Saturday, April 10, 2010

Gato Libre featuring Natsuki Tamura - Shiro


Shiro is the fourth CD release from jazz improv quartet Gato Libre. Natsuki Tamura, the group’s leader and trumpeter, is a native of Japan who first came to the United States in 1986 to study at Berklee College of Music and later at the nearby New England Conservatory of Music. Both he and his keyboardist wife, Satoko Fujii, have toured widely, recorded frequently and are the recipients of much popular and critical acclaim. The music of Gato Libre is, to say the least, uncommon.
 
The uniqueness of Gato Libre begins with the instrumentation. Satoko Fujii, normally a pianist, plays, by design, the accordion on Shiro. Tamura deliberately choose the accordion for its sustained melancholy. Kazuhiko Tsumura on guitar and Norikatsu Koreyasu on bass complete the quartet. The music of Tamura and Gato Libre is sometimes surprising, often intense and always inventive. It is at times lyrical and melodic and at other times bombastic and anarchical. What it is not is commonplace or predicable...MORE...