Kevin Sun

From Presidents' Day 2019 If the era-defining gig for me prior to the pandemic was the Blue Note China Jazz Orchestra, than the corresponding post-pandemic gig would obviously be Jazz at Lowlands, formerly known as the "greatest bar in the world" according to a previous iteration of their website (that moniker seems to have disappeared in a recent rebranding exercise). According to my records, I've played at Lowlands over 150 times (the majority of which took place in late 2021 through late 2024), and it's unlikely that I'll play more frequently anywhere else in the coming years. The current runner up appears to be Bar Bayeux, where I've played over 75 times (most of those were the happy hour sets with Peter Watrous, so depends who you ask). For the hundreds of hours of bandstand experience (and easily upward of a thousand of hours clocked at 543 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn), I have the bar's owner, John Niccoli, to thank. John graciously  wrote the liner ...

Accidental selfie ca. January 2021, sweatshirt gifted to me by Walter & Matt for my 29th birthday The first time I played Dark Souls  was probably in September 2020, deep pandemic and almost exactly midway through my first decade in New York. I had a COVID pod with my triomates, Walter Stinson and Matt Honor, and I distinctly remember them putting the controller in my hands and saying, "You have to play this." They had alluded to the major parallel between the Souls games and my music at the time, namely the supposedly punishing difficulty level, and I quickly found myself pulled into the thrall of interactive entertainment in a way I hadn't felt since I was a pre-teen.¹ It's been years since that first intoxicating taste of Souls , and although I've wanted to write about the series and jazz for years, I never got around to committing many of my thoughts on the two  until now.  In retrospect, I think my fondness for the original installment, my earliest exposu...

Photographed at a private event in October 2025, one of my first few gigs playing this Selmer SBA One of the first things I did once I started getting a regular paycheck in August 2016 was to buy a saxophone, then another one, and another one, and then another; same with mouthpieces. At the very bottom of my complete gig archive , I also keep track of what equipment I've been using. I started keeping track in November 2017, about a year after I began switching equipment fairly regularly in search of my own sound and means of expression.  I had played the same 69xxx Selmer Mark VI since about 2008 through finishing my M.M. at NEC in 2015. When I went to Beijing in September 2015 before moving to NYC, I brought along my student Jupiter 700-series tenor, which I hadn't played since middle school. I had a sacrilegious but undeniable feeling at the time, which was: this horn seems to be more powerful than the VI. Sure, the sound was boxier and maybe less refined, but for playing liv...

   "Better late than never," my high school gym teacher used say. ca. November 23, 2015 at Peter Karl Studio in Brooklyn (earliest photo I could find of myself after moving to NYC) * * * * * I officially moved to New York in late October 2015. I had moved out of the apartment I shared with Isaac Wilson and Ryan Sands in Jamaica Plain, MA during my last year at New England Conservatory in late August, then went to Beijing to spend about two months brushing up on my Mandarin at my aunt's place while also playing gigs and hanging out with the vibrant and friendly musicians on the scene.  A lot has happened in the decade since. I've been thinking about what I could possibly write that would encapsulate the past ~3650 days, and a laundry list of accomplishments and milestones seems like the least useful for myself and for anyone reading this. Instead, maybe more interesting would be my general impression of my time here and how things have been turning out: In broad terms,...

Back in November, I played Close Up NYC with both the bands from Quartets . Earlier that night, I also spoke with fellow saxophonist and D'Addario rep Mike Talento at the club for a video interview promoting the record and also discussing my preference for D'Addario's synthetic VENN reed . The full interview with clips from that night's show is on YouTube , and I'm sharing an AI generated transcript with hyperlinks below: Introduction My name is Kevin Sun, and I play the tenor saxophone. We are at Close Up in New York City, and tonight I'm celebrating the release of my newest album, Quartets .  Beginnings I began playing the tenor saxophone when I was 10 years old in fourth grade [ ed:  actually, I started on alto in fourth grade; totally misspoke here, but I switched primarily to tenor in the seventh grade, if I remember correctly]. My parents chose the saxophone because they saw Bill Clinton play it on TV , and they decided I should try it.  Being a profes...

In just a few weeks, I'll be embarking on my longest self-funded tour to date with Christian Li, Walter Stinson, and Kayvon Gordon (plus Matt Honor on our last date). Last tour was in September with the trio , but this time, we're performing in support of Quartets , which dropped in the fall: Monday, April 21  at Sonoma State Univ., Green Music Center, Room 1029, 1801 Cotati Avenue,  Rohnert Park, CA .      1 p.m.   Jazz Forum Class. Free admission. Information at  music.sonoma.edu . Monday, April 21  at  Big Easy , 128 American Alley,  Petaluma, CA .      7:30 and 9 p.m.  Suggested donation $10-$20.  Information at  bigeasypetaluma.com . Tuesday, April 22  at  Monks Jazz Club , 501 Pedernales St., Building #2E,  Austin, TX .      8 p.m. Tickets $20. Information at  monksjazz.com .   Wednesday, April 23  at  Royal Room , 5000 Rainier Avenue South,  Seatt...

Special thanks to the folks at  WKCR   for inviting me to participate in 's Sunday night show "Live Constructions," as well as to Satchel Peterson for referring me. With the power of AI-powered transcription and formatting, I spent under 5 minutes of human time to obtain this transcript. The original recording of this show can be heard in its entirety here   via WKCR's SoundCloud account. WKCR-FM · Live Constructions w/ Kevin Sun - 2.23.25 Live Constructions: You're listening to WKCR FM New York and WKCR HD. That's 89.9 on your FM dial or online at wkcr.org. It is ten o'clock p.m. on February 23rd, 2025, and you just heard "Black Betty" by Clifford Jordan off of the 1965 album These Are My Roots: Clifford Jordan Plays Lead Belly . Right now, you're tuned into Live Constructions, a show where we bring you a live in-studio interview and performance every Sunday evening between 10-11 p.m. Right now, we're joined by Kevin Sun and his quarte...