Kevin Sun

One of the most helpful pedagogical devices I've been introduced to since coming to the New England Conservatory has been the playing lesson. Once a semester, Miguel Zenón asks his students to put together a rhythm section to play tunes with him (Donny McCaslin and John McNeil do this as well). Although Miguel is probably best known for his own compositions and arrangements, hearing him in a jam session-type situation like this where you're just calling tunes and blowing over changes is enlightening in its own way—you can tell he's really in his element here, with such a strong rhythmic gravity of his own that it pushes the rhythm section to swing harder as soon as he starts playing.  One of the tunes I called last semester in this lesson was "Isfahan," which we did in a medium tempo, rather than as a ballad. What really surprised me, though, was that instead of playing the melody with me, Miguel immediately started playing the saxophone background lines from th...

Earlier today I picked up a Billy Strayhorn tribute record by Fred Hersch called Passion Flower  (1996), which, aside from being excellent, I've realized is one of many Strayhorn tribute records I've checked out over the past few years. Others include Joe Henderson's Lush Life (1991), the PBS Documentary all-star companion compilation Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life (2007), and the original Strayhorn tribute, Duke's ...And His Mother Called Him Bill  (1967), which I snatched up last month from Prex.  Clark Terry in 2002. Photo by Michael Worner. The first track of that record is a medium swing tune called "Boo-Dah," which featured a flugelhorn solo that demanded my attention from the first note. It's only a chorus long, but a memorable example of making the most of a brief big-band feature to get up, say what you want to say, and sit down. I was particularly drawn to the blues and swing inflections throughout the solo, which I haven't heard much late...

Prior to yesterday, I never knew that "lush" was a slang term, e.g. ,  "On any ordinary day I would have described these people as barflies and lushes but now their eyes all seemed to me as big as portholes and shed a moral light" — Humboldt's Gift (1973), Saul Bellow According to Merriam-Webster Online : Lush , noun - a person who makes a habit of getting drunk <she accused him of being a lush and a spendthrift>   Billy Strayhorn looking contemplative or sleepy. I've never heard anyone use "lush" in this way in conversation; maybe it's a regional thing, or maybe it's an older term that's gone out of style. If so, I could imagine that Billy Strayhorn, in considering his reputation for sophistication and worldliness, would have had this double-meaning for "lush" in mind when writing "Lush Life." I'm sure some jazz historian has written about this already, but such a little added shade of meani...