Helen Sung Big Band: Oracles
Sunnyside Records

With Oracles, jazz artist Helen Sung honours titans who mentored her at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance, formally the Thelonious Monk Institute. Tributes to Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Jimmy Heath, Wayne Shorter, Barry Harris, Kenny Barron, Herbie Hancock, and Sir Roland Hanna appear, and gloriously so when delivered by a large collective featuring first-call players such as saxophonists John Ellis and Nicole Glover, trumpeters Tatum Greenblatt and Alex Norris, and trombonist James Burton III. Seventeen musicians execute Sung's charts, with the pianist playing in the band and ceding conducting duties to Alan Ferber. Also lending support is Wynton Marsalis, whose liner notes provide their own ringing endorsement of Sung and her music.

Her participation in the Institute's two-year apprentice-style program afforded her life-changing opportunities to work directly with and learn from legendary figures, and the affectionate portraits she crafted for the release clearly convey her gratitude. Their guidance and mentorship helped her develop confidence as a composer and arranger and self-belief. Oracles could be seen as the embodiment of the sage perspective Heath shared with her, that on the bandstand each person “will get to say their piece, but it is in the act of integrating as a band that the musicians ultimately create something bigger, richer, and deeper.” The twelve pieces on the album suggest that Sung took that very much to heart by not only giving her partners an ample share of the spotlight but doing so in such a way that the soloist's performance contributes meaningfully to the compositional statement. Sung's comment that Oracles “is a tribute to the masters who made room for me and entrusted me with a tradition they helped build” shows a humility and reverence that speak to her character in a most flattering way.

Compositionally, the album's striking for pairing originals by Terry, Shorter, and Carter with Sung's respective homages; the three-part Pianism, on the other hand, offers three Sung tributes to Harris, Barron, and Hancock. While not a formal homage to Horace Silver, the cover of his “Peace” at album's end could be seen as such. Track-by-track soloists are identified, which makes it easy to identify Ellis, for example, as the one wielding soprano on Shorter‘s “Diana.” His turn's noteworthy for being both an incisive personal expression but also one that in moments almost eerily echoes Shorter's own soprano. Soloists are stellar throughout, and all receive terrific support from a tight rhythm section featuring bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Adam Cruz, and percussionist Samuel Torres. Sung's dynamic pianism's the glue holding it all together, of course.

Oracles grooves hard from the outset, “Convergence” a blazing testament to her gifts as writer and bandleader. Riding the band's boppish swing is Norris, whose florid trumpet solo sets a high bar Sung and Ellis (on tenor) match in their own freewheeling turns; it also doesn't hurt that Archer and Cruz are totally locked in. A lovely trumpet-flugelhorn chorale distinguishes Terry's “Samba Da Gumz,” with Norris, Greenblatt, Mike Rodriguez, and Nathaniel Williford doing the honours, after which the ensemble digs into Sung's “Positively C.T,” altoist Dave Pietro and trombonist Willie Applewhite amplifying the music's radiant swing with spirited solos. Glover makes the most of her turn on the Heath homage “A Little Bird Watchin'” by elevating its swing with a mighty tenor statement before Archer and Sung weigh in with their own commentaries.

Shorter's contemplative mood-piece “Diana” distances itself from the others when Ellis's soprano's accompanied by Sung on electric piano as opposed to her usual acoustic. Paired with it, her splendid homage to the late legend, “Wayne's World,” exudes a lustrous, orchestral splendour that recalls Shorter's own expansive Alegría from 2003. As deeply felt is "Mr. Virtuoso,” her tribute to another member of Miles's classic quintet, Ron Carter, and a piece that charges in a more contemporary mode, Sung's solo almost Hancock-like.

Hinting at her classical background, Pianism is in the form of a three-part piano concerto, with the leader fashioning each movement after a different mentor. She's prominently featured, naturally, but not the only one, with Alejandro Aviles and Rodriguez adding to the first and second parts, respectively, agile alto sax and flugelhorn solos. After Hanna and Barron are honoured in the opening parts, the Hancock movement finds Sung trading fours with a number of band members and Torres enhancing the performance with a variety of percussive colours. Following that high-energy piece, a delicate treatment of Silver's “Peace” guides the album to a satisfying resolution, the coupling of woodwinds and horns at times suggesting a Gil Evans influence.

August 2026