May 2022 at Lowlands

 

As of October 2021, there is music weekly at Lowlands Bar (543 3rd Ave.) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Sets are at 8 & 9:30 PM each Tuesday, and my friend Dierk Peters is curating Wednesdays at 8 PM (Our Borough Series). All shows are suggested donation ($10 strongly encouraged, if you can), and we hope you'll join us or spread the word so that this series can continue as a part of the Brooklyn jazz scene ca. fall 2021 and beyond.

Many thanks to KEYED UP!, a program of Jazz Generation, whose financial support allows us to compensate performers fairly for their work and for us to sustain weekly programming at Lowlands Bar. 

May 3, 2022: Kevin Sun Quartet

Kevin Sun - saxophone

Dana Saul - keyboard

Simón Willson - bass

Matt Honor - drums

I wrote a substantial amount of music throughout the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Much of it was performed only during my streaming live shows, but I brought some of the music back out in public once the Tuesdays at Lowlands series got started in the fall of 2021. I recently revised and streamlined a lot of that material, which we're going to dig into throughout May and then document at the end of the month. Considering the emotional tumult of that period, I will be glad to move on to a new chapter in my composing work, but here's one last hurrah to send off the pandemic as we enter the endemic.

Set 1:

Set 2:

May 10, 2022: McClintic Sphere

Alex LoRe - alto saxophone

Kevin Sun - tenor saxophone

Jeonglim Yang - bass

Steven Crammer - drums

The well-received Monastic shows at Lowlands, which featured Monk's music, led me to put together a band to dig into the music of another iconoclast and revolutionary figure: Ornette Coleman. I've always wanted to perform with the one of a kind Alex LoRe, whose sound and refined overall approach have long stood out to me in a contemporary scene cluttered with excess, and I don't think Lim and Steven have played together to my knowledge. The band's moniker comes from the enigmatic figure from Thomas Pynchon's first novel, V.

Set 1:

Set 2:

May 17 & 24, 2022: Kevin Sun Quartet

Kevin Sun - saxophone

Dana Saul - keyboard

Simón Willson - bass

Matt Honor - drums

See top, but better.

Set 1 (May 17, 2022):

Set 2:

Set 1 (May 24, 2022):

Set 2:

May 31, 2022: Happy Trio XXII

Kevin Sun - saxophone

Matt Brewer - bass

Kush Abadey - drums

We've had to reschedule a few times, but I'm glad to get a chance to make music with the extraordinary Matt Brewer as well as the phenomenal and widely in-demand Kush Abadey. Standards!

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Our Boroughs: May 2022

curated by Dierk Peters