Published on PostGenre
The debut recording of Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double was extraordinary. The two-drum (Fujiwara and Gerald Cleaver), two-guitar (Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook), and two-horn (Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet and Ralph Alessi on trumpet) structure of the band is something rarely seen. Even in the bold avant-garde scene that Fujiwara frequents. After the release of Triple Double (Firehouse 12, 2017), Fujiwara continued to impress as a bandleader in 7 Poets Trio (Rouge Art, 2019) and alongside some of his Triple Double bandmates in other contexts: Ho Bynum's The Ambiguity Manifesto and Halvorson's Code Girl. Even with the addition of these stellar recordings, the sprawling sway between fierce competition and ingenious interplay still made Triple Double arguably the finest moment of his career. Albums of the caliber of Triple Double can be hard to follow, but March (Firehouse 12, 2022) is the opposite of a sophomore slump.
