February 2009 gig reviews by Chris Parker

Satoko Fujii's Ma-Do Quartet

Monday 16 February 2009

We were promised 'a stunning display of group sensitivity and finely nuanced composition, opening up a world of possibilities encompassing a wide range of moods and tempos', and, in the event, this proved to be a pretty accurate description of the many-hued, multi-textured music of Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii and her quartet (completed by trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, bassist Norikatsu Koreyasu and drummer Akira Horikoshi).

Although drawing extensively on free jazz (Natsuki Tamura in particular producing an extraordinary range of sounds, from blurts and smears to spearing melancholy and all points between from his trumpet, even, at one point, producing little percussive popping sounds simply by patting the mouthpiece with the bell against the mic), the Ma-Do Quartet also sound, by turns, like an avant-rock band (falling into relatively rigid rhythms over almost tattoo-like drumming), a fleet post-bop jazz outfit (tumultuous piano runs punctuated by pleasingly crashing chords over a racing rhythm section) or a progressive contemporary music group, producing spare, softly meditative, self-communing passages of gentle interplay.

Such constant variety, embracing scalding trumpet–piano interaction, an extraordinary range of bowed and plucked bass sounds, all propelled and embellished by hair-trigger sensitive yet robust drumming, is rare enough, but what was particularly impressive about the Ma-Do Quartet's music was the apparent ease and naturalness with which all these sounds and approaches were incorporated into a single artistic vision.

'Ma-Do' means window, 'ma' refers to the silence between notes (Satoko Fujii herself says she wanted to name the band 'to show how the music opens to the outside € and that silence has probably more meaning than notes'); the pianist/composer is also on record (in interview with Dan McClenaghan) as wanting 'to make music that no one has heard before'.

Anyone who's heard more than a couple of her existing albums (they can be found on Jazzprint, Enja, Leo and East West, to name just four labels, and they involve everything from big bands to small groups) will already be aware just how consistently she achieves this aim; her latest project is just the latest example of her uncanny ability to produce powerfully original, wholly compelling music.

February 2009
gig reviews

Gig reviews archive

Satoko Fujii's Ma-Do Quartet

Monday 16 February 2009

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February 2009 gig reviews

Gig reviews archive

Satoko Fujii's Ma-Do Quartet

Monday 16 February 2009

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February 2009
gig reviews

Join the Vortex
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