have in mind references to previous duos on the instrument ?

MM –I can only speak for myself : it was kind of completely new. I was familiar with the recording of Cecil Taylor and Mary Lou Williams and also with Marian McPartland's show and all the piano duos that happened there. But really it was something new to discover, and not something I had thought about for a long time.

– Do you often record your concerts ? Are there live recordings in your archive that you might release at some point ?

MM –I used to record a lot of my gigs on my phone or some small device like that, but I don't do that anymore. The idea was mainly to be able to listen to how some new music I’d written was working. Most of the concerts that I play now are recorded, if not by someone I know in the audience, then by a professional engineer. If it's being recorded, I always ask for a copy. There are several things that might potentially come out. I'm just starting a Bandcamp label. First I'm releasing my back catalog for which the rights have come back to me and which are no longer available or which the record labels are no longer selling. They've let them go out of print in some cases. The idea is that eventually I'll start to release some live concerts.

– How about the third Fire and Water Quintet [with Ingrid Laubrock, Mary Halvorson, Tomeka Reid and Lesley Mok] album that will come out on RogueArt ? Will it be a suite like the previous ones, to be listened to in one sitting ?

MM –This one is different. It's a set of pieces that in my opinion all fit together, but I didn't have an order to start with, as I did with the previous records. I wrote it as individual pieces. I like the order that we chose as a sequence, but it's not necessary to listen to the full thing at once.

– How did your writing for this group evolve over the years?

MM –It mostly evolved from the first record to the second record. For the second record, I was deliberately writing for the people in the band, thinking about how I wanted to feature each of them. On the third record, it's like I had absorbed or internalized a lot of their playing and approach. While I was writing the music, I was again thinking about who I would like to feature and how, but it was more open-ended than on Hear the Light Singing where each piece was going to feature a different person. This time it was more about breaking things down into duos and trios. I have been continuing to use some of my earlier approaches and strategies but also trying to develop some new concepts in terms of counterpoint and working with different cells of ideas. 

Fire and Water Quintet (Jazz em agosto, 2023). Photo Vera Marmelo

– You have a new trio with two members of the quintet. Did the trio idea arose from composing for the quintet?

MM –Not exactly, although the writing is similar and the trio plays some of the same music. I wrote some music for the trio that I ended up expanding for the quintet, and this is the first recording of it. In other cases, I imagined some departures from how I work with the quintet. Part of it was purely practical. It's pretty hard to tour with a quintet all the time. It's expensive, people are busy. I wanted to have a smaller unit that could be a continuation of the ideas that I've been exploring with Fire and Water. So, inviting Ingrid Laubrock and Lesley Mok made great sense. We've done several concerts together and are starting to work on some music for a recording. The band is called SOX 2. It's a a biomedical term that comes from generative gene therapy. It's something about how genes can regenerate. The person who wrote the liner notes for the quintet record explains it very clearly.

– Your all-female quintet is not only women, it's women from different origins, backgrounds, generations. Was that in your mind when forming the band?

MM –That's right. But that’s in the back of my mind. In the forefront of my mind are musical personalities. How does someone play? What's their sound? How do they approach improvisation? Can I imagine them performing my music? That is always the first concern. The second thing is my liking to have, as was already the case with Snowy Egret, different generations and backgrounds involved in the band. The quintet is a continuation of that idea. It's important for audiences to not only see a band of fantastic women players, but also that we are able to get together and make something together, even though we come from different backgrounds.

– How did you hear about each of them? Did you see them live at festivals or listen to their albums?

MM –Both. I had played with Mary and with Tomeka already, mostly through working with Nicole Mitchell. Ingrid came to see me very early after I moved to California. She was interested in some of the things I learned from Henry Threadgill and which I in turn shared with her. I followed what all of them were doing. Originally it was Susie Ibarra in the quintet. She's on the first album. Mary was playing in Tomeka's quartet. Mary and Ingrid had played with Kris Davis, and I was aware of what everybody was doing. These were all people I'd like to play with, and wondering what would happen if we all got together and played ? It went very well, and that's when I decided to turn it into a band. Our very first gig was part of my second Stone residency in 2019. In addition to doing several nights of current bands that I was either part of or leading, I decided to do one night of free improvisation. And I asked this group of people to do it with me. At the time I was starting to work on some new compositions. For the evening I ended up creating a roadmap of different duos and trios with some notated material, text scores, this kind of thing. It was quite open, but there was a little bit of the material that I then incorporated on For the Love of Fire and Water . After that show, I fleshed out the compositions and turned them into a suite that we could record.

– Like you, they're fluent in both composition and improvisation, active in both fields.

MM –For me it's more about blurring those fields, blurring the boundaries. But yes. Let me tell you about Lesley. I had written a second set of music that became the Hear the Light Singing recording. And we did a tour of that. We were going to do some more gigs and a recording, but unfortunately, Susie Ibarra wasn't available to do the tour with us. I started to look for a drummer that could learn the music with us and make the recording. I asked a couple of friends who they’d recommend and Lesley’s name came up. I called the other members and they were super into it. We got together and they played great right from the start. It's wonderful having them in the band, totally great.

– When you start a group, do you think, let’s do this one thing and then we'll see what happens? You sometimes have two recordings with a group, but three, like with Fire and Water, is pretty rare.

