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Here are a couple of online reviews that speak well about this CD
Under The Water
Satoko Fujii & Myra Melford | Libra Records
By Jerry D'Souza
The Maybeck Recital Hall has been home to some of the best pianists whose playing resonated not only within the walls of that institution, but into the history of piano music as well. That sounding board came alive once more when Myra Melford and Satoko Fujii performed there on September 14, 2007.
Melford and Fujii have established their own creative niches. Each has her own approach, but there is a commonality in the way they divine the path they are going to take. Much of it is unknown; intuition drives innovation just as vision is dictated by focus. Logic is sustained even as they pull out a welter of delightful surprises to give their music an indelible presence.
Fujii and Melford play three duets with each taking a solo turn. The latter puts them in perspective, and shows just how each develops a theme and lets free form coalesce into an impacting whole.
Fujii trampolines in different directions on “Trace a River.” She runs a wide gamut ruffling the strings of the piano into an oriental melody, complementing them with a soft caress of the keys which she then trajectories into emphatic, leaping notes. Her muse calls for constant shifts of time and pulse and she envisions that through hammering chords that bounce off the melody. The flowing scenario has an innate majesty whether it is in the rough and tumble of her thrust, or in the gentleness she evokes to balance the tide.
Melford is spacey and introspective as she examines “Be Melting Snow,” adding pause for effect. Her chords are structured to marry the pirouettes that rise from her sense of playfulness. She does not linger here, choosing instead to strengthen the harmonic ambit with a two-handed approach. The sum of her approach is saturated in a swash of concepts.
The duets turn out to be a meeting of the minds. Melford and Fujii not only play off each other trading germane ideas, they also converge in seamless lines. The piano is an instrument where every vestige can be utilized and they dip into that opening using the strings, the body, and yes, the keys to charge ahead in unabashed momentum or to integrate softly billowing notes.
When these extraordinary innovators get together, the result is electrifying.
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One of the most exciting piano albums of recent years, this Myra Melford/Satoko Fujii collaboration is an intense, often ferociously haunting yet sometimes extremely funny album. Fujii’s Libra Records released a limited-edition run of 500 copies, each with a one-of-a-kind hand-printed sleeve by klezmer accordionist Sachie Fujisawa. Of these, somebody saw fit to send one to l’il ole Lucid Culture [aside: (slap) Get your fingers off that thing! It's a collector's item! No, you're not taking it home, you can listen to it right here]. A series of duo piano improvisations plus one solo piece by each performer, it’s a clinic in good listening (for anyone who plays improvised music, this is a must-own – memo to Libra: PRINT MORE!) and interplay, worth checking to see if it’s sold out yet or if there are (hopefully) more on the way. Each performer’s individual voice asserts itself here, Melford the slightly more traditionalist, Fujii (a Paul Bley acolyte) somewhat further outside. Both pianists use the entirety of the piano, rapping out percussion on the case and manipulating the inside strings for effects ranging from something approximating an autoharp, to a singing saw.
The first improvisation builds with sparse, staccato phrases from inside the piano, like a muted acoustic guitar. The second, The Migration of Fish is a high-energy, conversational feast of echo, permutation and call-and-response. Of the two solo pieces, Fujii’s Trace a River vividly evokes swirling currents, schools of fish and a bracingly cool fluidity. Melford’s Be Melting Snow, by contrast, is a murky, modal tar-pit boogie of sorts, practically gleeful in its unrelenting darkness. Utsubo (Japanese for moray eel) closes the cd on an exhilarating note. Fujii just wants to lurk in her lair and wait for prey, but Melford wants to play! And finally she cajoles Fujii out of her fugue (literally), and then they play tag, and YOU’RE IT! But Fujii isn’t done with lurking. She goes back between the rocks, way down with a pitch-black blast of sound, working both the keys and the inside of the piano and at the bottom of the abyss Melford adds the most perfect little handful of upper-register single-key accents, only accentuating the savagery of the ending. Wow!
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