I’ve only seen pianist Helen Sung in the band of clarinettist Oran Etkin. Oh that was in 2015. So I’m very out of the loop. Among her own records notably Anthem for a New Day I liked very much.
Sung, who emerged in the 1990s, is one of the most distinguished US jazz pianists of her generation occupying a centrist position in swinging mainstream jazz that isn’t at all irrelevant even if to some it doesn’t correspond with ultra modernist avantisms. All I’d say to that kind of reliably warped but pretty common thinking in so-called jazz criticism is appreciate the swinging (more an inferred triplet & polyrhythmical feel in more elaborated upon passages) for what it is, how it’s framed and whether it makes sense or not, and not how it should be this, that or the other thing, is “advanced”, “progressive” or howsoever you wish to project your terminology on to it, as you moan and kvetch about what it isn’t.
Certainly Oracles is not phoney or miscued experimentalism and you can feel that it has absorbed a tradition where the writing has taken root, grown and gives back to the very soil it now cultivates.
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, to Chinese immigrant parents, Sung initially trained as a classical pianist before discovering jazz while studying at the University of Texas. A member of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, she established herself on the New York scene, working with figures such as Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and the Mingus Big Band. Alongside a substantial discography as a leader, she has become an important educator, serving on the faculties of Berklee, Juilliard and Columbia University, while developing a compositional voice that combines a deep knowledge of the jazz tradition with a contemporary sensibility.
I hear her influence on other players far from America and certainly apart from that there are players whose sound sits well with hers in a sort of congeniality of approach. I could imagine for instance Sung and Londoner Nikki Yeoh (although more influenced by Chick Corea) playing opposite each other on two pianos. If that happened I’d hear a lot in common – but Sung would probably swing in a slightly different manner.
Here there are quite a few named tributes to giants of jazz including some of those above and you can map the cosmology of her star system by noting these are Clark “Mumbles” Terry who was a mentor to Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Jimmy Heath and in the piano player contingent Barry Harris, Kenny Barron and Herbie Hancock.
Sung played with Terry on an albun recorded in a Swiss jazz club called Clark Terry & The Young Titans of Jazz – Live at Marian’s Jazzroom issued more than 20 years ago.
You’ll see from the list about that quite a number of these players formed the Second Great Miles Davis Quintet but that sound in terms of scale is of course more than magnified by Sung’s big band and yet has more of a chamber jazz dimension that you’d expect rippling beyond its core heartbeat. The beefy trumpet section is well catered for. And it’s not surprising given Sung has performed with the Mingus Big Band and Mingus Dynasty that there are a few similarities in approach. But it’s not Mingusian at all. What I mean by that is that you don’t get a whole load of bass led riffs all the time. The tune’s themes have more of a legato feel than the crunch and thump of the MBB in full flow.
There’s a lot of light, like a breezy airiness, in the reeds section and the charts are voiced quite differently than you’d hear in the often raucous very bohemian Mingus Big Band approach. But it’s certainly as lively. There is nothing sterile about the outcome. Among the sax players is star tenorist Nicole Glover and the band is anchored by brilliant Glasperian Vicente Archer on bass and there’s Adam Cruz known for his work in the trio of Panamanian piano icon Danilo Pérez – the first live review ever run on marlbank.
Definitely one of the finest albums I have come across this year – see the full list of the best of ’26 – this is all about Sung’s great ability to compose and lead and deserves any and every accolade going and far greater exposure than a small jazz blog like this one is capable of mustering. But we can always manifest can’t we – isn’t that the contemporary way? The “Pianism” suite provides most of the main harmony surprises and the album is finished off serenely by a version of Horace Silver’s ‘Peace’ to blow the blues away, a melody that is impossible to tire of. The ensemble is conducted by trombonist Alan Ferber. It’s a sound cloaked in optimism, bathed in big band resilience and a collegiality the collection of players plucks intrepidly from the charts.
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