Jazz Articles about Steve Kuhn

Steve Kuhn: Non-Fiction

by John Kelman
February 18, 2015

Steve Kuhn Non-FictionECM Records1978 Today's Rediscovery is another title that falls into the category of “begging to be issued on CD for the first time. When ECM Records released Life's Backward Glances--Solo and Quartet in 2009--part of its Old & New Masters Edition series of box sets that gathered together various albums, some never before on CD in their full form, others never on CD before ever--there seemed to be one notable absence from a ...

Pete La Roca: Basra

by Greg Simmons
January 3, 2013

Pete La Roca was one of those musicians with a long but under-sung career. He was a sideman to some great Blue Note leaders including saxophonists Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and Joe Henderson, but he only ever recorded one date (1965's Basra) under his own name during the label's heyday, and indeed only three records total as a leader over a fifty-year career. He was a drummer in the background in almost every sense.According to La Roca's obituary ...

Steve Kuhn Trio: Wisteria

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 26, 2012

Classe 1938, Steve Kuhn resta tra i pochi grandi pianisti della sua generazione e sa procurare forti emozioni anche nell'abusata formula del trio. Kuhn ha sviluppato negli anni uno stile personalissimo, che si distingue per il tocco limpido, l'equilibrio delle dinamiche e il raffinato senso ritmico. La sua partnership con Joey Baron va avanti da due decenni, quella con Swallow risale alla metà degli anni sessanta ma i tre musicisti incidono assieme ora per la prima volta. Nessun protagonismo, nessuna ...

Steve Kuhn: Wisteria

by John Kelman
April 24, 2012

Context, they say, is everything. With nearly 50 albums as a leader in a career that now spans 55 years--and stints with everyone from saxophonist Stan Getz and flugelhornist Art Farmer to trumpeter Kenny Dorham...even a brief stint with saxophonist John Coltrane--pianist Steve Kuhn's best and most varied work has been across the now-ten albums recorded for ECM. You need only look to Life's Backward Glances: Solo and Quartet (ECM, 2008)--the box collecting 1975's solo piano outing, Ecstasy; 1977's Motility, ...

Steve Kuhn: On Japan

by Wayne Zade
August 19, 2009

Steve Kuhn's most recent CD, Mostly Coltrane (ECM, 2009), pays tribute to John Coltrane, having been the first pianist in the legendary saxophonist's quartet. He also has played as a sideman with Kenny Dorham, Art Farmer, Stan Getz and many others. Mostly Kuhn has led his own groups, largely trios with bassists including Buster Williams, Eddie Gomez and David Finck and drummers such as Al Foster and Billy Drummond.

Kuhn has a long association with ECM Records, which also ...

Steve Kuhn Trio w/ Joe Lovano: Mostly Coltrane

by Troy Collins
August 16, 2009

Mostly Coltrane is pianist Steve Kuhn's venerable ode to his onetime employer, John Coltrane, with whom he played for eight weeks in early 1960 at New York City's Jazz Gallery. Kuhn revisits those seminal days without ignoring Coltrane's later period advancements, extrapolating his controversial innovations with rare lyricism and tenderness--a uniquely beautiful tribute unencumbered by nostalgic sentimentality.

Mirroring the instrumentation of Coltrane's Classic Quartet, (which featured pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones), Kuhn is ...

Steve Kuhn Trio with Joe Lovano: Mostly Coltrane

by Dan McClenaghan
July 13, 2009

The sound of John Coltrane (1926-1967) was a mix of spiritual tranquility and ecstatic fury, sheets-of-sound full force gales and transcendent, tender, Zen-like ruminations from a man intent on communing with God through his music--all of which makes an attempt at communing with Coltrane a nervy quest.Enter pianist Steve Kuhn.In 1960, at 21 years of age, Kuhn was employed by Coltrane for an eight week stint of live shows at New York's The Jazz Gallery, playing ...