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July 11: Kaze and vocalist Koichi Makigami United for Musical Absurdity and Adventure No previous album in their 14-year history will prepare you for the gleeful lunacy of Shishiodoshi (July 11, 2025 via Circum/Libra), the latest CD from Kaze, the cooperative quartet featuring Japanese composer-pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura along with French trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins. With guest vocalist Koichi Makigami along for the ride, Kaze unleashes an inspired blend of serious music-making and quirky humor. “We had so much fun making this record!, ” Fujii says. “Koichi brought something unique to the music and it made us play differently.” Kaze and Makigami, a legend of Japanese avant-rock and sometime collaborator with free improvisers, first met several years ago when Kaze performed at Jazz Art Sengawa, a festival for which Makigami is an artistic director. But they didn’t play together until early last year during Kaze’s tour of Japan. When Fujii learned that Makigami was going to be in Europe in the late spring, she invited him to join Kaze for a concert in Lille, the home of Pruvost and Orins. Sparks flew immediately. “Make a Change, ” the album’s opening track, explodes upon the listener with a roiling, dense quartet improvisation that impresses with its tightly coordinated high-energy interactions. The instruments break off suddenly and Makigami launches into a mind-boggling display of vocal pyrotechnics, uncorking a flood of incomprehensible babbling, squeaking, vocal multiphonics, growls, and panting that somehow cohere into a musical statement with absurd juxtapositions as an organizing principle. And from there, they continue in a madcap kaleidoscopic flow of sound, changing directions at an exhausting rate. There’s no predicting and no escaping the cascade of sound and feeling rushing at your ears and it’s best to just give yourself over to the sonic cataract and hold on for the ride. The pace slows, but the surprises continue on the completely improvised title track. It takes its name from a common sight in Japanese gardens—a water-filled bamboo tube that clacks against a stone when emptied. Even at the slower tempo, the same surreal logic guides the music. Subtle textures and tone colors form a cloud of gentle abstract sounds at the beginning but the delicacy gives way to a quirky vocal trio between Tamura, Makigami, Pruvost and a soaring free-wheeling climax. Tamura’s “Inspiration 2” closes the CD with more evocative musical hi-jinks. The opening section provides a temporary moment of serenity, with the group imitating the sounds of nature. But it is soon replaced by quiet percussion and a skein of breathy trumpets, shakuhachi, and strummed piano strings. Another shockingly intense solo vocal outing from Makigami raises the energy level, ushering in a collective improvisation and an incendiary piano solo from Fujii. The music rushes on to an exuberant climax to end on a high note. This is music of teeming vitality that embraces life in all its glorious absurdity. Pianist and composer Satoko Fujii, “an improviser of rumbling intensity and generous restraint” (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times), is one of the most original voices in jazz today. For nearly 30 years, she has created a unique, personal music that spans many genres, blending jazz, contemporary classical, rock, and traditional Japanese music into an innovative synthesis instantly recognizable as hers alone. Highlights include a piano trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black (1997-2009), and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins (2001-2008). In addition to a wide variety of other small groups of different instrumentation, she has established herself as one of the world’s leading composers for large jazz ensembles, prompting Cadence magazine to call her “the Ellington of free jazz.” Trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura is internationally recognized for a unique vocabulary that blends extended techniques with touching jazz lyricism. This unpredictable virtuoso has led bands with radically different approaches throughout his career. He’s played avant-rock jazz fusion with First Meeting, the Natsuki Tamura Quartet, and Junk Box. Since 2003, he has focused on the intersection of European folk music and sound abstraction with Gato Libre. A member many of Fujii’s ensembles, he has recorded 7 duet CDs with her. In 2022, he released a series of five digital albums in various settings, including a trumpet quintet, Gato Libre, a duet with drummer Ittetsu Takemura, and two solo albums. Peter Orins leads his own bands and is a member of Trapeze, a quartet co-led by saxophonist Sakina Abdou, turntablist Joke Lanz, and trombonist Matthias Müller. In addition to serving as an artistic director of Muzzix, a musicians cooperative in Lille, France, and helming the record label Circum-Disc, he also works in theater, composes for film and animation, and has recorded the music of Moondog with the Round the World of Sound project. Insatiable innovator of the whole sound spectrum of the trumpet, Christian Pruvost developed a very poetic and personal language for an entirely acoustic expedition. He multiplies collaborations as much in jazz as in creative and experimental music (founding member of the Muzzix and Zoone Libre collectives). In perpetual research on horns and pipes as well as different resonators and their transformations, he practices free improvisation and contemporary music, meets many artists in France and on all continents. He participates in several ensembles and collectives such as Muzzix, Dedalus, Le UN, Organik Orkestra, The Bridge, Nautilis, Ensemble 0 and more. Koichi Makigami is a pioneering Japanese vocalist, composer, poet, and performer internationally recognized for his experimental vocal techniques and innovative musical vision. Born in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, he rose to prominence in the late 1970s as co-founder and frontman of the avant-garde rock band Hikashu, known for blending punk, jazz, electronic, and traditional Japanese music into a uniquely eclectic sound. Renowned for his exceptional vocal range and improvisational flair, Makigami often incorporates throat singing (khoomei), scat, and extended vocal techniques into his performances. His boundary-crossing collaborations include work with John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Thomas Strønen, and Derek Bailey, spanning a wide spectrum of musical and cultural contexts. Beyond music, Makigami is also well known as a poet, theatrical performer, and vocal improviser. He is the founder and artistic director of the Jazz Art Sengawa festival, a prominent platform for avant-garde and improvised music in Japan. Constantly exploring new sonic territory, Makigami continues to perform worldwide, inspiring generations of artists with his fearless creativity and multidisciplinary approach. Kaze & Koichi Makigami – Shishiodoshi Circum/Libra – Catalog Number: 208-2025 – Recorded May 13, 2024 Release date July 11, 2025 |
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