Kevin Sun, member of the Spotlight On alumni club, featured on my "Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition" for the website All About Jazz. The release of his I selected, Fate of the Tenor (Endectomorph Music), is a record I cannot get enough of and features one of my favorite instrumental configurations, the saxophone trio.
Now, with the forthcoming release in October of his Quartets album, I am already thinking I need to hold space on my year-end list...
Member's first: August 19; Open to the public: August 26.
Spotlight On: What was your first paycheck related to music?
Kevin Sun: Honestly can't remember, but first regular formal paycheck (not cash) was from helping write grants at The Jazz Gallery in college...
SO: When you were 15 your favorite artist, song or album was:
KS: Stan Getz
SO: Who is the biggest influence on your musical life?
KS: Let's call it a three-way tie or Triforce between Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane (wisdom/power/courage, however you'd assign it)
SO: You are programming a music festival. What artists, dead or alive, headline Friday, Saturday and Sunday night?
You like Spotlight On. If you also like coffee, art, clothes and more, check out our online shop. We have an ever-changing selection of some terrific limited edition collectibles. Your purchases help us do more of those things we do. Thanks.
Some bands burn bright and fast, leaving behind only tantalizing fragments of legacy. Afterimage, a post-punk group that briefly lit up the Los Angeles scene in the early '80s, is a case in point.
Inspired by the conversation between Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark frontman Andy McCluskey and Spotlight On producer and guest host Michael Donaldson.
Ed Neumeister is a trombonist, composer, arranger and educator operating at the forefront of creative music for more than forty years, including work with Jerry Garcia (in the band, Reconstruction), backing up the likes of Chuck Berry, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra.
Kevin Sun, member of the Spotlight On alumni club, featured on my "Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition" for the website All About Jazz. The release of his I selected, Fate of the Tenor (Endectomorph Music), is a record I cannot get enough of and features one of my favorite instrumental configurations, the saxophone trio.
Now, with the forthcoming release in October of his Quartets album, I am already thinking I need to hold space on my year-end list...
Member's first: August 19; Open to the public: August 26.
Spotlight On: What was your first paycheck related to music?
Kevin Sun: Honestly can't remember, but first regular formal paycheck (not cash) was from helping write grants at The Jazz Gallery in college...
SO: When you were 15 your favorite artist, song or album was:
KS: Stan Getz
SO: Who is the biggest influence on your musical life?
KS: Let's call it a three-way tie or Triforce between Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane (wisdom/power/courage, however you'd assign it)
SO: You are programming a music festival. What artists, dead or alive, headline Friday, Saturday and Sunday night?
KS: Count Basie 1930s Old Testament Band, early '50s Duke Ellington Orchestra featuring special guest Charlie Parker, early '80s Yellow Magic Orchestra
SO: What artist is the most underrated or misunderstood?
KS: So many, but let's start with Albert Ayler
SO: What is the last concert you saw?
KS: Aaron Quinn's Sunchoke at Lowlands Bar (July 8, 2024)
You like Spotlight On. If you also like coffee, art, clothes and more, check out our online shop. We have an ever-changing selection of some terrific limited edition collectibles. Your purchases help us do more of those things we do. Thanks.
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Lost Sounds of '80s LA: Afterimage's 'Faces to Hide'
Some bands burn bright and fast, leaving behind only tantalizing fragments of legacy. Afterimage, a post-punk group that briefly lit up the Los Angeles scene in the early '80s, is a case in point.
Andy McCluskey: The Spotlight On Playlist
Inspired by the conversation between Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark frontman Andy McCluskey and Spotlight On producer and guest host Michael Donaldson.
Dancing About Architecture with Ed Neumeister
Ed Neumeister is a trombonist, composer, arranger and educator operating at the forefront of creative music for more than forty years, including work with Jerry Garcia (in the band, Reconstruction), backing up the likes of Chuck Berry, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra.