South Korean tenor sax player Jung-Jae Kim’s Shamanism imagines Korean shamanic ritual, traditionally accompanied by folk music and traditional, centuries-old instruments (with much less controllable features and unique timbral qualities), transformed into spiritual free jazz aesthetics. Each of the twelve pieces of Shamanism describes a dramatic phase in this enigmatic ceremony and its unique atmosphere, and is named by a Korean ideogram.

Jung-Jae Kim is known for pushing the sonic aesthetics of the sax to delve deeper into human senses. He now lives in Berlin and has collaborated with Portuguese Ernesto Rodrigues and trumpeter Axel Dörner. The album features a free improvising quartet – two sax players – Jung-Jae Kim and soprano and alto sax player Sunjae Lee, and two drummers –  Junyoung Song and Sunki Kim (who has played with Jung-Jae Kim in The JJ Motion quartet). The album was recorded at Tune-up Studio in Seoul in August 2023. Since moving to Berlin, Jung-Jae Kim played Shamanism with musicians from the local free scene.

Shamanism suggests a different, and, unfortunately, still under the radar, a different concept of free jazz and free music. It reflects a profound affinity to a timeless aesthetics of breath and rhythm, but is articulated in a captivating, raw, primal, intense, and ritualistic language, slowly introducing more meditative-spiritual themes, and it ends with the magical “Hae”. It imagines a powerful, life-affirming ritual that bridges the Eastern ancient sonic aesthetics with the modern Afro-American and European ones.

Eyal Hareuveni

Jung-Jae Kim (tenor saxophone), Sunjae Lee (soprano saxophone, alto saxophone), Junyoung Song (drums), Sunki Kim (drums)