Jazz Articles about Helen Sung

Helen Sung: Push

by Dan McClenaghan
February 3, 2004

It's always a good sign when the opening cut has you snapping your fingers about fifteen seconds in. Push is pianist Helen Sung's debut effort. The song that elicited the fingersnaps is “Conundrum," a swinger that features some clean-lined tenor sax work by Marcus Strickland. It hits a groove early, and a couple of minutes in Sung sparkles into an effervescent solo. The pianist--who semi-finaled in the 1999 Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition--exhibits some sharp angularities again ...