Adam Matlock Photo
“We’ve been on tour for three weeks — coming from Brazil and Argentina to here — from summer to winter,” said pianist Satoko Fujii, closing the first set by her Tobira quartet at Firehouse 12. “I even got a little influence in the music,” she added, referring to a quote from Antônio Carlos Jobim’s classic “The Girl From Ipanema” that made its way into a thunderous piano and drum duet.
The sudden shift in weather seemed to be a more prevailing influence, one of only a few that could be easily extracted from the almost alchemical mix of sounds on display between the group’s two sets. The group skillfully played off of multiple dualities — harmony and dissonance, lyricism and abstraction, music in time and rubato — to celebrate a world of sonic possibilities.
If the quartet, combining Fujii’s piano and compositions with Natsuki Tamura’s trumpet, Todd Nicholson’s bass, and Takashi Itani’s percussion, resembles a standard jazz combo in instrumentation, it only occasionally exploited the traditional sound of that lineup. When prompted by a gorgeous set of chords in the second set this past Friday night, Tamura pulled a thrilling, ballad-like solo from his horn, achingly clear even in the highest registers. In the first set, bass, drums, and piano locked in on a tight, knotty line, resembling bebop but for the occasional stumble in the time signatures that kept things fresh.
But just as often, the group explored quiet, disciplined abstraction. The first piece began with Nicholson holding out a bass harmonic that occasionally gave way to pure string noise. Fujii joined by quietly, carefully, switching on one, two, then three E‑Bows on the strings of the open piano, the two instruments together sounding like a small chorus heard from far away. Itani joined, rubbing the heads of his drums with moistened fingertips to create a moaning sound, quietly punctuating the existing texture. Fujii began plucking piano strings and playing the keys, thickening the sound with low rumbles on the piano, building to the angular main line of “Centrifugal Force,” a lengthy track from the quartet’s recent release Yamiyo Ni Karasu. In performance, as on the album, this piece excluded Tamura’s trumpet, and he sat in the corner, his eyes closed and arms folded, occasionally opening a single eye to try to identify the source of a particular sound.
It would not be difficult with eyes closed to confuse the source of one sound or another. Fujii spent as much time inside the piano as on the keys. Nicholson and Tamura exploited the extreme ranges and extended techniques of their instruments. All of the melodic instruments explored their percussive sides, creating moments where the players seemed to transcend their instruments’ limitations. The performance space of Firehouse 12, an acoustic marvel of a room, allowed the group their full collective dynamic range with only minimal amplification, and gave them a silent canvas on which to work.
The organization of the music was particularly fascinating. There was a formal rigor to the proceedings, even while entire sections were devoted to improvisation, by one or two members at a time or by the entire group. Transitions between musical ideas flowed organically, signaled by eye contact or particular sonic events, and the group was unafraid to let the room’s warm tone serve as a breath between one section or the next, the last lingering resonance from a previous passage carrying through until the next entrance.
Watching the group in action, one occasionally got the sense of an engineer at the mixing board, isolating certain elements and orchestrating crossfades from one section to another. One piece in the second set had a bass solo threaded throughout the intro, while the rest of the group made a squall of sound in and out around it. Fujii’s compositions had several built-in moments for extended solo or duo passages, and the rest of the band navigated these transitions smoothly, often with a precise stop. There was a high level of confidence on display in both the composed and improvised sections throughout the evening, surely formed by the focus of three weeks of touring.
The music wasn’t without a sense of humor, either, as Tamura frequently played a squeaky-toy and a table full of noisemakers with great earnestness. And one piece began with an absurdist dialogue between Tamura and Itani, with the percussionist giving CPR thrusts to his drum throne while Tamura engaged a pair of finger cymbals between each other, on a music stand, on the wall, dragging a chair with his leg while both exchanged dramatic yells and quieter dialogue in Japanese. The scene was a fine reminder that musicians are allowed to have fun while creating improvised music, and audiences are allowed to have fun consuming it.
Indeed, Tobira’s skillful navigation between pure sound and melodic construction were so thoroughly embodied in the music that it became difficult to immediately make connections to other artists. The most immediate frame of reference seemed to be the subtle chaos of the natural order, and the change of seasons, sudden or gradual.
The next show at Firehouse 12 is Peter Evans — Zebulon Trio, on Friday, Dec. 4. Tickets are $20 for the first set, $15 for the second.
