Comment Re: Steve Kuhn And Tempo

George Ziskind writes from New York:

Good to have Kuhn in the air of late. And it reminds me of this:

Steve has always been an adventurous player. Yet nothing I had previously heard him do prepared me for the time, around seven or eight years ago, when I was listening to his Dedication CD (Reservoir). I was in the first chorus of Like Someone in Love, specifically at bar 7, and no matter how many times I replayed that bar I got the same result: damn if the tempo wasn't slowing down there, almost imperceptibly yet definitely noticeably! I chalked it up to being some kind of other-worldly recording anomaly.

A few weeks thereafter I went to catch a set by Steve at the Knickerbocker - a terribly noisy club that uses good piano players. And by gosh, what did he play? "Like Someone In Love," of course. And what happened at bar 7? The tempo slowed down again, a tiny smidge, just as on the CD.

After the set I buttonholed him, asking if there was some mystical meaning to this, or perhaps at least a personal explanation? Why did he slow down the tempo there?

He replied, "Why not?"