The collaboration between Natsuki Tamura and Satoko Fujii is almost beyond parallel in the history of jazz as they have played in close proximity on what is approaching 150 records since the mid-nineties. While many of those collaborations have involved their respective orchestras or quartets and their shared band Gato Libre, even as a duo – from their debut How Many? in 1997 to more recent salvos like the pandemic-era DIY project Keshin, the scrub, sputter and squawk of the soaring Aloft or the introspective, sylvan and relatively ‘straight’ Ki – their work for its duration, exploratory scope and dramatic heft stands up to other major contemporary partnerships like those between Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp, Sylvie Courvoisier and Mark Feldman or another married couple in Alexander von Schlippenbach and Aki Takase.
The trumpeter and pianist are incredibly prolific with a domestic arrangement, a shared artistic temperament and a musical chemistry which allows them to fire off incredible works at will, but it is still refreshing not only to listen to their music but to appreciate and accept its impulsive nature in a world where even live sets can be stage managed to the nth degree. Instead their latest outpouring comes with the simplest of justifications from Tamura, who writes ‘We performed this in Graz. We were very happy with the performance, so we uploaded it to Bandcamp. Please take a listen’.
Live at Tube’s, Graz stems from a performance in the Austrian city on 23 May, 2023. The fact that it’s not new but almost three years old yet still holds up to the ears of its performers is already more than enough to recommend it. Beautifully expressive, on the opening piece – which is a take on the title tune from their 2020 album Pentas, composed by Tamura for a session which slipped in just ahead of the pandemic – an emotive horn soars above the keys as Fujii switches between twinkling accents and sombre plunks whose undertow Tamura scrambles unsuccessfully to escape. Amid cymbal-like crashes his trumpet loses the battle but comes back around for one last noble but enervated or at least plainspoken rejoinder.
‘Rising’ – a Fujii piece also from Pentas – moves from squibs and squidges of horn to embrace the sonority of a standard, almost sounding like the main theme from the Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg ballad ‘Over the Rainbow’, sunlit and burnished as Tamura is supported by the tremolo playing and steadier ascents of Fujii’s keys. She then dazzles through a flurry of clusters and glissandos as Tamura takes a back seat, before the trumpeter reappears energised to celebrate another glorious daybreak or engage in one last full-throated sweep and soar.
‘Rising’ and the following piece ‘Donten’ are the heart of the performance and its standout tracks, with the opening moments of ‘Donten’ equally murky, like a lone ship wailing out at sea or some temple or minaret enacting a distant rite before Tamura lets out one big high-pitched peal. He elaborates what sounds like a Middle Eastern motif or arabesque until suddenly some thunder clouds barrel in out of left field. This overcast piano reduces Tamura to a stricken and circuitous blather of duck squawks as Fujii gradually finds her way towards a melody, ever so briefly landing at rest. But after lingering for a moment the composition surges forward again in roiling and restive fashion as she runs up and down the keys. ‘Donten’ becomes kind of vaporous with its ritual atmosphere sounding strained or even coerced, on a piece which emanates from that impromptu pandemic-era album Keshin and whose title refers to cloudy or gloomy weather in Japanese.
The relatively brief ‘Itsumo Itsumo’ proves almost a vignette as Fujii vamps and spurts while Tamura proverbially Donald Ducks it, offering up a series of rubbery or brassy growls and squawks which cede to his vocal jabbering and the scratchy slurps of the close. ‘Keshin’ engages in more spare interplay, a slow summoning and the final effort is billed as ‘Three Scenes’.
All of the songs on Live at Tube’s, Graz come from those couple of albums Pentas and Keshin, with Tamura and Fujii managing to revise and rehearse the former through a series of concerts while Keshin even in its compressed pandemic context shows a fine degree of balance and compositional prowess. At times it is Fujii who appears to lead or otherwise compel their work as a duo, with Tamura responding to her charge but here on Live at Tube’s, Graz they not only share priority but show their shared penchant for lyricism while still exploring the full range and breadth of their instruments.
‘Three Scenes’ in this same manner opens on a transitional wire, tensely vibrating as Fujii drums against her piano and saws away at the strings, elaborating the first in a sequence of extended techniques. Tamura then begins to moan as though perched on a telegraph pole and dabbles variously in muted growls with some flutter-tonguing and horn fanfares, as he and Fujii finally trade a few close harmonies and short phrases.
