Dear Music Lovers,
Watch this movie if you have any interest in Korean traditional music. Even if you don't, watch it anyway. Unless, of course, you think that anything that isn't groups of 5-9 beautiful girls or guys dancing and lip-synching to over-synthesized auto-tuned dance tracks is boring. If that's you, don't watch it. You'll be bored. This is about old people's music. But old people's music is sooooooo good.
For those who still remain interested, the film is about an Australian jazz drummer named Simon Barker who comes to Korea to learn about, meet, and study from legendary musician Kim Suk-Chul (legendary to the point that the Korean government has labeled him 'Intangible Cultural Asset No. 82'). In the interest of time, I'm not going to say too much more. There's a lot of good stuff here for musicians and music lovers to gain. There's some interesting things about Korean culture, though it does make Korea out to be still strongly ruled by its Shamanistic Confucian religious traditions, which isn't quite true.
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In other music happenings, the 국립국악원 (or newly renamed 'National Gugak Center,' in English) recently recreated a 600-year-old banquet originally held for King Sejong at Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. I was there, recorded it, and I've posted the entire concert on my Seoul Sounds blog. If listening to 600-year-old royal court music interests you at all, you can hear it here.
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I also recently discovered (and was lucky enough to see perform) a legendary Korean free-jazz saxophonist by the name of 김태환 (Kim Tae-Hwan). The guy has been around for quite awhile and has made a lot of noise (pun intended) both nationally and internationally. But because he has grandchildren, no phone, no email, and no Internet, because his groups never cared much for preservation and recorded little, and because Korea isn't generally a very warm place for free-thinking musicians, his name often gets overlooked.
But listening to this guy was one of those musical awe-inspiring moments for me. He did many, many things on an instrument which I've played for about 15 years that I didn't even know were possible. And seeing him play, I realized that I was witnessing one of the great musicians of our time. To put it plainly, I was blown away! Luckily, for me, I was able to pick up a couple of CDs and track down a few others, which as I mentioned aren't easy to come by. It's a good introduction, but I'm starting to feel that maybe, just maybe this was only the tip of the iceberg.
I've lived in Korea for nearly three years now, and though I'm familiar with Sato Yukie (who is Japanese), Bulgasari (which is run by Yukie and features largely foreigners, anyway), Itta, Paik Nam Jun (who was largely active in America), and a few other people and events happening in Seoul, this is the first that I've heard anyone pushing boundaries this far!
That said, I also discovered that there will be a 'Seoul Meeting Free Music' event (which I have very generously been invited to take part in) on August 2nd, where I really may be able to meet some interesting people and play some cool music, and the Korea Experimental Music Festival is coming up July 23-30, both in Hongdae. It seems that despite what I've seen on the surface for the past three years, there actually are interesting things happening musically in Seoul. It's too bad that I'm only finding out now, but, as they say, it's better late than never.
It's late, so here's Kang Tae Hwan to play us out. I apologize for the talking that the TV producers questionably dubbed over the music or if you think this is just an 'old guy' playing 'weird music.'
Thanks for reading, and goodnight.
-Steve
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