MM –That's right. Usually two records is about as far as I go with a band. And that's spread out over a few years. It comes both out of necessity or practicalities and because I wish to renew the writing and playing. I mean, if offered the opportunity to do a new tour, I want to have some new music ready and bring it out there. But in that case it's also that this band is really special and there seems to be room for expansion, like I could maybe develop music that would take us into some new territory. That’s what I am hoping to do. We're playing in Ottawa next month and going to do a tour in Europe in October, so maybe it’ll continue.

– When did you start using guitar?

MM –I have been playing with guitar for quite a long time if you go back to be the band Be Bread with Brandon Ross. That was more or less a quartet that had either Cuong Vu on trumpet and electronics or Brandon Ross on guitar, banjo and electric guitar. I like the combination of piano and guitar. In some ways, the inspiration for that came from doing a project of Henry Threadgill's, where I performed with guitar quartets, of which Brandon was part of. We did a couple pieces. One was « Over the River Club » from Song Out of My Trees [Black Saint, 1994] and the other was « Noisy Flowers » from Makin’ a Move [Columbia, 1995]. I like that sound. And it's about particular players. I worked with Brandon for quite a while, and when I put Snowy Egret together, I invited Liberty Ellman on guitar. Both of them had played with Threadgill. Mary has this big personality on guitar, effects and a very different sound to Liberty. Now they play great together in Ches Smith’s Clone Row. I wanted to keep working with guitar and I wanted to work with Mary. She has a very distinctive sound. I had done a project called Happy Whistlings around 2008, which was with Mary, Taylor Ho Bynum, Matana Roberts, Stomu Takeishi. It was music for the [writer, journalist] Eduardo Galeano project, Language of Dreams , that was eventually recorded by Snowy Egret. Mary played in one of the early iterations of it, and I loved playing with her. I knew I wanted to get back to having her play my music at some point. So this was the perfect opportunity. All the people I work with have their own creative expression which is original and strong, yet they always serve the compositions.

– You always pick the best bass players – Mark Dresser, Michael Formanek, Nick Dunston, Joëlle Léandre…

MM –Gosh, I'm so lucky to play with so many great bass players. Everybody's got a particular feel for time and comping and soloing and how they express rhythm. I'm looking for people who are complimentary to how I like to play the piano and the kind of music I'm writing. I'm fortunate that all these great bass players have been willing to play with me.

– You just toured again with the Tiger Trio [with Joëlle Léandre and Nicole Mitchell] . How did that go?

MM –It was great, we always have a good time when we get together. We hadn't played in about three years. We have two albums out. Or three if you include the one that's a live recording in Joëlle's Lifetime Rebel box set. We don't get to play often enough, but whenever we do, it's really fun. We're all coming from very different places in a way, but when we get together, something special happens. It is all improvised, we don't bring any compositions.

– The most recurring format in your discography is the trio. Is it your favorite?

MM –Well, I would say the quintet is my favorite. It's just a little harder to work with a quintet, to tour, organize schedules, have enough money to pay everybody. So I would say those are my two favorite formats, although I like duos, quartets and solo as well. With a trio, you have everything you need. You've got three different voices, so that not everybody has to play all the time, or you can change the roles fluidly from background to foreground, accompanying or being featured. And I like to do it with all kinds of instrumentations, from Equal Interest with violin and woodwinds [Leroy Jenkins and Joseph Jarman] to this new SOX 2 trio with Lesley and Ingrid, and the classic piano, bass, and drums association, like Splash, Trio M or my early trio. They're all fun and different, but it's easier to work with three people, you don't have a lot of parts to organize. It's less complex in some ways, but it doesn't have to be because everybody is capable of playing either very simply or playing a lot – like with Splash.

– Can you tell us about that trio [with Michael Formanek on bass & Ches Smith on drums and vibraphone] ? You put out a recording last year on Intakt, and took it on tour.

MM –As I was saying, composing for a trio, I have less parts available, right? You can only have three things going on at once. What's new for me about this trio is that Ches also plays vibes, so I have a second melodic instrument that can either play with the bass or with the piano while somebody else takes a different role. I love the combination of piano and vibes together. With musical personalities that bring something unique to my music, if I record something with Splash and then record the same tune with the quintet, it is performed completely differently. I can arrange some of the same material for quintet or trio. I wrote some interludes for Splash, and then adapted those to the quintet and they sound completely different. « Chalk », for instance, is a piece that can be played by various instrumentations and personalities, it's coming out different every time yet retains the essence of the composition. I do « Chalk » with Splash, with the quintet and also with Satoko.

– You don't have many solo recordings. Your solo piano set at the 2024 Novara Jazz festival was stunning.

MM –Just one, Life Carries Me This Way [Firehouse 12, 2013, reissued as a double LP in 2017] . Which is a studio recording. And I agree the live concert in Italy was strong. I just played another solo in Mantua, that also went very well. They recorded it. Maybe that would be something to consider for release on my label.

– You have been inspired by the works of painter Cy Twombly for some time.

MM –In the mid-90s, I wrote « Drawing in the Dark » for my band Same River Twice. That composition was inspired by Twombly. I had just gone to see a retrospective of Twombly's work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That's what started the whole thing. I wasn’t aware of his art before, and remember feeling a strong affinity with the energy and gesture and the way his work looked in this gallery when I walked into it. In the back of my mind, I thought, that looks like how I play the piano. So that's what I've been doing for the last five years. It's a project that's being supported by the University of California, and was originally meant to be an evening-long performance comprised of several ensembles, Snowy Egret, Fire and Water and maybe Tiger Trio or MZM [Melford’s trio with Zeena Parkins and Miya Masaoka] , small group things that would culminate in one big improvised orchestra piece. Because of COVID, I wasn't able to make that happen. So I started thinking of it as installments, starting with Fire and Water’s For the love of Fire and Water , and then Hear the Light Singing, and then Splash, and then the upcoming Quintet record, titled Sure Grand Out, and finally an installation in which I will perform a solo piece. The title was inspired by a book, of, not exactly poetry – or maybe it is poetry. Someone had deconstructed a diary from a long time ago that she had found in the Midwest of the United States. Diary entries had be written every day, but the woman who then deconstructed it only took a few words out of it. One line was « a good rain, flowers come fast, sure grand out ». Those are titles I thought kind of worked within my relationship with Twombly's work. I am going back to Italy to work on the final installment of the Twombly project. I'm collaborating with two artists from Chicago, photographer and visual artist and videographer Sandra Binion, and Lou Malozzi, an experimental sound artist. We're creating an installation of our reflections and responses to Twombly's work. This will be the final chapter, and then, I think it's time to move on to something new.

– You have a taste for enigmatic song and album titles. How do you choose them?

MM –I usually find titles after the pieces of music are composed. I keep a list of possible titles around subjects or areas that I'm interested in, and had a number of titles related to Twombly, from writings I've read about him and his work. And I certainly get ideas from poetry and literature. And then some of the new music that I've written in the last year was inspired by the idea of regenerative gene therapy, and regeneration in general, like how the heck are we going to start to really address the climate issues. I talk with my students a lot. I teach at the university of California where the students are studying every subject you can imagine. Many great musicians who play in my ensembles or study with me are pre-med or going to become engineers or astrophysicists. I was talking with one of my pre-med students about this idea of regenerative gene therapy and she was the one who suggested where to look and what to read.

– Teaching, playing, composing, touring, traveling – what is the thing you enjoy the most ?

MM –I'm going to say that without making music, none of the rest makes sense. Performing and composing are central to everything. What's been great for me about being a professor at UC Berkeley is that my students and colleagues are very inspiring and it's been a really good synergistic experience that informs my music. I go out and perform my music in the world and have something that I feel good about sharing with my students when I come back. So, for the most part, it works as a whole. It's a bit tiring sometimes to try to juggle all these things. But on the other hand, if I didn't go out and perform new music, I don't think I'd have the inspiration to teach. So I have to do it all.

– What about the [Canadian clarinet player] François Houle Quintet you’re a member of, and uses graphic scores or at least color indications ?

MM –We use both. It started as a trio with me, Joëlle and François. We played at Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal a few years ago, we had scores and some notated material. And then the group expanded to include Gordon Grdina and Gerry Hemingway and it became more like text scores where François would give us indications, colors to look at and ideas. That's what we did in Novara. Last spring we did a few gigs in Canada. And we're going to perform in Guelph in September. François would like to record it. He did one recording that I couldn't make, with Alexander Hawkins and Joëlle. The next thing is to record in the configuration that we'll be playing in Guelph.

– If you had an unlimited budget to work on some specific project, what would you like to achieve that you haven't already?

MM –That's a good question. I guess I just want to be able to keep doing what I'm doing. I have some concerts coming up in the fall with Splash. Now that Michael Formanek lives in Lisbon, I have to bring him to the US twice, maybe three times. The only reason I would like not to worry about money is so I can keep doing what I'm doing. And, as the next idea comes in, have funding for it, as it’s the hardest thing to manage. I've been fortunate to get some very nice funding over the years, but it doesn't last forever and I'm again in the situation where there are so many things I want to do and I just don't know where the money's going to come from yet.

– You got some awards and grants in recent years.

MM –One was from the Doris Duke Foundation. I got that and the Albert Award and the Guggenheim. Those prizes have enabled me to do everything I've done the last few years.

Now that I'm getting to the culmination of the Cy Twombly project, I'm starting to think about writing for larger ensembles. I've got two commissions for next year. One is for the Kitchen Orchestra in Stavanger in Norway, and the other is for an ensemble called Studio Dan in Vienna. Ingrid has been writing for them. I'm writing a piece that I can do variations of with each of those bands next May and June. And I'm co-composing a piece for improvising pianist and orchestra with a colleague from UC Berkeley named Carmine Cella, which we will premiere next year as well. So I've got lots to do. I'm kind of allowing these things to happen, as seeds, to see what might come next. 

Arles, 2019. Photo by Gil Corre

– Do you enjoy writing for larger ensembles?

MM –I do. I haven't done a lot of it, so I'm looking forward to it and figuring out how I want to do it, rather than following someone else's model necessarily.

DC – You worked with Wynton Marsalis and a big band.

MM –Yes, that was a traditional big band. They call it the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. We played one of my compositions. That was fun, I have to say. I didn't know what to expect when I went into it, because I come from another, freer school, so to speak. But I felt welcome. I loved all the guys and Ted Nash did a great arrangement of my piece, which I performed with them.

– Do you listen to a lot of music?

MM –Mostly trying to listen to the new stuff that's coming out, from people I play with. And I don't do a very good job of keeping up with it. Soon as I see something new coming from someone I know, I go check it out. And if it's something that really inspires me, I'll go back and listen to it a lot. Other times I might not get back to it. I'm not going back to older music much these days.

– How about listening to your own recordings?

MM –I don't like to do that, but if I have to, for a project or something, I will. But I can’t say I enjoy it. It's partly because I hear things that I know what I was going for and didn't quite achieve. But you know, I feel good about the music I've done overall.

– You often are your own producer. How does the relationship with the record labels happen?

MM –It's different with each label. I’ve learned that it's important to retain control over my own work, and as much as possible own the rights to it. I've been fortunate that there have been labels that have wanted to put out my music, and we've been able to talk about which project or projects might make the most sense. I think it's good to not be only with one label these days. It's a difficult time for labels and a difficult time for musicians. And it's nice to be able to share your music to different audiences and on different platforms. Just having opportunities to get my music out there is the most important thing.

– There was a point when you didn't release a lot of records. Now it might seem as you have accelerated a bit.

MM –It’s true. I have more projects now. Some of those are collectives, like Trio M or Lux Quartet. I have the Quintet and two different trios that are part of the same constellation, so to speak. And I don't know if it's getting older and feeling like, I want to make sure I accomplish these things and get them out in the world, or just that there are more opportunities to release things since I’m doing more things.

– You’ve played with drummer Allison Miller for a number of years, and were a member of her band Boom Tic Boom.

MM –I’m not in that anymore. We did some concerts with the original band last fall, but I think Allison's moved on with Boom Tic Boom. Instead, we're co-leading the Lux Quartet.Allison made a number of really nice records that I got to play on. I like the first one called Live in Willisau [Foxhaven Records, 2012], and the most recent one, Glitter Wolf [Royal Potato Family, 2019] on which I also play harmonium. She has a new band that she's still calling Boom Tic Boom but it’s a completely different line-up.

– What else have you been involved in recently?

MM –I've been playing with some musicians in the Bay Area. I was invited to collaborate on a project, as a performer, called Insect Life, which is Ben Goldberg on clarinets, Ben Davis on cello, Raffi Garabedian on tenor and Danny Lubin-Laden on trombone. They invited Hamir Atwal and me to play with them. There should be a recording of that coming out next year, maybe on Ben's label [BAG Production Records]. And I've been playing in a trio with Ben Goldberg and one of my students, Matt Muntz, a fantastic bass player. Matt is getting his PhD in composition at UC Berkeley and he, Ben and I have a trio that we're going to record next fall. Ben Goldberg, cellist Ben Davis and I have a new trio project that we're going to try and record as well. I love playing with Ben [a collaboration that harks back to duo performances in the US and Europe from 2012 onward, the album Dialogue and Myra being part of Goldberg’s Orphic Machine project in 2015].

Myra Melford & Ben Goldberg in 2013. Photo by Jean-François Laberine

Addendum...
 

- Which are your three favorites among your own albums, the most artistically successful in your opinion?

MM - This is a tough one. I'll say :

Snowy Egret - The Other Side of Air (Firehouse 12, 2018)

Fire and Water Quintet - Hear the Light Singing (Rogueart, 2023)

Myra Melford Splash (Intakt, 2025)

- Could you recommend three albums from other artists that you currently enjoy?

MM - 

Ches Smith - Clone Row (Otherly Love, 2025)

John Carter - Fields (Gramavision, 1988)

Anna Webber and Matt Mitchell - Capacious Aeration (Tzadik, 2023)

I haven't checked out Mary's new album with Ambrose Akinmusire yet - looking forward to that! 

Current and upcoming releases:

• Myra Melford « Splash » (Intakt, 2025)
• Myra Melford/Satoko Fujii « かたらひ (Katarahi) » (RogueArt, 2026)
• Ben Goldberg/Myra Melford/Danny Lubin-Laden « Trouble Trouble » (BAG, August 2026)
• Fire and Water Quintet « Sure Grand Out » (RogueArt, September 2026
  
  
• Find out more here: https://myramelford.bandcamp.com/
• Myra Melford on RogueArt: https://roguart.com/artist/myra-melford/160 
• Revisit an interview with Myra Melford on the Free Jazz Blog in 2022. 

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Luise Volkmann's Été Large feat. Wallis Bird - Été Large and Wallis Bird (self-released, 2026)

 

By Sammy Stein

Wallis Bird is an Irish musician residing in Berlin. She has released six studio albums, including ‘Architect’ in 2014, and Home in 2016. She performed at the Eurosonic Festival in 2012, when Ireland was the Spotlight Country, and has worked with numerous musicians on various projects.

Luise Volkmann is a German jazz and improvisation musician and composer. She has played with Devin Gray, Satoko Fujii, Xu Fengxia, Moritz Sembritzki, and Natsuki Tamura, among others. As a bandleader, she founded small bands such as Konglomerat and also large ensembles in Germany and France. Her newest large ensemble is Ete Large, featuring herself and a dozen musicians.

Ete Large, under the direction of Volkmann, has released an EP featuring two beautifully contrasting tracks, featuring Wallis’s vocals, pragmatically titled Ete Large and Wallis Bird. Volkmann is delighted to have worked with Wallis and calls it a beautiful cooperation. The first track on the EP is ‘Chorale, my quiet Pal’. It is an atmospheric, gentle number, featuring Wallis’s superb vocals, which are wonderfully suited to this music. She transitions from beautifully pitched melody to keening, emotive phrasing, and the backing of deep brass and woodwinds adds atmosphere and nuance to the vocal lines.

The second track is a complete contrast. ‘Their Quotes and How They Twist Them,’ and Wallis shines here with beautifully told stories about living with people and having to listen to them as they talk about different things, twisting what is said. The ensemble orchestration is creative and supportive, enhancing the beauty of the lyrics and harmony of the vocals.

If you want to know more about Ete Large, the links below are highly recommended.

Two contrasting tracks of superb quality. 

The Pre-Save: https://listen.music-hub.com/ITJzz0

Bandcamp: https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/music

Wallis EP : https://luisevolkmann.bandcamp.com/album/t-large-and-wallis-bird

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天藤丸 Ten-Toh-Maru - 夜を往くもの The One Who Walks Through the Night (Meenna, 2025)

By Eyal Hareuveni

天藤丸 Ten-Toh-Maru is, no doubt, the most experimental ensemble that Japanese pianist-composer Satoko Fujii plays in and most likely, the Japanese supergroup that most of you have never heard of.

Ten-Toh-Maru features the unique, incomparable voice artist Tenko (天鼓), co-founder of the eighties, all-women avant-rock band Mizutama Shobodan, and a frequent collaborator in the next decade with John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Fred Frith, and Zeena Parkins; Fujii (藤井郷子), who plays here mostly inside the piano; and Toshimaru Nakamura(中村 俊丸), a central figure in the Japanese free improvisation movement Onkyōkei (音響系, literally, reverberation of sound) of the nineties and early 2000s, a pioneer performer of the no-input mixer board and its feedback noises, and one of the main artists of the Japanese label Ftarri and its sub-labels Meenna and Hitori, all focusing on reductionist aesthetics.

Ten-Toh-Maru recorded its debut album, live in its first-ever performance at the Koendori Classics club in Tokyo in September 2024 (its second performance was in January 2026). 夜を往くもの The One Who Walks Through the Night consists of three untitled, free improvised pieces that merge Tenko’s wordless, free-associative vocal delivery—at times sounding like a mysterious shaman, and at other times naked and vulnerable, but always totally possessed in the moment; Fujii’s resonant percussive piano sounds that often correspond with exotic, traditional zithers and percussive instruments; and Nakamura’s subtle yet tangible, otherworldly fragmented noises. Nakamura recorded and mastered this album. The cover artwork is by Cathy Fishman, a visual artist who did most of Ftarri’s covers (and many of Otomo Yoshihide's doubtmusic label).

The music unfolds patiently, relying on attentive listening and nuanced, but completely unpredictable, textual development. The music sounds timeless, often flowing through a series of poetic, dream-like cinematic images, but with references to Japanese theatre and traditional rituals. Fujii anchors the free-form dynamics with brief, incisive textual gestures, suggesting loose forms and courses. Hopefully, Ten-Toh-Maru will keep performing and expanding their rare musical universe.

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Christian Pouget – Maelström for improvisers (Films UtôpïK, 2025)

By Paul Acquaro

A maelstrom ... "a powerful whirlpool in the sea or a river" or "a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil" ... pick your definition or take both as you dive into the pool of riches that French film director Christian Pouget mixes together in a rich amalgam of sound and image. Featuring the music of 22 musicians from America to Europe to Asia, Pouget lets their own words and brilliant selections of solo playing in choice environments explore and explain improvisation. 

 

About two-thirds through the film French saxophonist Sakina Abdou explains that when she realized that she had a connection to free jazz - and wanted to be a part of it - she had to ask what it meant it to do so, now. It's different today than it was when it began, she says, a 'whole different utopia.' No, we do not get a an answer, rather we cut to seeing and hearing Abdou playing freely, but tonally, along a stream with a overpass behind her. Her tones echo out of the tunnel that the stream is passing through. Perhaps its symbolic, perhaps it is just where she is playing.

 

Maelstrom moves like this. From the start we are thrown into a qualitative research study with only an implied research question. It begins, for example, with jazz maverick, French saxophonist Daunik Lazro talking about survival as an artist in an unforgiving world, to questions of perception and being perceived by Abdou, to discussions about the variety of sound from Japanese pianist Sakoto Fujji, who posits that her country features the extremes of music - and then goes on to perform a solo piece that is spacious and abstract as well as dense and urgent.

 

Setting plays a sumptuous role. We see Lazro playing in a sort of junkyard, surrounded by the husks of discarded camping trailers, invoking the spirit and sounds of Albert Ayler on his saxophone. Later, Roberto Ottaviano blows his soprano sax while walking along a wall of sun bleached stones, like the horn is providing orientation through echolocation. Then there is Adbou playing near an urban stream, providing a juxtaposition between nature flow and mankind's structures. The most playful, and perhaps climax of imagery, is trumpeter Susana Santos Silva improvising amongst and with the macabre mechanical creatures making musical chaos in sculptor Daniel Depoutot's Strasbourg workshop. It is all rather visually striking and metaphorically compelling.

 

Throughout the film, the artists providing snippets of observation or insights gained over their years of working in the world of improvised music. The themes connect subtly - there is no title screen with the theme of say "COMMUNICATION" in bold block lettering to ground the conversation, rather, the words touch loosely on themes that shift over the course of the film, and in the end, leave an impression of the values and commonality of uncommon music making.

 

The film is one to relish both for it's imagery and the solo pieces that each musician performs - they are both exemplars of their individual styles and rich in emotion. 

 

Watch the trailer here. 

Full list of artists featured in the film:
Satoko Fujii, Gerry Hemingway, Isabelle Duthoit, Evan Parker, Susana Santos Silva, Daniel Depoutot, Kahil El Zabar, Daunik Lazro, Joe Morris, Mat Maneri, Joëlle Léandre, Christiane Bopp, Betty Hovette, Sonia Sanchez, Agusti Fernandez, Clara Levy, Roberto Ottaviano, Emanuele Parrini, Silvia Bolognesi, Sakina Abdou, Raymond Boni, and Benat Achiary.

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Alexander Hawkins & Taylor Ho Bynum - A Near Permanent State Of Wonder (RogueArt, 2025)

"I find that when

one addresses oneself

to the idea

that

improvisation

is

composition

things about life

become much clearer

and begin

to make more sense."

                   

(Bill Dixon, Nov. 1971)

By Stef Gijssels

The liner notes of this album consist of the Bill Dixon quote above. It's a nice and enigmatic statement, one you can long reflect upon: what does it actually mean? This sense of mystery and wonder permeates the music on this album, a duet between long-time collaborators Alexander Hawkins on piano and Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet and flugelhorn. This is already the third great trumpet piano duo that we can recommend this year, together with Sylvie Courvoisier and Wadada Leo Smith with "Angel Falls" and Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura with "Ki", "Aloft" and "Kazahana". 

The pianist and cornettist have had a long-standing collaboration with the excellent Convergence Quartet, with Dominic Lash on bass and Harris Eisenstadt on drums, with several easy to recommend albums: "Live in Oxford" (2007), "Song/Dance" (2010), "Slow and Steady" (2013) and "Owl Jacket" (2015). 

“A Near Permanent State of Wonder” fully delivers on the promise of its title. Anchored around two Bill Dixon compositions—“Q” and “X”—Hawkins crafts delicate, spacious pieces that feel intimate, tender, and perfectly suited to Ho Bynum’s warm, expressive horn tone. The abstract framework of the music is full of bright openings that let the light and the outside world filter in, creating room for lyrical exploration. The ensemble’s technical palette is broad and eclectic, blending elements of jazz, free improvisation, and classical chamber music into something that resists easy classification. The result is music that flows with quiet, effortless grace. That doesn’t mean there aren’t moments of raw intensity or surges in volume.

On the last two tracks - "Catalogue (part 2)" and the title track, Hawkins plucks the half-muted strings of his instrument rhythmically like a percussion instrument comparable to Benoît Delbecq's sound, while Ho Bynum's initial growls and squeaks gradually evolve into a more coherent phrasing supported by the pianist's right hand working on the higher notes. The album ends with a repetitive rhythm on the strings, and a subdued lyrical improvisation of the cornet. A beauty.

We have been privileged with great music this year. This is definitely an album to cherish. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - Ki (Libra, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

This year we are blessed with several trumpet-piano albums. There is the excellent duet between Sylvie Courvoisier and Wadada Leo Smith on "Angel Falls", and the excellent duets between Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura. 

I guess that "Ki" is their tenth duo album, out of the few dozen on which they perform in other ensembles. Over the years, their art has become more precise, more symbiotic, as if playing as one. "Ki" in Japanese means 'energy' or 'life force', but it can also mean 'wood'. All the title tracks on this album refer to trees, so we could assume that the two meanings of the word are possible, and they are penned by Tamura, except for the last track - "Dan's Ocean Side Listening Post" - which obviously does not refer to a tree and which is composed by Fujii. 

The music on this album is quiet, meditative, intimate. And in contrast to "Aloft", reviewed below, Tamura does not use extended techniques on his trumpet, staying well within the clarity of tone you expect from the instrument. Tamura explains: “This time, I wanted to play the entire album with the same atmosphere. The image of that atmosphere was of standing dignified in clear air. I wrote my seven songs in two days, so I was able to maintain that image. I just thought about the world I wanted to create.”

The atmosphere is further created by Fujii's sparse piano playing. It is less dense, with less dramatic energy as on her other albums. Like Japanese drawings, the sparsity of the sounds and the silences in between are an integral part of the whole. Fujii comments: “It was not easy for me to play it because the music forces me to play less than I usually do. At first, I wasn’t comfortable playing that way because it was so new to me!” There are even long moments when the trumpet is the only instrument to be heard. 

The album's strength is the wonderful coherence of all compositions, their lyrical and poetic quality and of course the excellent playing and interaction of both artists. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Natsuki Tamura & Satoko Fuji - Aloft (Libra, 2024)

"Aloft" is a different album from "Ki", and could almost be its mirror image. Even if all tracks are improvised, it is often Fujii's piano that sets the tone, builds the structure and brings the pieces to their closing. Her skills at composing on the spot are exceptional, and for some tracks it truly is hard to believe that they are improvised. While Fujii's compositional freedom gives the foundational structure, Tamura's trumpet playing acts as like a bird being kept aloft in the wind. His trumpet soars, yet he also resorts to many extended techniques, muffled sounds, squeezed sounds, stuttering sounds, oppressed and whispering sounds, as well as shouting and singing through his brass. 

