New York's drummer, composer and bandleader Tomas Fujiwara (1977), born and
raised in Boston,
who had already recorded
Unified Quest (may 1998) with
alto saxophonist James Mahone and
bassist Chris Pistorino (and, on two pieces,
saxophonist Steve Lehman and
Taylor Ho Bynum on trumpet),
rose to prominence with the duets with
Taylor Ho Bynum:
True Events (march 2006),
Stepwise (may 2009) and Through Foundation (april 2012).
In 2008 Fujiwara formed the Hook Up with Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Brian Settles (tenor sax), Mary Halvorson (guitar) and Danton Boller (bass). After Actionspeak (november 2009) and The Air Is Different (october 2011), that featured Trevor Dunn on bass, both containing lenghty Fujiwara composition, their third album After All Is Said, (february 2014) featured Michael Formanek on bass, thus bringing together the trio that would form Thumbscrew and release many albums.
A trio with Ralph Alessi and Brandon Seabrook is documented on the live Variable Bets (september 2013).
He also played with Anthony Braxton on his four-disc set Trio (New Haven) 2013 (february 2013).
The Out Louds (recorded in ?) contains improvisations with clarinetist Ben Goldberg and guitarist Mary Halvorson.
Union Street (december 2015) documents a live performance with saxophonist Biagio Coppa, pianist Diego Allieri and bassist Adam Hopkins.
Triple Double (january 2017) documents the drummer along with a notable lineup: Gerald Cleaver (drums), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Brandon Seabrook (guitarist member of Peter Evans Quartet), Ralph Alessi (trumpet) and Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet). The ten pieces were recorded in december 2016.
Triple Double returned with March On (december 2019), containing
the 32-minute title-track.
The 7 Poets Trio (october 2018) contains four lengthy compositions performed with vibraphonist Patricia Brennan and cellist Tomeka Reid.
In 2021 Fujiwara premiered two compositions: You Don’t Have to Try (with Meshell Ndegeocello) and Shizuko (with Taylor Ho Bynum, Tomeka Reid, Rafiq Bhatia and Davi Vieira).
In 2014 Tomas Fujiwara founded Illegal Crowns with Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet and flugelhorn), Mary Halvorson (guitar), and Benoît Delbecq (piano and prepared piano), documented on Illegal Crowns (may 2014), The No-Nosed Puppet (november 2017) and Unclosing (june 2022).
The 7 Poets Trio
returned with
Pith (april 2023).
Crossings Four (august 2022) documenting a collaboration between Ned Rothenberg (clarinets and alto sax), Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), Mary Halvorson (guitar and effects) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums).
