Kevin Sun

Lee in Aarhus, Denmark, fall 2014 (Wikimedia Commons) Last week I enjoyed what I currently expect to be my final university-sanctioned spring break, spending most of it in New York and seeing a couple great shows: Seamus Blake & Ethan Iverson duo at Mezzrow (my first time at the spot), Lee Konitz with Dave Douglas at Jazz Standard, and finally Steve Lehman's Octet at the Brooklyn Conservatory.  At the suggestion of a certain pianist-blogger whose name appears on this blog rather often, I thought I'd just post a few of my notes from seeing Lee with Dave's band, which included Matt Mitchell on piano, Linda Oh on bass, and Ches Smith on drums.  I caught the late ("late" meaning 10 p.m.) set on the first night and walked in as they were finishing their first tune, "All The Things You Are" (or was it a contrafact?), which Lee introduced afterwards. I don't know how much if at all Lee had rehearsed with the band, but throughout the second set...

www.jazzspeaks.org As Keith Jarrett averred in an interview with Ethan Iverson, " I hate reading other people’s interviews, because I don’t want them to be boring, but they’re never filled with much at all." The art of interviewing is not easy, and it's something I learned a great deal about and gained a great deal of respect for the summer after my freshman year of college, when I worked on the Leonard Lopate Show at WNYC. At the end of that summer, I thought at the time that I would never do another interview ever again, but then The Crimson came along and then, after that, Jazz Speaks , The Jazz Gallery's blog. Leonard's brand of live, unedited interviewing is especially remarkable, but I've also always been partial to Terry Gross on WHYY's Fresh Air.   I'll say this glibly because it's true: I can't believe it's already been a year. It seems like just yesterday that I was buying economy packages of bottled water at Duane R...