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.

One of Satoko Fujii’s first ensembles in the mid-90s following her graduate studies was a trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer You May Also Like: Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio – ‘Moon On the Lake’ (2021) Kira Kira [Satoko Fujii] – Bright Force (2018) Satoko Fujii + Alister Spence –Read More

Satoko Fujii, Taiko Saito and Yuko Oshima are three wellsprings of creativity who as Trio San joined forces to find new ways to make uncommonly compelling music.

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 and Otomo Yoshihide made music on the spot on ‘Perpetual Motion,’ relying strictly on instincts and virtuosity. Luckily, Fujii and Otomo have loads of both.

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.