Kevin Sun

I've realized more and more the value of "unpacking" after traveling. Beyond the dirty laundry and travel-sized toiletries and the perpetually tiresome Facebook-iPhoto interface, it's like a tranche of gum after a nice meal to try to tabulate and assess what really happened, or, rather, what I think about what happened.  First, some obligatory gig photos: Night one: opening for Brian Blade Fellowship Post-opening with the compadres (l-r): Isaac Wilson, Kevin Sun, Mike Dick, Fran Vielma, Dan Raney Working on my bass clarinet posture, thinking Dolphy Band photo-op with maestro Rubén Blades Sound checking at Danilo's Saturday on the big stage, a dedicated crowd out in the rain Another view of the same, now with purple light Unconsciously assuming the Walter Smith III listening pose  ( e.g. , also this ) with guest Panamanian vocalist Brenda Lau The purpose of the trip was ostensibly education, to spread this American music...

A little while back, I came across a blog post by David Valdez that linked to a couple recordings from a Joe Henderson master class from 1985. These appear to be from the same masterclass as  recordings  in the University of North Texas library, which unfortunately are unavailable to me. I thought I'd take a break from practicing and transcribe some of Joe's responses to student questions: Any kinds of questions that anybody has about anything that has to do with this thing called jazz: sociologically, psychologically, financially, anything—just ask it.   Some of your tunes are in illegal fakebooks; how do you feel about that? Do you have any recourse and maybe would some of your tunes possibly be published by Jamie Aebersold or anybody in the future? To answer your first question: I’m of two minds about that sort of stuff. I appreciate and realize the good that having this kind of literature around does because there was a lack of it for a long time. B...

(www.charliebanacos.com) A few weeks ago, I was sitting alone in Brooklyn without access to Internet and took a break from transcribing to read through documents I had saved on my computer to read at a future date: JSTOR articles, assorted PDFs, etc .. I came across an NEC doctoral dissertation by pianist Lefteris Kordis  on the pedagogy of Charlie Banacos , which I had originally come across while perusing David Valdez's blog . There's a great line by Jerry Bergonzi, close friend and colleague of Banacos with whom I studied freshman year, that's included in the dissertation: I graduated from Lowell State College with a minor in Banacos. Certain parts of the dissertation actually end up reading a little bit like an advertisement because of the wealth of testimonials, e.g. , Mike Stern: "He's like an encyclopedia," and Geni Skendo, who mentions how he realized he was playing worse  after taking lessons with Banacos because he was able to hear himself pl...