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Kevin Sun: Quartets

By Dan McClenaghan
October 10, 2024
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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

bass

" data-original-title="" title="">Walter Stinson. The piano and drum chairs are taken on the first CD by

Dana Saul

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Dana Saul and

Matt Honor

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Matt Honor, respectively. CD 2 finds

Kayvon Gordon

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Kayvon Gordon doing the drum work, with

Christian Li

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Christian Li sitting in on the piano.

It takes some work to nail Sun down with a label. Is he a free player or a mainstream guy? As on the previously mentioned releases, he rambles, style-wise, all over the place. The fact that he maintains a cohesive mood is to his credit. The first sound to thump out of the speakers on CD 1, "Dance Notation," is driven by

Matt Honor

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Matt Honor's deep, dark drums that seem like they might take the tune into Michael Jackson's 1983 radio hit "Billie Jean." But that does not happen. Rather it turns into an ominous jazz groove, sounding like the Nazis marching in Berlin, with interludes of striking loveliness as Saul slips into a piano solo. "Far East Western" verges on the schizoid, with Sun's anguished,

John Coltrane

saxophone
1926 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">John Coltrane-ian sax, leading into the pensive, gently expressed " Shadows Over The Sea."

CD 2 has a different flavor. It is more tuneful, closer to the mainstream—though it does circle out into some interesting eddies as it veers near the shore. "One The Street Where You Live," penned by Lerner and Loewe, for 1956's My Fair Lady, is played straight with a bounce in its step, the quartet leaning to the sunny side of that street. They follow it up with "Rudderless Blues (or, Obscure Motions)," which sounds like a warning of danger to come, while Bruno Martino's "Estate" has the feel of scattered raindrops falling on an open field, coaxing green sprouts up out of the dark soil, in search of the sun.

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Track Listing

CD 1:
Dance Notation; Far East Western (Prelude); Far East Western; Shadows Over the Sea; Melpomene; And the Oscar Goes To; Storied History; Title Theme: The Legend of Zelda (Ocarina of Time).
CD 2:
Heideggerdashian; Homage Kondo; On the Street Where You Live; Rudderless Blues (0r, Obscure Motions; That Lights a Star; Outlawry; Tbh; Pixelate; Yellow Magic (Tong Poo); Estate; Kierkegaadashian.

Personnel

Kevin Sun

saxophone, tenor

Dana Saul

piano

Walter Stinson

bass

Matt Honor

drums

Christian Li

piano

Kayvon Gordon

drums

Album information

Title: Quartets | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: Endectomorph Records

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