is a Japanese

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Orig ...

pianist, accordionist and composer.

Early life

Fujii was born in Tokyo on 9 October 1958.Huey, Stev
"Satoko Fujii"
AllMusic. Retrieved 9 February 2016. She started playing the piano at age 4, receiving classical training until she was 20, when she became interested in improvisation and jazz. In her twenties, she received instruction in jazz from pianist Fumio Itabashi in Tokyo.

Later life and career

Fujii went to the United States in 1985, graduating from the

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

in 1987, returning to the US in 1993, achieving a graduate diploma in Jazz Performance from the

New England Conservatory of Music The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music Music school, conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The ...

in 1996. While at the Conservatory, she also had lessons with pianist

Paul Bley Paul Bley, CM (November 10, 1932 – January 3, 2016) was a jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing and his early live performance on the Moog and ...

, "which consisted largely of conversation over cappuccinos, ndeased her toward self-expression." In 1996, their duo album, ''Something About Water'', was released; Fujii commented that it was a major event for her: "I started to accept myself, little by little." She returned to Japan with her new husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, leader of Gato Libre. She leads various

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...

s in Japan, such as Orchestra Tokyo. She established Orchestra New York in 1997. Around 2007, the quartet ma-do was created, consisting of Fujii, Tamura, bassist Norikatsu Koreyasu and drummer Akira Horikoshi. In 2010, Fujii co-founded Kaze, a group containing herself, Tamura, trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins. She has played accordion on recordings by the band established by Tamura, Gato Libre, including ''DuDu'' and ''Kuro''. Fujii has recorded prolifically: between 1996 and 2009 she released more than 40 albums.Panken, Ted (April 2009) "Satoko Fujii/Natsuki Tamura – Chun". ''Down Beat''. p. 76. In 2018, she released an album every month to celebrate turning 60. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fujii and Tamura have been releasing albums recorded in their home studio on Bandcamp on a regular (monthly or bi-monthly) basis. In December 2022, Fujii released the 100th album under her own name, auspiciously entitled “Hyaku One Hundred Dreams”.

Playing style

The ''Down Beat'' reviewer of ''Under the Water'', a piano duet album with

Myra Melford Myra Melford (born January 5, 1957) is an American avant-garde jazz pianist and composer. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' as an "explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can m ...

, stated that "Fujii varies dynamics widely, jump-cutting from a fierce, free barrage to a sprinkle of single, crystalline notes."Hale, James (September 2009) "Global Keys". ''Down Beat''. p. 69.

Discography

References

External links

Official website

Satoko Fujii's MySpace page

Satoko Fujii interview at allaboutjazz.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fujii, Satoko Avant-garde jazz pianists Berklee College of Music alumni Free jazz pianists Japanese jazz composers Japanese jazz pianists Japanese women pianists Living people 1958 births 21st-century pianists 21st-century Japanese women musicians Leo Records artists 21st-century women pianists