Kevin Sun

The first track on the Stan Getz record  Early Stan  (1949, 1953) is a Jimmy Raney tune called "Motion" that features a Tristano-ish line over the changes of "You Stepped Out of a Dream"). I know the Getz-Raney collaboration primarily through The Complete Roost Sessions  (1950-2), a 3-CD set that includes Getz and Raney's live recordings at Storyville ("Parker 51," a burning performance over "Cherokee" changes, is particularly notable). Incidentally, it would have been Raney's 86th birthday last Tuesday, which I learned from his son Jon's tribute website . I can't think of any other lines over "You Stepped Out of a Dream," but this would be a fine one to play at sessions! C Bb Eb

This summer, something I noticed about the musical lifestyle (or, at least, the pre-musical lifestyle in my case) is that you spend both a great deal of time alone while also spending a great deal of time with others. Here's what I mean: when you're really practicing and working hard composing, writing, and the like, you're really alone in your musical endeavor; when you're out playing, hustling, and the like, you're really  engaged with other people the whole time you're out. If you're in-between on either of these—practicing but also being distracted with other thoughts outside of music, or being out at sessions but not being completely invested in spending time with friends and acquaintances—my feeling is that you won't get the most out of either practicing and hanging.  One of the biggest differences between last summer and this summer was learning to choose my battles more wisely, e.g. , deliberately putting the horn away before the last tune at

In addition to Victor Lewis's "Hey, It's Me You're Talking To," another tune I've been hearing variously during my time in the city has been Duke Pearson's "Is That So?" The first time I heard it was at The Jazz Gallery a couple weeks ago—before the band arrived for that night, my friend Albert Baliwas and I were leisurely setting up the room. When we had finished, Albert went to the piano and started playing a simple melody against a cyclical chord progression that vaguely reminded me of a television news intro. As it turns out, what he was playing turned out to be the intro to "Is That So?", which appears on  Sweet Honey Bee (1966) , as well as a number of other '60s records (like Lee Morgan's The Rajah , also from 1966). I was lucky to find Honeybuns  (1965) , a Duke Pearson nonet record, at Princeton Record Exchange the week after hearing Albert play "Is That So?" at the Gallery. The liner notes informed me

Jobim! — Tom Jobim International Airport (Wikimedia Commons) After recording  Lush Life  and So Near,  So Far  for Verve in the early 1990s , Joe Henderson recorded Double Rainbow , a tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim shortly before the composer passed away in December '94. The record features two bands: one authentic Brazilian band and one composed of Joe's esteemed jazz colleagues (Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, and Christian McBride). They play an aggressive, hard-swinging version of "No More Blues (Chega de Saudade)," the only swung tune on the record, which shocked me the first time I heard it; Herbie's comping behind Joe's solo is fiery and aggressive to the point of almost stepping on Joe's feet, and it's clear that Jack and Christian aren't holding back at all. They maintain this unwavering, unapologetically intense jam session vibe for the entirety of the track, which makes it stand out among the rest of the cuts on the record (I wonde

Although I've been going to Smalls less frequently than I did less summer, I've heard one tune enough times that I feel compelled to learn it: Victor Lewis's "Hey, It's Me You're Talking To." I think the original recording is from Lewis's own Know It Today, Know It Tomorrow  (1992), which features Seamus Blake, Eddie Henderson, Christian McBride, and Edward Simon. There's also a version by Mark Turner on his eponymous Warner Brothers début, and even a video of Kendrick Scott's Oracle playing it at Smalls. The tune has two parts: an unmistakably Lydian vamp at the top, which is followed by a set of cyclical chord changes, all descending in minor 3rds. I've heard friends describe is as "Giant Steps, but with a diminished cycle instead of a major thirds cycle" and as "the major version of 'Cyclic Episode,'" but I think the tune is also vaguely reminiscent of "Bolivia," with its pseudo-Latin vamp at t