Kevin Sun

The quarter note plays a big role in the Mark Turner sound, I think. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but there's something intensely pointed and focused about these lines of quarter notes, and they're in full display on this burning "The Man I Love," from Warner Jams, Vol. 2: The Two Tenors (also easily identifiable on other solos from the same record, like "The Plain But The Simple Truth" ).  I remember being mesmerized as a teenager by Stan Getz's use of long, two-repeated-eighth-note melodies (the intro to "S-H-I-N-E" from West Coast Jazz  might be the most obvious example), but aside from the technical aspect of its execution, I remember being able to hear the melodic improvised line more clearly—basically because there were half as many pitches in the same amount of time as an eighth note line. Mark's quarter note lines end up having a similar effect: aside from giving him and listener a break from the dense, substitution a...

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...