Satoko Fujii Orchestra Tokyo | Live!! | Libra Records

Live!! is pure candy, a treat in every aspect. This album offers a riveting 70-minute set, both as an audio CD and a video DVD… Highlights abound… Each of the seven tracks features two lead players or soloists, so that at the end of the album all 14 members of the orchestra had their moment in the spotlight. Fans of Fujii’s highly personal, lyrical yet high-energy composition style will be in seventh heaven. Highly recommended and a 2006 must-have. ― François Couture, All Music Guide Continue reading

Satoko Fujii Orchestra | Zakopane | Libra Records

There are several outstanding qualities that emerge in pianist Satoko Fujii’s big band writing. She has an extraordinary sense of color that plays upon the moist exquisiteness of muted shades, as well as recognizing and utilizing the vivid ends of her palette of colors. She also combines ingenious use of the timbre of various elements of a big band – brass, reeds nad woodwinds, strings that replicate the rhythmic nature of the piano and those in the lowest register, and brilliant use of percussion coloring. She combines all of this like a visual artist working on a gigantic canvas, infusing it with unique color and ensuring that it remains wet so that it appears to change shape and hue every time it presents its arresting sight to the inner eye… The result is a dish so wild and flaming that it burns with the fever of artistic fission. ― Raul d’Gama Rose, All About Jazz Continue reading