Sunday, July 20, 2025

The Day Shostakovich Went to a Cannonball Adderley Gig — and Didn’t Get the Music | By Ralph J. Gleason


Early this year a group of U.S. longhair composers, including Ulysses Kaye, a nephew of King Oliver, visited Russia as part of a cultural exchange deal.

This, fall, a group of five Russian composers, headed by Dmitri Shostakovich and including Dmitri Kabalevsky, Tikhon Khrennikov, Konstantin Dankevich and Firket Amirov, visited the United States.

They were flown around the country, and included in their itinerary a three-day visit to the San Francisco area.

At their San Francisco press conference, the Russians were asked what they thought of jazz. It was obvious from their answers that they knew nothing of it (despite the fact that Kaye and his companions reported they were constantly asked about jazz by Soviet composers when they were in Russia). Jazz, to the visiting Russians, seemed to mean nothing more than hotel dance music.

The October Suite (Steve Kuhn & Gary McFarland, 1966) | Original liner notes by Nat Hentoff


So far Steve Kuhn has primarily been heard in two contexts—as a sideman and as leader of a trio. This album, however, focuses on him as solo pianist in settings written specifically for him by Gary McFarland. For Gary the assignment was stimulating because, as he observed, he didn’t have to restrict himself to any particular idiom. Knowing the broad scope of Kuhn’s capacities, Gary felt free to try any approach he wanted in the confidence that Kuhn would respond resourcefully—and with individuality.