Quiereme Mucho

About the Artist
Born on March 24, 1938 in Brooklyn, NY, Kuhn grew up in Boston, and started piano lessons at the age of five. He later studied the "Russian Technique" with Serge Chaloff’s mother in the early ‘50s, and was performing professionally by the time he was thirteen. After graduating from Harvard University in 1959, he studied at Lenox School of Jazz, where he met trumpeter Kenny Dorham, who hired him as a sideman. Kuhn later joined John Coltrane’s quartet as his first pianist, from May to June of 1960, before McCoy Tyner took over the keyboard chair. He also worked with Stan Getz, Charles Lloyd, Art Blakey, and Art Farmer until the mid-‘60s. During this fertile period, he formed his first trio with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Pete LaRoca, and released his first recordings as a leader including: The October Suite: Three Compositions of Gary McFarland (1965, Impulse!), and Steve Kuhn in Europe (1966, Prestige). Kuhn released many critically acclaimed recordings on the ECM label from Trance (1974) and Last Year’s Waltz, with Sheila Jordan (1981), to Promises Kept (2004). He also recorded for the New World, Black Hawk, Owl labels. Writing in The New Grove Encyclopedia of Jazz, Paul Rinzler and Barry Kernfeld wrote," … Kuhn’s style ranges from bop to modal jazz and encompasses impressionistic playing and dissonant harmony; he takes a quasi-orchestral approach to the keyboard." Kuhn’s impressive and encyclopedic approach is aurally evident on this splendid date.

Product Description
Jazz is not only about improvisation. It’s also about idiomatic transformation, the ability to transform the musical and cultural identity of a song. For over five decades, pianist/composer Steve Kuhn has reigned supreme as one of the Music’s most open-eared and imaginative musicians. On his new CD, Quireme Mucho, the follow-up to his 2003 Sunnyside release Love Walked In, Kuhn – along with drummer Al Foster and bassist David Finck -- changes the sonic and syncopated citizenship of six classic Latin American compositions by Ernesto Lecuona, Miguel Prado, Osvaldo Farres, Gonzalo Roig, and Consuelo Velazques, into swinging, modern jazz. As everyone knows, Latin rhythms have always been involved in jazz, ever since Jelly Roll Morton talked about the importance of the "Spanish Tinge" in the early Twentieth Century. Kuhn’s propulsive, yet poetic pianisms, buoyed by Foster’s thick and elastic drum licks and Finck’s rocksteady basslines, except for the pretty, bolero take on Roig’s title selection, extend, elaborate, and refine the South-of-the-Border signatures of these splendid songs, not with tired, "Latin jazz" phrases, but with inspired neo-bop intelligence. Lecuona’s "Andalucia," and "Siempre En Mi Corazon," dance with an uptempo, Art Blakey/Jazz Messenger! bounce. Prado’s "Duerme," Farres’s "Tres Palabras," and Velazques’s much loved "Besame Mucho" are also treated with rhythmically riveting and melodically romantic readings.

Quiereme Mucho,Steve Kuhn,Sunny Side,Jazz,Pop

Jazz Music: