Tomas Fujiwara: Dream Up

Tomas Fujiwara can seem like a drumming whirlwind. During the last 15 years, he’s emerged as both an anchor and engine of New York’s improvising community, not only playing on dozens of records led by the likes of Mary Halvorson, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Tomeka Reid but also helping build great ensembles like Thumbscrew and the Thirteenth Assembly. “Unless you’re going to be solely a solo artist,” Fujiwara once told Fifteen Questions, “playing with other people is how you learn about music, develop your personal approach, and learn about interaction, balance, composition, and sound.” He’s brought those lessons to a dozen collaborative records of his own, from his early outfit The Hook Up to more recent work with Triple Double and 7 Poets Trio.

All these experiences funnel into Dream Up, a new percussion quartet that seems like the band to which Fujiwara has long been building. For the ensemble’s 2026 debut at Big Ears, Fujiwara has recruited ace vibraphonist Ches Smith, percussion world builder Tim Keiper, and drummer and Japanese flautist Kaoru Watanabe. These pieces span a dazzling array of energies and styles, threaded together by both remarkable lyricism and precision. Where “Komorebi” shapes a hypnotic state of slowly rising drums, “Mobilize” offers lively and multi-level syncopation, the vibraphone glancing off the space made by Fujiwara’s drum kit rests. And during finale “You Don’t Have to Try,” Watanabe uses a vaguely tense rhythmic reverie as a platform for a winding shinobue solo, tugging the rest of the band ahead with every new high note.