From the late 19th to the early 20th century in Korea, when pansori was widely enjoyed by all levels of society, and when sanjo, free-style solo creation, first took root, across the Pacific a wholly unique music genre was taking shape. ‘Ragtime’ music or just ’rag’ emerged from the African American community in New Orleans, Louisiana, picking up the moniker “jazz” music by the 1910s. 

It’s hard to define jazz in just a few words, but many characterize it as free-spirited music that emphasizes a musician’s musical sense and expressiveness. In that regard, jazz shares many of those traits with Korean folk music. In fact, gugak국악 and jazz musicians have a history of collaboration, creating a wide range of new and exciting music. This merger of gugak and jazz was first started by the Kim Duk-soo Samulnori Ensemble and the jazz group Red Sun Band. The two bands first met at a music festival in Germany at the end of the 1980s and held an impromptu concert there.

The two groups wrote several pieces with Korean melodies. Let’s listen to “The Story of a Hare” sung by Ahn Sook-sun and Linda Sharrock, the Red Sun Band’s vocalist, with Kim Duk-soo playing the janggu. 

Music 1: The Story of a Hare/ Sung by Ahn Sook-sun and Linda Sharrock, janggu by Kim Duk-soo

As western culture flooded into Korea following the country’s liberation in the mid-20 century, Korean traditional music that had been long appreciated by Koreans came to be unappreciated and went into decline, regarded as a symbol of the bygone days. 

However, traditional Korean musicians continued to evolve and find new ways to express themselves through music. One of these efforts was samulnori, a new kind of performance derived from nong’ak농악, or farmers’ music. Samulnori was combined with the jazz group Red Sun Band to bring a breath of fresh air to the world of gugak. 

After Red Sun Band, there was Saltacello. The German jazz band started to write music based on Korean folk songs ahead of the band’s concert in Korea in the late 1990s. The musicians in the band made their own traditional Korean folks songs like “Jindo Arirang,” “Ganggangsullae강강술래,” and “Ongheya옹헤야” as well as renditions of Korean pop songs. Santacello also released an album commemorating marathoner Sohn Kee-chung손기정, who had won gold in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany. The band’s music showed how deep its interest and affection ran for Korean culture. Now let’s listen to Saltacello’s rendition of “Gangwon-do Arirang.” 

Music 2: Gangwon-do Arirang/ Performed by Saltacello

There is a well-known Korean jazz group named Prelude, formed in 2003 by graduates of the Berklee College of Music. The four-member band has Ko Hee-an고희안 on the piano, Choi Jin-bae최진배 at the bass, Richard Rho on the tenor saxophone, and Han Woong-won한웅원 playing the drums. They said that since they were students, they had believed that Korean songs would go well with jazz. 

Prelude became popular among gugak lovers after they released an album titled “Fly In” with Gyeonggi folk singer Jeon Yeong-rang전영랑. The record featured songs like “Taepyeongga태평가,” “Miryang밀양 Arirang,” “Song of Abundant Harvest,” and several others.

Last year, the jazz quartet released an album titled “Korean Man” with SsingSsing Band’s Lee Hee-moon, famous for his unusual interpretations of Korean folk songs. 

Such music has generated different reactions. Some regard it as an original creation that can bring the younger generation closer to Korean traditional music, while some look down on it for being too strange and ruining Korea’s musical heritage. But music changes with time, and traditional music must have once been new at some time in the past. Of the music we have today, what will survive into the future? Only time will tell. 

Today’s last music piece is “Nanbongga” performed by Lee Hee-moon and Prelude. 

Music 3: Nanbongga/ Performed by Lee Hee-moon and Prelude