With a prepared piano, Satoko Fujii once again makes “music that no one has ever heard before.”

Approaching his 70th birthday, trumpet maestro Natsuki Tamura made the very personal ‘Koki Solo’ with a youthful frivolity that belies his age and signals that he remains in his peak period.

Satoko Fujii’s Tokyo Trio as heard on ‘Moon On the Lake’ is not a conventional jazz trio but a Fujii ensemble in every sense, with the grace, sophistication, surprise and ingenuity found in her other groups.

Fujii and Tamura come up with an endless well of ideas to apply to the piano/trumpet format for “Pentas,’ their seventh duo album together.

For this festival set performed in Italy ‘Live In Florence,’ Otomo Yoshihide, his guitar and his turntables match wits with Chris Pitsiokos with his alto saxophone and his electronics.

Satoko Fujii and Tatsuya Yoshida are heavyweights in Japan but are both world-class vanguard musicians. ‘Baikamo’ is a welcome return to their summit meetings on the edge of what is possible with just a piano and drums.

Satoko Fujii is issuing an album in every month of 2018, and if there’s one musician with enough ensembles, projects and ideas to pull it off, it’s her.

As a celebration of the Satoko Fujii Orchestra Toyko’s fallen guitarist Kelly Churko, ‘Peace’ couldn’t be any more true to his memory and the fearlessness he brought to this band.

Here is a review of ‘Nax,’ a free-jazz trumpet/bass encounter between Natsuki Tamura and Alexander Frangenheim.

Ahmad Jamal once said Hiromi “has discovered her own genre.” He was on to something.