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Helen Sung: Celebrating Monk
The first weekend in April will see the opening of a monthlong, three-venue celebration of Thelonious Monk at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the third installment of their annual Monk festival. It all starts Thursday evening (April 5) with Chick Corea sitting in for three nights with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in the Rose Theater. And Monday evenings throughout April are dedicated to a class on Monk, “Monk's Mood: The Life Of ...
read moreBrubeck Institute Summer Jazz Colony 2017
The Brubeck Institute Summer Jazz Colony is hosted by the Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. This year's program ran from August 6th to August 11th. In keeping with the global vision Dave and Iola Brubeck brought to the art form, the Colony features five international students attending through the Brubeck Institute's continuing partnership with the UK's National Youth Jazz Orchestra and the Western Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra. Along with these international youth come high school ...
read moreHelen Sung Quintet At The Sequoia Room
Helen Sung Quintet Sequoia Room At the Brewery Tap Room Thelonious Monk Birthday Celebration Fort Bragg, CA October 10, 2015 Prominent pianist Thelonious Monk was born October 10,1917 in North Carolina. Over his esteemed career, Monk played with the pantheon of jazz giants that included John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He was also instrumental in the creation of Bebop. Monk's technique was uniquely inventive and also very demanding. Today, ...
read moreHelen Sung at the Howard Brubeck Theatre
Helen SungHoward Brubeck Theatre, Palomar Community College Steinway Series San Marcos, CA May 17, 2015 Helen Sung closed out Palomar College's first annual Steinway Series in the newly remodeled Howard Brubeck Theatre with a stunning display of solo jazz piano that not only provided a resounding close to the new musical series in northern jny: San Diego County, but showed why Sung is among the most highly regarded young jazz pianists. (Sung's performance followed ...
read moreHelen Sung at Jazz @ Jack's, Denver, CO
Helen Sung Jazz @ Jack's 2014 Craft Brewers Conference Denver, CO April 9, 2014 Astaire and Rogers; Bogart and Bacall; Sponge Bob and Patrick... The entertainment world is full of classic pairings. Wednesday night's classic pairing was jazz and craft beer. Dropped in the middle of the 2014 Craft Brewers Conference in jny: Denver, pianist Helen Sung, affiliated with North Coast Brewing Company, put together a virtuoso quintet to match the virtuoso beer on ...
read moreHelen Sung: Anthem For A New Day
There's a bit of the iconoclast in pianist Helen Sung. Her musical journey began in the classical world, and didn't take its rebellious tangent into jazz until her college years, after a chance encounter with a Harry Connick, Jr. concert, in a “bang on the piano" solo interlude. And then there was pianist Tommy Flanagan's solo on saxophonist Charlie Parker “Confirmation," and Sung was jazz bitten, in the best way. Anthem for a New Day, Sung's sixth album--her ...
read moreHelen Sung: (re)Conception
Pianist Helen Sung has got the swing thing down. A graduate of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, Sung has put out a series of increasingly distinctive CDs, from her ear-grabbing debut, Push (Blue Moon, 2004), to the classical leaning Sungbird (After Albeniz) (Sunnyside, 2007), through to 2010's quintet outing, Going Express (Sunnyside), with a trio stop for the outstanding Helenistque (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2006).A classically-trained pianist who didn't discover jazz until ...
read moreHelen Sung: San Diego, CA, September 15, 2011
Helen SungDizzy'sSan Diego Wine and Culinary Arts CenterSan Diego, CASeptember 15, 2011 From post World War II through the 1970s, what is now called San Diego's “Gaslamp Quarter," centered on 5th Avenue in the in the city's downtown, was a neon-lit area of beer bars dives, pornographic theaters, massage parlors, unseemly strip clubs and a variety of greasy spoons catering to the town's young sailors. San Diego was, and is, a Navy town. ...
read moreHelen Sung: Going Express
Whether an artist is performing in a play or playing music, doing so live onstage is one of the most challenging acts. Every nuance is captured by an eager audience and, in the case of Going Express, a sensitive sound engineer. There is no room for error; every slip can be fatal. Pianist Helen Sung makes short work of these concerns, however, navigating the music in spritely fashion and with the delicate touch of slender fingers like feathers on the ...
read moreHelen Sung at Dizzy's San Diego
Helen SungDizzy's San DiegoSeptember 23, 2010 Helen Sung came to jazz relatively late, during her classical music studies at University of Texas at Austin. After listening to Houston-bred and now New York-based pianist Helen Sung perform at Dizzy's in San Diego, it's hard to imagine her as a classical player, where precision and perfection of technique and adherence to the traditions sit up much more front and center than they do in jazz.Sung ...
read moreHelen Sung: Sungbird (After Albeniz)
Pianist/composer Helen Sung could have played it safe. After offering up two fine straight ahead jazz outings-- Push (Blue Moon, 2004) and Helenistique, (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2006), the expectation was “more of the same." And that would not have been a disappointment. Though the New York based artist came to jazz late--during her college years, after early studies in classical music--she came out swinging sweet and lovely on those first two discs.With Sungbird (After Albeniz), the artist ...
read moreHelen Sung: Helenistique
The title Helenistique, a pun on the leader's name, calls to mind (also punningly) things Greek. The reference puzzled me at first, but it seems to now refer to this sterling young pianist's ability to sculpt intelligent and vital improvisations. She is a confident, technically brilliant keyboard artist who uses a fertile imagination to create new lines and shapes from her raw materials. Thus these “standards," played by countless pianists and other jazz players, take on different colors and textures ...
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