There are so many exemplary trumpet players out there but only a small handful are inventive enough, whimsical enough and daring enough to justify a whole album of solo trumpet performances. Wadada Leo Smith is one.
Natsuki Tamura is another.
Coming shortly on the heels of Smith’s solo trumpet ruminations, Koki Solo is Tamura’s own set of solo improvisations, his fourth such album. Well, it’s not entirely trumpet: this time, Tamura also plays a little piano, a wok (yes, a wok out of his own kitchen) and he uses his voice. But everything is played by him, recorded at home in Japan at the height of Covid lockdown.
Tamura has stated that “when I play, I enjoy myself first. I am even more happy if the audience enjoys it, too” and Koki Solo sure does sound like a musician just going for it. The rapid-fire trills of “Sekirei” – shades of peak Freddie Hubbard — punctuated with extended notes that are often raspberried and other times crystal clear tell you everything you need to know about his sheer technical prowess. “Kawau” is by contrast sweetly solemn and lyrical.
Tamura has long used his trumpet to sagaciously emit non-note sounds and he does just that with hissing noises for the entirety of “Sagi.” A plunger is used for part of “Chidori,” and the Tamura lets the notes hang as he projects a genuine human fragility through the instruments that no one but the trumpet greats are capable of doing.
The pots and pans come out for “Karugamo” but it’s not at all like a toddler aimlessly banging around on the kitchen floor; Tamura gets the same kind of sonority of them as one would from actual percussion instruments and somehow manages to craft some shapes similar to the ones he creates on his horn. His ad-libbed chanting and growling adds a lot of character, too.
Tamura embraces his relatively limited acumen on piano with a child-like exploratory spirit for “Bora;” not being tied to technique liberates him to portray his mental flow with more clarity. Tamura takes to the piano again on “Isohigi,” accompanying his rigid dark chords with a guttural yowling, ending abruptly without warning.
Approaching his 70th birthday, Natsuki Tamura makes one of his most personal albums with a youthful frivolity that belies his age and signals that he remains in his peak period. Koki Solo is out now, from Libra Records.
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