Steve Kuhn
Stephen Lewis "Steve" Kuhn ( born March 24, 1938 in Brooklyn ) is an American jazz pianist and composer.
Life and work
Steve Kuhn began classical piano lessons at the age of five years. He became a piano student of Margaret Chaloff and at the age of thirteen, pianist of the band of her son Serge Chaloff. After graduating from Harvard College, he attended the summer courses of the Lenox School of Music in Massachusetts, where he played with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry and 1959-1960 with Kenny Dorham. In 1960, he was in Boston house pianist in the Jazz Club Storyville and the Mahogany Hall, where he then performed with musicians such as Ruby Braff with Chaloff in regional clubs.
After that he played with his own bands, among others with Chuck Israels, 1959 was a member of the New Yorkers by Kenny Dorham Quintet. In 1960, he briefly worked with John Coltrane Quartet, In 1961 the band of Stan Getz at and worked from 1964 to 1966 with Art Farmer, before he founded his own trio with Steve Swallow and Pete Laroca. After the dissolution of the trio Kuhn went to Sweden in 1967, where he worked with Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen and toured with them through Europe. In 1971 he returned to New York; In 1976 he put together his new formation with Steve Swallow, Jack DeJohnette and Sue Evans, with whom he recorded the album trance for the ECM label; followed by Playground 1980 with Bob Moses, Harvie Swartz and singer Sheila Jordan.
Mid-1980s, he founded the All Star Trio with Ron Carter and Al Foster. The trio worked with Joey Baron, Lewis Nash, Billy Drummond, Kenny Washington and Bill Stewart. The end of 1999 with his working trio of David Finck and Billy Drummond Album The Best Things, in which the singer Luciana Souza participated. In 2009, he joined with a quintet and a program in honor of John Coltrane in New York's Birdland on.
His piano style is strongly influenced by Fats Waller, Bud Powell, Art Tatum and Bill Evans influenced. This verdict about him: " One expects Traditional, he discovered the avant-garde, and then to go back to those ways he has only temporarily leave " the jazz magazine Down Beat certifies him in his solo album Ecstasy 1975 " simple and complex game, which is not a contradiction is because it uses the entire width of percussive dynamics of the instrument. "