TNYCJR reviews QUARTETS & THE FATE OF THE TENOR

Thanks to Tristan Geary for his dual write-up of The Fate of the Tenor & Quartets in the November 2024 issue of the NYC Jazz Record. Full text below:

 Quartets
The Fate of the Tenor
Kevin Sun (Endectomorph Music)
by Tristan Geary 

NYC Jazz Record, November 2024

Tenor saxophonist Kevin Sun’s newest project Quartets is a double album of two different quartets, divided up over 19 tracks, united under Sun’s umbrella of witty tenor saxophone playing and pensive compositions. The album opener is the drum-forward “Dance Notation”, which carries a gentle precision, featuring Dana Saul (piano), Walter Stinson (bass) and Matt Honor (drums).

Like labanotation (the dance world equivalent of music notation), the piece is full of dotted shapes, cryptic symbols and angular gestures, but reveals its own pretty logic when looked at from a distance. The first side’s most tender moment, “Shadows Over the Sea”, is reflective of the leader’s thoughtfulness in composition. It is moody and pushes and pulls like the tide. The soft-spoken Sun delivers that same gentleness in his playing though finds moments for stretching out, as can be heard on the cascading “Storied History”.

The album’s second side opens with “Heideggerdashian”—with Christian Li (piano), Stinson (bass) and Kayvon Gordon (drums)—a mashup of old-world Heidegger and new-world Kardashian into one unholy brain-frying title. The piece sounds exactly like worlds colliding, full of chaos and overlapping saxophone/piano chatter. It also shows Sun’s humorous side, with this (and many of his compositions) full of musical punchlines, such as the textism titled “tbh”, which has some nonchalant, cooly tossed-off tenor wizardry. “Rudderless Blues” finds the saxophonist soloing with a satisfying raspiness after an abstract head and a pointillist piano solo. The tenderest moment is the whispered piano and saxophone delivery of “Estate”, with midnight playing from Sun and more expressionist sounds from Li. The album closer is another ungodly philosopher-celebrity mashup, “Kierkegaardashian”, a jumpy and abstract stream of consciousness flow of ripping tenor melodies. It bottles up an overactive brain dishing out fragments of thoughts before skittishly switching topics.

Sun’s other big 2024 project is The Fate of the Tenor (a vinyl-only release, which is additionally available as a digital download). While Quartets is more of a venture into composition, this album, recorded at Lowlands Bar
(in Gowanus, Brooklyn), where his trio (with Stinson
and Honor) has played every Tuesday for three years,
is the band in its musical living room. In Sun’s words,
it bottles up the band “at our most comfortable and
also at our most adventurous.” The album’s cover and
title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Joe Henderson’s
The State of the Tenor (Blue Note, 1985). Sun’s cover
mirrors Henderson’s album, striking the same chinresting-in-forefinger-and-thumb pose, begging the
question of whether Sun is a bit of a prankster. The two
albums rhyme in more ways than one. Album opener,
“Involuted Blues”, unfolds from snarky blues into the
conversational “Elden Steps”: it’s “Giant Steps” from
an alternate abstract universe, where everything is
more elastic. Stinson is equally the star, complementing
with well-articulated refrains, while Honor has his
own quips. A looseness permeates the entire first side,
striking that deliciously sweet spot between form and
formlessness. Side two’s “Dance Bleak” shoulders more
of a backbeat, although the sans piano setup frees up
the leader to go where he wants, low into the trough,
high into inquisitive monologuing, always ending in a
question mark. “Demonesque” opens with a torturedsounding arco bass introduction and abruptly breaks
into some saxophone noise music, out of which pops a
highly-syncopated angular tune, increasing in intensity;
Sun is rapid-fire, with some strange honking, but always
palatable, never harsh. At its climax the album spins
the listener around in the suddenly funky “Lowlands”.
But that backbeat comfort gives way to a rapturous
swinging affair, celebrating the dive bar’s namesake,
and how it feels to be at home with your band.
For more info visit endectomorph.com. The Quartets album
release concert is at Close Up Nov. 14. See Calendar.