By Bernard Rowan
More people today know Korea as a place of pop bands that drive the Korean wave. Fewer recognize Korea as a place to cultivate jazz. This form of music, celebrated by American scholar Cornel West as the music of freedom and democracy, has devotees worldwide, but has emerged in Korea's major cities only over the last 50 years or so.
Today, the enthusiast can enjoy jazz in Seoul, Busan and other places. There are also several major festivals and well-known Korean jazz musicians.
If you're in Seoul, you arguably must visit Once in a Blue Moon, a longstanding lounge that features jazz music regularly. Nearly everyone who has visited loves it, including me. However, many other excellent haunts now add to the diversity of Seoul's jazz scene. Some of their names include Crazy Horse, All That Jazz, Club Evans and Soul to God ― and there are others, all easily identifiable through online searches.
Busan can boast its own jazz scene with Club Monk, The Back Room and Jazz Catt as leading establishments. It's hard to develop a comprehensive list because Korean jazz culture keeps gaining momentum.
For a smattering of outstanding Korean jazz artists, look for and listen to music by percussionist Ryo Bok-sung, vocalist Woongsan, and Lee Jung-sik and Nah Yoon-sun.
I had no idea Korea had been hosting a major jazz festival for over 10 years in Jaraseom, Gapyeong. The festival features different kinds of music, but at its heart is jazz. Each year, thousands of Koreans flock to this mecca experience organized by In Jae-jin. Seoul has also held a major jazz festival each year since 2007 in Olympic Park. Other cities such as Daegu and Ulsan have their own festivals as well.
Park Sung-yeon helped to popularize jazz in Korea in the late 1970s. She played for the U.S. Army and started Janus Jazz Club. Sumi Lee, a current artist, described Korean jazz as entering its third era, one of increasing authenticity and distinctiveness instead of imitation.
In an interview for Branding in Asia, she noted that jazz helps Koreans express their sense of "han." Han is an internal experience of sadness or pessimism in the face of life's realities. She values jazz as a portal to what is "open and limitless." Jazz musicians, composers and devotees point to this impression.
Ryu Dong-hyup has written about media coverage of jazz throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. According to Ryu, it extends a discourse of modernity in South Korean culture. Ideas of modern lifestyle, authenticity, tradition and post-colonialism are featured in this extensive treatment.
In Ryu's analysis, jazz in Korea exists distinct from or in tension with Western culture. Jazz here reminds me of how the West spoke of jazz as enabling "freedom fighters" or identity apart from conventional understandings of race in the United States. Jazz presents and resembles a face of freedom or liberty.
I'd suggest the history of Korean jazz is open and not easily reduced to a text. As in other cultures, jazz bridges local and global discourses outside of music. It allows performers and consumers to imagine themselves outside of convention while respecting it. Through jazz, members of society symbolically reject, or embrace, ideas and social meanings as the music guides or reflects. Jazz is an idiom of freedom.
Boston's Berklee College of Music should claim some responsibility for the rise of jazz in Korea too. According to its publications, hundreds of Korean musicians, including jazz pianists, Im Mi-jung and Cho Yoon-seung, saxophonist Jung Sung-jo and singer-songwriter Choi Sung-soo honed their art at Berklee.
Berklee helped to found the Seoul Jazz Academy in 1995. I recommend anyone serious about jazz to visit seouljazzacademy.wixsite.com/english/visiting-artists to experience jazz while in Korea.
To experience jazz in Korea seems out of place at first. However, shedding one's prejudices opens the realization that jazz belongs anywhere and everywhere. It's certainly alive and well in Korea, for the good of all!
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.
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Today, the enthusiast can enjoy jazz in Seoul, Busan and other places. There are also several major festivals and well-known Korean jazz musicians.
If you're in Seoul, you arguably must visit Once in a Blue Moon, a longstanding lounge that features jazz music regularly. Nearly everyone who has visited loves it, including me. However, many other excellent haunts now add to the diversity of Seoul's jazz scene. Some of their names include Crazy Horse, All That Jazz, Club Evans and Soul to God ― and there are others, all easily identifiable through online searches.
Busan can boast its own jazz scene with Club Monk, The Back Room and Jazz Catt as leading establishments. It's hard to develop a comprehensive list because Korean jazz culture keeps gaining momentum.
For a smattering of outstanding Korean jazz artists, look for and listen to music by percussionist Ryo Bok-sung, vocalist Woongsan, and Lee Jung-sik and Nah Yoon-sun.
I had no idea Korea had been hosting a major jazz festival for over 10 years in Jaraseom, Gapyeong. The festival features different kinds of music, but at its heart is jazz. Each year, thousands of Koreans flock to this mecca experience organized by In Jae-jin. Seoul has also held a major jazz festival each year since 2007 in Olympic Park. Other cities such as Daegu and Ulsan have their own festivals as well.
Park Sung-yeon helped to popularize jazz in Korea in the late 1970s. She played for the U.S. Army and started Janus Jazz Club. Sumi Lee, a current artist, described Korean jazz as entering its third era, one of increasing authenticity and distinctiveness instead of imitation.
In an interview for Branding in Asia, she noted that jazz helps Koreans express their sense of "han." Han is an internal experience of sadness or pessimism in the face of life's realities. She values jazz as a portal to what is "open and limitless." Jazz musicians, composers and devotees point to this impression.
Ryu Dong-hyup has written about media coverage of jazz throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. According to Ryu, it extends a discourse of modernity in South Korean culture. Ideas of modern lifestyle, authenticity, tradition and post-colonialism are featured in this extensive treatment.
In Ryu's analysis, jazz in Korea exists distinct from or in tension with Western culture. Jazz here reminds me of how the West spoke of jazz as enabling "freedom fighters" or identity apart from conventional understandings of race in the United States. Jazz presents and resembles a face of freedom or liberty.
I'd suggest the history of Korean jazz is open and not easily reduced to a text. As in other cultures, jazz bridges local and global discourses outside of music. It allows performers and consumers to imagine themselves outside of convention while respecting it. Through jazz, members of society symbolically reject, or embrace, ideas and social meanings as the music guides or reflects. Jazz is an idiom of freedom.
Boston's Berklee College of Music should claim some responsibility for the rise of jazz in Korea too. According to its publications, hundreds of Korean musicians, including jazz pianists, Im Mi-jung and Cho Yoon-seung, saxophonist Jung Sung-jo and singer-songwriter Choi Sung-soo honed their art at Berklee.
Berklee helped to found the Seoul Jazz Academy in 1995. I recommend anyone serious about jazz to visit seouljazzacademy.wixsite.com/english/visiting-artists to experience jazz while in Korea.
To experience jazz in Korea seems out of place at first. However, shedding one's prejudices opens the realization that jazz belongs anywhere and everywhere. It's certainly alive and well in Korea, for the good of all!
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.
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