All tracks have received titles referring to bird flight, and it's an apt imagery for the music, even if the titles were not used for inspiration but were added to the music many months later, once a selection of their improvisation session had been made. Fujii once told me that her music was not inspired by visual imagery, after I said to her that this was my impression, as you can easily picture natural sceneries when listening to her music, and this album is not different, but who is right: the artist or the art lover? 

“We just decided to play something,” says Fujii. “Natsuki listens to me very carefully and respects my playing so much but he has a very different sensibility and means of expression.” Tamura adds, “We listen carefully to each other, but at the same time we both understand that contrast and surprise are also important.” The liner notes add: "After being married for 36 years and sharing countless projects, they didn't even need to plan for it or bring any written material. They just let inspiration guide them through various improvisations."

The music was recorded on December 13, 2023 at Samurai Hotel, New York City, which is actually a recording studio and not a hotel.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - Kazahana (Libra, 2025)

"Kazahana" - their eleventh duo album - brings us two fully improvised lengthy pieces, the first clocking at 18 minutes, the second at 33 minutes. Maybe because of their length, or maybe because they're fully improvised in a live environment, the sound is much rawer than on the two other records in this review. The music expands, there's tension, contradictions in style and mood, and the length of the pieces allows for developments, for unfolding narratives that need not be contained to a structure or a pattern. There are long moments of solo time for each of them, not in the sense to show off their skills, but rather as natural evolutions of the music itself. 

Both artists are deeply attuned to each other's styles, preferences, and responses, resulting in an interaction that is not only remarkably coherent but also a joy to witness in its spontaneous co-creation. Interestingly, near the end of the second piece, it is Tamura who introduces a repetitive phrase, offering a steady framework over which Fujii improvises with a distinctly modern classical sensibility.

The music was recorded during a live performance on December 25, 2024 at Koendori Classics, Shibuya, Tokyo. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Kaze & Koichi Makigami - Shishiodoshi (Circum-Disc & Libra Records 2025)

By Don Phipps

Blurts, blats, exhortations – dissonant abstractions – precise harmonics – these are the elements that make up Shishiodoshi, an album that captures a live performance by Kaze and guest artist Koichi Makigami at La Malterie, an artist and musician workspace and performance center located in Lille, France. Kaze is a quartet made up of Christian Pruvost and Natsuki Tamura (trumpets), Satoko Fujii (piano) and Peter Orins (drums). Here they’re joined by Koichi Makigami, who adds his voice, trumpet, and shakuhachi (Japanese flute) to the mix. 

There are three improvisations, all experimental in nature. The most successful of these is “Inspiration 2.”  Birdlike radio wave sounds open the number. The band slowly joins in – in a kind of staggered entrance. The effect? Music that seems at once both connected and disconnected. The music builds – think a rising sun (not unlike the opening to Debussy’s “La Mer.”). Orin’s polyrhythmic drumming creates a backdrop that gives way to brushwork accompanied by breathing through the trumpet mouthpieces – an odd pairing for sure. Then the vocals take over, with a mouthy slapstick expression that suggests snoring, indigestion, baby cooing, stomach rumbles, squeaks, and hums. The musicians interweave trumpet notes, piano splashes, and voice squeals together before Fujii’s piano solo emerges with chordal intensity – her use of the pedal creating a sonic effect which adds to her work on the strings inside the piano. The trumpets enter again – racing along like thoroughbreds. The band ends with a dronish unison, as if disparate sound can be neatly tied together.

“Make A Change” offers up an expressive mix of piano rolls and free trumpet blowing. Fujii adds some dark elements and Orin uses rimshots and other techniques to add to the milieu. Most notable is the Lester Bowie-like trumpet drawls. The music is very free flowing at times, with lightning runs and a hint of formalism. Koichi groans like a constipated weightlifter. The music shifts about and winds up in a muted fury.

“Shishiodoshi” is more playful than the other two numbers. Koichi’s voicings are comic, with Donald Duck rasps and cartoonish effects. In fact, several voices are heard, like madness expressed, the id unleashed. Fujii creates a rhythm while the trumpets whine, hoot, and holler above. Orin brings his full trap set to bear as Fujii smashes the keys. It winds down in odd fashion with cat-like meow sounds.

While one can appreciate the various blinding curves and tunnels the improvisations navigate, Shishiodoshi, in the end, is a bit tedious – almost too much of a good thing. There is substantial variety, but the phrasing feels duplicative and a bit contrived. There’s nothing wrong with a good romp, but one might hope for more purpose. That said, for those with adventurous ears, this album is worth a listen.

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Joe Fonda - Eyes On The Horizon (Long Song Records, 2024)

By Stef Gijssels

This album is a tribute or a gift by bassist Joe Fonda to his master teacher, Wadada Leo Smith. They have asked their friends Satoko Fujii to join on piano and Tiziano Tononi on drums. The four have an interesting list of mutual collaborations, creating high expectations for this quartet performance. 

