A band that pairs a Fender Rhodes player with a pianist and no bass perhaps shouldn’t work, but with sheer flair that not only overcome that challenge, Kira Kira utterly thrives in it.

‘Dog Days of Summer’ might be called “jazz-rock,” but like anything else Satoko Fujii undertakes, she does jazz-rock on her own, uncompromising terms.

The highly improvisational quartet Kaze makes their first 100% improvisation record ‘Unwritten’ and it’s just as unconventionally delightful as they are with written pieces.

Seven albums in, the Kaze concept shows no sign of going stale. Every time out they freshen that concept in ingenious ways and ‘Crustal Movement’ with Ikue Mori returning is their most audacious undertaking yet.

Satoko Fujii’s genius can be difficult to encapsulate on a single record. We may finally have a good starting point with ‘Hyaku: One Hundred Dreams.’

Now on its ninth album ‘Sleeping Cat,’ Natsuki Tamura’s Gato Libre has never really been about jazz; it’s folk music with an open mind.

When left entirely to his own devices (literally), Natsuki Tamura’s imagination runs wild. With ‘Summer Tree,’ he gave himself more places for his imagination to run, thanks to multi-tracking.

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.

It’s amazing how the tight musical partnership of Natsuki Tamura and Satoko Fujii is able to embrace just one more musician and build a set of performances that fully represents the talents of all three. With drummer Ramon Lopez, ‘Mantle’ musical democracy at its finest.

A global pandemic hasn’t quelled the creative fire of Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, and their long-distance collaboration ‘Prickly Pear Cactus’ doesn’t sound at all like musicians trying to just ‘make do.’