Tomas Fujiwara’s Triple Double - March On (self-released)

Drummer Tomas Fujiwara hit a new artistic peak with last year’s March, an amazing display of compositional smarts and instrumental prowess featuring his band Future Double, AKA guitarists Mary Halvorsen and Brandon Seabrook, trumpeters Ralph Alessi and Taylor Jo Bynum, and fellow drummer Gerald Cleaver. The digital-only March On isn’t so much a follow-up as an addendum, featuring music recorded during the March sessions that’s related to what made it on the album. There are three short pieces featuring band improvisation in smaller units, but the heart of the album is the exact opposite: the longest piece the sextet has put together yet. Within an outline even looser than normal, the six players go for it for over a half-hour, a symphony of spontaneously composed skronks, swing, and atmosphere that pushes everything the band is capable of to its extremes. That Fujiwara can keep the proceedings from riding off the rails is a testament to both his leadership, and the players’ remarkable ability to support each other’s ideas, rather than slip into navel-gazing cacophony.