In 1982 Joe Fonda and Wadada Leo Smith had their first collaboration with the Creative Improvisors Orchestra – "The Sky Cries The Blues" and in 1989 with Smith on "Procession Of The Great Ancestry". Fonda performed many times with Satoko Fujii, and released the duo albums "Duet" (2016), "Mizu" (2018), "Thread of Light" (2022), and a trio on "Triad" (2018) and "Four" (2019). With Italian drummer Tiziano Tononi they perform in several bands released on the Italian Long Song label, as is this album, with some special other releases worth mentioning such as the Allman Brother's tribute "Trouble No More... All Men Are Brothers" (2017) and even more recently on "Winter Counts (We'll Still Be Here!)" (2023) on which Fonda plays electric bass on a few tracks. Also worth mentioning is the J. & F. Band's "From The Roots To The Sky" (2018), "Cajun Blue" (2020), "Me and the Devil" (2021) and "Star Motel" (2024) And to complete the list, Smith and Fujii collaborated on "Aspiration" (2017), "Hyaku, One Hundred Dreams" (2022). That's quite a list. 

Despite the line-up and the lead voice of the trumpet, this is very much a Joe Fonda album, with a prominent voice of the bass, both plucked and arco, often setting the basic theme for the other musicians to expand on. The music has an inherent openness and freedom of movement, an environment that suits all four musicians in a very natural way. They need just the slightest hints to move the music forward with strong coherence and depth. 

A good example is the "We Need Members Opus #4", on which Fonda's rock solid bass vamp is an open invitation for the quartet to have a more than twelve minutes meditative development, with thanks to Fujii some moments of more dramatic tension, and a great bass solo in the middle section. 

The most moving and beautiful piece is "My Song Opus #2", a gentle sensitive theme introduced by the piano, supported by Fonda's brilliant bowed bass, countered by an angular contrasting theme, full of dramatic effect, recreating the theme from the start, now more eery, more vulnerable, uncanny even. The rapid-fire pizzicato bass, the slow trumpet, the mysterious piano and the precise percussion create a wonderful sonic universe that requires great skills and artistic vision. A real treat. 

"Like No Other" is - unlike all other tracks - not dedicated to Wadada but to Bobby Naughton, the vibraphonist who passed away in 2022 and with whom both Fonda and Smith performed. The piece starts with a very dark and dramatic unison theme between arco bass and trumpet, that leads into a heartrending and moving duet, that is both ethereal and intimate. 

Boppish, angular themes act as jumping boards for bright and shiny improvisations. There is almost only light in this music, with a few exceptions. It's grand and intimate at the same time. 

The music is so great, tight and free that you wonder why these four artists never recorded together before.  I can only encourage Joe Fonda to keep the initiative. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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The Continuing Adventures of Natsuki Tamura and Satoko Fujii

By Eyal Hareuveni

Keiji Haino / Natsuki Tamura - What happened there? (Libra, 2025)

Japanese trumpeter Natsuki Tamura was born in 1951, a year before fellow Japanese, iconic guitarist Keiji Haino. Both Tamura and Haino are known as free spirits with strong-minded, experimental approaches, unrestrained by convention and embracing psychedelic and avant-rock, free jazz, and free improvisation to a point that blurs any genre distinctions. They also share a deep interest in folk music from all over the world and are known for their eccentric, often provocative performances.

But despite their rich careers and extensive, collaborative works, they did not play together until Tamura and his partner, pianist Satoko Fujii, invited Haino to their annual, daylong marathon festival at Tokyo’s legendary Shinjuku Pit-Inn club in January 2024. Tamura and Haino did not talk much before beginning to play the free improvised set.

Haino, with only his electric guitar and vocals, and Tamura, on trumpet, vocals, and kitchen utensil percussion, enjoy this adventurous-surprising meeting, with its reckless energy, absurdist humor, and profound, lyrical beauty. There is no telling what these gifted improvisers will do next, but they listen carefully to each other, and they are wise enough to color or subvert each other’s ideas in unpredictable, poetic gestures, without seeking explosive, cathartic climaxes, but a compassionate, conversational union of magical sounds. They clearly enjoy the intense, often openly emotional dialog of contrasts, and the opportunity to explore unusual timbres and textures within the risk-taking, free-associative flow of ideas. Brilliant.

Satoko Fujii GEN - Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra, 2025)

Pianist-composer Satoko Fujii's first suite for a six-musician string ensemble GEN (弦 - gen - means string in Japanese) celebrates her 65th birthday and fulfills her dream to play with such an ensemble. Fujii, a lifelong city dweller, composed the five-movement suite in the summer of 2023 while vacationing with her aging parents in the highlands of Nagano, on the western side of Japan’s main island, Honshu, at an altitude of 1,100 meters, enchanted by the mountain views and the cool breezes, away from the city heat.

Fujii was inspired by the unique, ethereal atmosphere of the Nagano mountains and wanted to mirror the unique atmosphere and the ever-changing landscapes of the day into the delicate, vibrating sonorities of string instruments, and her prepared piano, that can bend notes and play microtones. She composed this suite on a small electric piano., and says that the sound of the string instruments “activates a part of my brain in a way that’s totally different from other instruments”.

Each movement uses distinct sonorities of the two violinists, the violist (who also contributes electronic colorings) and the double bass player, who often employ extended bowing techniques, to create haunting, evocative nuances and contrasts and propel the dramatic flow of the suite. The music unfolds patiently and skillfully employs the strings spectrum of the ensemble. It is mostly introspective and leaves enough space for individual and collective improvisations and the commanding individual voices of the ensemble. This was done so masterfully when the only musician in the ensemble, except Fujii, who had played with her before is the drummer Akira Horikoshi, who had played with Fujii in her Orchestra Tokyo and Fujii’s ma-do quartet.

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