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Kevin Sun
Kevin Sun is a saxophonist and composer living in New York City. His music has been called “...intense, harmonically virtuosic and compositionally complex" by DownBeat Magazine, and he has released seven albums to date—most recently, Quartets, in October 2024.
Sun has also recorded four albums with the ensembles Mute, Earprint, and Great On Paper, and he appears on recordings led by Jacob Garchik, Dana Saul, Xiongguan Zhang, and Elijah Shiffer.
In addition to performing in the U.S., Sun has performed extensively in China and has served as the Artistic Director of the Blue Note China Jazz Orchestra. In 2021, Sun was named a Finalist for the Jerome Hill Foundation Artist Fellowship.
Awards
Finalist, Jerome Hill Foundation Artist Fellowship (2021)
Gear
VENN G2 Tenor Saxophone Reeds (2.5) by D'Addario
Tags
RCA Jazz Workshop + Kevin Sun, Yuhan Su, Connie Han
by David Brown
This week is a two-part show. Part 1 takes a look at The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop series of LPs released between 1956 and 57. RCA promoted the releases stating: “This exciting new series would be a transmission belt for new ideas in jazz orchestration, or sometimes for experiments in instrumentation." The artists were Manny Albam, Billy Byers, Al Cohn, Hal McKusick, George Russell and Hal Schaefer. Part 2 is a showcase of contemporary Asian and Asian American Jazz artists ...
Continue ReadingKevin Sun: Quartets
by Vincenzo Roggero
Dopo The Sustain of Memory (Endectomorph, 2019) e il suo ideale seguito The Depths of Memory , ecco il terzo album doppio del talentuoso sassofonista e compositore Kevin Sun. Rispetto ai precedenti, veri e propri concept album costruiti nella forma di suites dall'ampio respiro e con formazioni a geometria variabile, Quartets presenta alcune sostanziali novità. Due sedute di registrazione distinte, la prima datata 2022, la seconda 2023, due differenti quartetti, la classica suddivisione in brani strutturati tra tempi ...
Continue ReadingKevin Sun: Quartets
by Mark Corroto
Sometimes, talent calls out, other times, it is acknowledged with a nod. For saxophonist and composer Kevin Sun, both are obvious. The mastery of his instrument is a given; it is just that his music is never flashy or overindulgent, thus the nod. That fact is evident in previous discs on his Endectomorph Music label; the live trio recording The Fate Odyssey The Tenor (2023), 3 Bird (2021), (Un)Seaworthy (2020) and The Sustain Of Memory (2019). Sun's growing discography is ...
Continue ReadingKevin Sun: Quartets
by Dan McClenaghan
Saxophonist Kevin Sun goes big again. Sustain Of Memory (2020) and 2023's Depth of Memory, both on his Endectomorph label, were two-disc offerings. And now we have Quartets, another two CD set. He is an artist with a lot to say. Each disc features Sun on tenor sax accompanied by bassist Walter Stinson. The piano and drum chairs are taken on the first CD by Dana Saul and Matt Honor, respectively. CD 2 finds Kayvon Gordon doing the ...
Continue ReadingJuanma Trujillo: Howl
by Jerome Wilson
Guitarist Juanma Trujillo's Howl explores some of the ways acoustic guitar can flourish in a small jazz group setting. Instead of playing simple rhythm parts, he is fully engaged in the music made by his three bandmates. His tangled strumming makes an interesting counterpoint to Kevin Sun's barrelling tenor sax on “Catharsis." On “Howl," his abstract phrases pirouette over the stormy bustle of Matt Honor's drums and Andrew Schiller's bass before Sun storms in, stuttering and wailing off Trujillo's chords. ...
Continue ReadingKevin Sun: The Depths of Memory
by Vincenzo Roggero
Kevin Sun è un ancor giovane sassofonista e compositore newyorkese di origini asiatiche non troppo conosciuto alle nostre latitudini, ma già autore di numerosi lavori che lo hanno segnalato alla critica d'oltreoceano e fatto crescere in considerazione presso i suoi colleghi. Sun è musicista dotato di grande talento ed altrettanta grande ambizione -soprattutto compositiva-come ben illustrato dai due doppi cd The Sustain of Memory (Endectomorph, 2019) e il suo ideale seguito The Depths of Memory, suddiviso come il precedente in ...
Continue ReadingKevin Sun: Emotion, Technique, and the Language of Jazz
by Lawrence Peryer
Today, the Spotlight shines On saxophonist/composer Kevin Sun. Kevin joined us to discuss, among other things, his dramatic double album from 2023, The Depths of Memory ((Endectomorph), which was released in two halves: From All This Stillness in July The Depths in Slow Motion in October. Kevin's an intense yet accessible player and composer--and a true working musician. He leads an ensemble most Tuesday nights at Lowlands Bar and appears regularly at Bar Bayeux and Ornithology, all three in Brooklyn, ...
Continue Reading"The saxophonist Kevin Sun has been making his mark on the New York scene of late by way of studiousness and subtlety ... Sun has something original going on, too: his own feeling of loose coil and terse freedom, and a personal approach to disrupting time." — The New York Times
"...a player who sees the big picture and his evolving place within it" - The New York City Jazz Record
"...intense, harmonically virtuosic and compositionally complex" - DownBeat Magazine
"...Sun swings for the fences with his sense of form and scale" - WBGO
Primary Instrument
Saxophone, tenor
Location
New York City
Willing to teach
Intermediate to advanced
Credentials/Background
Pedagogical interests include basics of saxophone technique (sound production, articulation, inflection, posture, etc.), idiomatic jazz improvisation (swing, bebop, "post-bop"), and other technical aspects of the contemporary jazz mainstream. Emphasis on transcribing, study of source material, and fundamentals of idiomatic collaborative musicmaking. Also, willing to talk about more flashy stuff, e.g., hexatonic scales, chord substitutions and path-making, intervallic constructions, and other conceptual material
John Coltrane
saxophone
Joe Henderson
saxophone
Vijay Iyer
piano
Warne Marsh
saxophone, tenor
Charlie Parker
saxophone, alto
Mark Turner
saxophone, tenor
Lester Young
saxophone
Miles Okazaki
guitar
Miguel Zenon
saxophone, alto
Steve Lehman
saxophone, altoMusic
That Lights a Star
From: QuartetsBy Kevin Sun
Frozen in Profile
From: The Depths of MemoryBy Kevin Sun
Greenlit
From: <3 BirdBy Kevin Sun
The Middle of Tensions I
From: The Sustain of MemoryBy Kevin Sun
Find Your Pose
From: 'Trio'By Kevin Sun
Videos
Kevin Sun
Location: New York City
Instrument: Saxophone, tenor
Born: November 27, 1991
Publicist: Braithwaite & Katz Communications
