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The Sustain of Memory by Kevin Sun
Released November 8, 2019 - Stream/purchase (Bandcamp)
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Kevin Sun – tenor saxophone/clarinet Adam O'Farrill – trumpet Dana Saul – piano Walter Stinson – bass Simón Willson – bass Matt Honor – drums Dayeon Seok – drums Track Listing (all compositions by Kevin Sun) Disc 1
Disc 2
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Endectomorph Music Catalog No.
EMM-007
“The Rigors of Love” recorded by Aaron Nevezie at The Bunker Studio, Brooklyn, NY on February 17, 2019 - “Circle, Line” recorded by Chris Benham at Big Orange Sheep, Brooklyn, NY on May 17-18, 2019 - “The Middle of Tensions” recorded by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY on May 22, 2019 - Mixed by Juanma Trujillo - Mastered by Eivind Opsvik - Produced by Kevin Sun, Walter Stinson, Christian Li, and Juanma Trujillo - Photography by Daphne Xu - Design by Dana Khagabanova - Liner notes by Andrew Katzenstein - Total length: 114:12
CD Release
—December 13: The Lilypad (MA)
—December 1: Twins Jazz (DC)
—November 15: The Jazz Gallery (NYC)
Liner Notes
The novelist Penelope Fitzgerald wrote that “the ambition of children everywhere is to have their games taken seriously.” One might object that this ambition is shared by adults, but the truth is that most of us lose it as we age: seeing time and again the indifference of others to our whims and passions, our games lose the aura of necessity and wonder they held for us in our youth.
Instead, we join those games offered to us by society: the pursuit of money, the establishment of reputation, the maintenance of sexual desirability. These aren't happy games, in part because we're seldom sure what is compelling us to play them, so further diversions—intoxicants, the charisma of celebrity and of commodities—help us forget our unease.
Some keep playing their games despite various distractions and exigencies, not only getting others to take them seriously but showing us that these games are serious and worthy of our care and adoration. This does not preclude exploration and irreverence but in fact demands them: the game needs to be refined, expanded, and occasionally rewritten lest it get played out. As the title of the final piece on this album suggests, what one loves must be dealt with rigorously. It should remain a source of discovery, succor, and joy.
The music included here reveals a composer and improviser searching for, and going quite a way toward finding, new rules by which he can apply his many skills: here, cadences, despite their angularity or rhythmic novelty, have the integrity and well-worn edges of more familiar structures; passages seem to move against themselves like countervailing currents in an eddy; rollicking swing rests securely on a base of crystalline delicacy.
Such inventions provide the grounds for many moments of unexpected transcendence, as thrilling as they are engaging—the chant-like melody in the second section of The Middle of Tensions, the iridescent visions that emerge from Circle, Line's feats of spiritual austerity, the haunting end to the mirthful and swaggering second half of The Rigors of Love.
As its textures shift and melodies unwind, The Sustain of Memory delights the ear, sharpens the mind, and emboldens the heart. Its aims are serious, but it's also a lot of fun.
—Andrew Katzenstein
July 2019
New York, NY
Instead, we join those games offered to us by society: the pursuit of money, the establishment of reputation, the maintenance of sexual desirability. These aren't happy games, in part because we're seldom sure what is compelling us to play them, so further diversions—intoxicants, the charisma of celebrity and of commodities—help us forget our unease.
Some keep playing their games despite various distractions and exigencies, not only getting others to take them seriously but showing us that these games are serious and worthy of our care and adoration. This does not preclude exploration and irreverence but in fact demands them: the game needs to be refined, expanded, and occasionally rewritten lest it get played out. As the title of the final piece on this album suggests, what one loves must be dealt with rigorously. It should remain a source of discovery, succor, and joy.
The music included here reveals a composer and improviser searching for, and going quite a way toward finding, new rules by which he can apply his many skills: here, cadences, despite their angularity or rhythmic novelty, have the integrity and well-worn edges of more familiar structures; passages seem to move against themselves like countervailing currents in an eddy; rollicking swing rests securely on a base of crystalline delicacy.
Such inventions provide the grounds for many moments of unexpected transcendence, as thrilling as they are engaging—the chant-like melody in the second section of The Middle of Tensions, the iridescent visions that emerge from Circle, Line's feats of spiritual austerity, the haunting end to the mirthful and swaggering second half of The Rigors of Love.
As its textures shift and melodies unwind, The Sustain of Memory delights the ear, sharpens the mind, and emboldens the heart. Its aims are serious, but it's also a lot of fun.
—Andrew Katzenstein
July 2019
New York, NY
Press
"...intense, harmonically virtuosic and compositionally complex" — DownBeat
"Sun swings for the fences with his sense of form and scale" — WBGO
"...Sun’s intellectual and technical rigor are matched by his ability to write profoundly expressive music" — Monarch Magazine
- All About Jazz (February 2021, Italian)
- Via Jazz (January 2021)
- Scaruffi.com (December 2020)
- WGTE: Jazz Spectrum (December 2020)
- Jazz-Zeit (November 2020)
- O's Place (April 2020)
- All About Jazz (April 2020)
- All About Jazz (March 2020)
- Distortioni (March 2020)
- Accent on Tampa Bay Magazine (February/March 2020)
- AudioReview (February 2020)
- Winnipeg Free Press (February 2020)
- BAE (Buenos Aires Económico) Negocios (January 2020)
- DownBeat (January 2020) **** 1/2
- Monarch Magazine (Winter 2019)
- Jazz, Ese Ruido (December 2019)
- Jazz Weekly (December 2019)
- Step Tempest (November 2019)
- Radio stART (November 2019)
- Ivan Rod (November 2019)
- Tom Hull (November 2019)
- L'Appeal Du Disque (November 2019)
- JazzTrail (November 2019)
- WBGO (November 2019)
- Vinyl Mine (October 2019)
- Musical Memoirs (October 2019)
- Midwest Record (October 2019)
Press inquiries:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
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