!!! new album PITH released on 16.9.2023 !!!

„With a refreshing openness to new sounds and textures, these masters of the atmosphere reveal an exquisite sense of narrative that makes this music distinctive.“ (Filipe Freitas, jazztrail, 7.9.2023)

„Tomas Fujiwara and his 7 Poets Trio open up a cool new vista of jazz with the spare but daring Pith, built on careful composition but fueled by risk-taking improvisation.“ (S. Victor Aaron, somethingelsereviews, 17.9.2023)

„Pith is the second album by drummer Tomas Fujiwara's 7 Poets Trio. The title expresses a principle that guides both composition and performance, as there's neither wasted space nor flailing gestures among the album's six tracks. As he has in the collaborative trio Thumbscrew and his own Triple Double combo, Fujiwara makes great use of a three-point instrumental configuration. There are enough players to realise his swinging tunes, which are stocked with lucid melodies and push- pull energy exchanges, but the music never gets cluttered. Both cellist Tomeka Reid and vibraphonist Patricia Brennan sound quite natural in this setting, toggling between focused elaborations upon the material's structures and empathetic support of their
fellow musicians' forays.“(The Wire, Oct. 2023)

Tomas Fujiwara assembled his 7 Poets Trio (with Patricia Brennan and Tomeka Reid) for the first time during a residency at the Stone in New York City in April 2018, after having previously played with Patricia in Michael Formanek's Ensemble Kolossus, and Tomeka in her Quartet. As has been the case with past ensembles of his (Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up, The Tomas Fujiwara Trio, and Triple Double), Tomas brought together two musicians who had never played together before, creating a brand new combination of musical personalities. The rapport was instantaneous and their debut was described by All About Jazz as "a meshing of chamber jazz, modern classical composition and improvisation, although most of Fujiwara's music sounded well organised in advance. All three players rose to an individual expression, working as a composite unit to deliver solo embellishments. Roles were malleable, as the listener decided whether everyone was soloing, or no-one. All three members were devoted to establishing a sensitive group consciousness, and they succeeded eminently." Their eponymous debut came out in 2019 on Rogue Art, and a follow up album PITH was released just recently.

with 2022 MacArthur Fellow TOMEKA REID