Steve Kuhn

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Steve Kuhn Universitetets Aula Oslo Jazz Festival 2017 (183920) .jpg

Stephen Lewis "Steve" Kuhn (born March 24, 1938 in Brooklyn ) is an American jazz pianist and composer .

life and work

Steve Kuhn began classical piano training at the age of five. He became a piano student of Margaret Chaloff and at the age of thirteen pianist in the band of her son Serge Chaloff . After graduating from Harvard College , he attended summer courses at the Lenox School of Music in Massachusetts , where he played with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry and from 1959 to 1960 with Kenny Dorham . In 1960 he was resident pianist at the Storyville jazz club and Mahagony Hall in Boston , where he performed in regional clubs with musicians such as Ruby Braff , then with Chaloff.

Then he played with his own formations, u. a. with Chuck Israels , was a member of Kenny Dorham's New York quintet in 1959 . In 1960 he worked briefly in John Coltrane's Quartet, joined Stan Getz's band in 1961 ( Getz at the Gate ) and worked with Art Farmer from 1964 to 1966 before founding his first own trio with Pete LaRoca and Steve Swallow . After the trio split up, Kuhn went to Sweden in 1967, worked there with Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen and toured Europe with them. In 1971 he returned to New York; In 1976 he put his new formation together with Steve Swallow, Jack DeJohnette and Sue Evans , with whom he recorded the album Trance for the ECM label ; followed by Playground from 1980 with Bob Moses , Harvie Swartz and singer Sheila Jordan .

In the mid-1980s he founded the All Star Trio with Ron Carter and Al Foster . The trio has worked with Joey Baron , Lewis Nash , Billy Drummond , Kenny Washington and Bill Stewart , among others . At the end of 1999 the album The Best Things was created with his working trio of David Finck and Billy Drummond , on which the singer Luciana Souza also participated. In 2009 he performed with a quintet and a program in honor of John Coltrane in New York's Birdland .

His piano style is heavily influenced by Fats Waller , Bud Powell , Art Tatum and Bill Evans . He judged him: “If you expect the traditional, then he discovers the avant-garde and then goes back to the paths that he has only temporarily abandoned” The jazz magazine Downbeat attests to him on his solo album Ecstasy 1975 “simple and complex game, which is not a contradiction in terms is because he uses the full range of percussive dynamics of the instrument ”.

Discographic notes

As a leader

  • 1968 Watch What Happens (MPS / Prestige) with Palle Danielsson, Jon Christensen
  • 1984 Mostly Ballads (New World Records) with Harvie Swartz
  • 1986 The Vanguard Time (Owl Time Line)
  • 1988 Porgy (Jazz City / Evidence) with Laura Anne Taylor, Eddie Gomez , Buster Williams , Al Foster
  • 1989 Oceans In The Sky (Owl)
  • 1990 Looking Back (Concord)
  • 1990 Live At Maybeck Recital Hall. Volume 13 (Concord)
  • 1992 Years Later (Concord) with David Finck , Lewis Nash
  • 1995 Remembering Tomorrow ( ECM ) with David Finck, Joey Baron
  • 1995 Seasons Of Romance (Postcards) with Tom Harrell , Bob Mintzer , George Mraz , Al Foster
  • 1998 Dedication (Reservoir) with David Finck, Billy Drummond
  • 2000 The Best Things (Reservoir)
  • 2009 Mostly Coltrane (ECM) with David Finck, Joey Baron and Joe Lovano
  • 2012 Wisteria (ECM) with Steve Swallow , Joey Baron

As a sideman

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Richard Cook and Brian Morton consider this album to be one of Kuhn's best productions: “This is modern jazz pianism at its best”, they wrote in 2001 in the Penguin Guide to Jazz .
  2. ↑ cit. after M. Kunzler, p. 664.
  3. ↑ cit. after M. Kunzler, p. 664.
personal data
SURNAME Kuhn, Steve
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kuhn, Stephen Lewis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz pianist
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn