Night Wave
Night Wave
Bronx, NY
| Night WaveiTunes Artist's PageiTunes Album Page | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Song Title | Time | Price | |
| 1. | Woven Colors | 03:18 | $0.99 |
| 2. | Up Tempo | 09:37 | $0.99 |
| 3. | Romance | 01:49 | $0.99 |
| 4. | Clash | 00:59 | $0.99 |
| 5. | Premonition | 03:09 | $0.99 |
| 6. | Indignation | 03:01 | $0.99 |
| 7. | Fireworks | 01:17 | $0.99 |
| 8. | Beyond the Sound | 06:41 | $0.99 |
| 9. | Waltz of the Shadows | 01:11 | $0.99 |
| 10. | Autumn Whispers | 02:53 | $0.99 |
| 11. | Floating on a Breeze | 02:19 | $0.99 |
| 12. | Leap | 01:59 | $0.99 |
| 13. | Starlight | 01:14 | $0.99 |
| 14. | Night Wave | 07:57 | $0.99 |
| 15. | Tale of the Old Tree | 02:55 | $0.99 |
Born in Sapporo, Japan in 1954, Yuko Fujiyama started playing piano at the age of four. But it wasn’t until a summer morning in 1980 standing on a sidewalk in New York’s East Village that she found her calling; someone was playing a Cecil Taylor tape and she was transfixed by the piano sounds. That someone was Taylor’s drummer, Jerome Cooper, and that moment opened a door for her to the abstract beauty of music. She has been “looking for musical structures” ever since. “Recently, I’ve been trying to be free from a feeling of linear time. This album, Night Wave, is the result of my long search.”
Joining her in this quest are three esteemed fellow travelers in the art of improvisation: percussionist Susie Ibarra, violinist Jennifer Choi, and cornet/flugelhornist Graham Haynes: “It was a joy to play with these beautiful musicians. I appreciate Susie for her earthy but sensitive sound Jennifer for her beautiful melodies, and Graham for his simple and rich expressions.”
The album weaves a delicate series of colorful musical glimpses, from aggressive and ominous stories to melancholic flashes of freedom and silence. Listen at night, on a sidewalk, or wherever you might like sounds to arrest you.
"the Fujiyama of 2018 favors space, and it’s in the quietude—when the air is empty around her and she doesn’t fill it so much as decorates it—that her voice as composer, bandleader and instrumentalist comes through. Fujiyama is, in the best possible sense, a space-filler, dedicated to her craft and welcome back after all these years." [FULL ARTICLE] - Kurt Gottschalk
"In their delicacy and refinement, each track of Night Wave is a miracle of individuality. The playing is so clean and incisive, it’s a model of well-formed improvisation – as clearly structured as a composition, yet alive and spontaneous." [FULL ARTICLE] - Andy Hamilton
"The 15 tracks on Night Wave embody a wide variety of expressive modes, held together by the special qualities and improvisational skills of the players, as well as by Fujiyama’s richly expansive harmonic palette. This is a fine disc, worthy of repeated listening. Recommended for those who like their jazz both free and intimate." [FULL ARTICLE] - Steve Hicken
"the impression created is of musicians creating communally, thinking in the moment and responsive to the considered expressions of others." [FULL ARTICLE]
"With the relatively recent losses of both Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, the world needs more adventurous blends of composition and improvisation like Fujiyama’s.” [FULL ARTICLE] - Greg Nahabedian
"She largely succeeds in her quest in a release that sparkles with an intense sense of creative freedom.” [FULL ARTICLE]
"[Fujiyama masterfully fuses together the traditions of Western academic music, traditions and intonations of Japanese music, and avant-garde jazz." - [FULL ARTICLE]
"It is music made of abstraction and expressiveness, vivacity and rigor, avant-garde and academic mastery that recorded by the Japanese pianist, New Yorker of adoption, Yuko Fujiyama, along with three other good musicians: Graham Haynes (flugelhorn and cornet), Susie Ibarra (drums and percussions) ) and Jennifer Choi (violin). The style of these fifteen tracks, imbued with an improvisational spirit, is that of contemporary research music: presenting different combinations of instruments - piano only in Woven Colors, Starlight, Waltz of the Shadows and Indignation; different types of duets (piano and violin in Romance, piano duo and percussion in Premonition and Autumn Whispers, piano and flugelhorn in Floating on a Breeze); various trios and quartets in the other pieces - the disc offers intense sound textures, brilliant solos, sometimes aggressive, sometimes mysteriously persuasive or perturbing and dense and energetic instrumental interactions. The leader's pianism is certainly very convincing, but also violin, woodwinds and percussions show important artistic personalities." [FULL ARTICLE] - A.G. Bertinetto
"Fujiyama has waited many years to releaser her first CD. Still Night Wave confirms the old saw that good things come to those who wait.” [FULL ARTICLE] - Ken Waxman
