WoongSan (born Kim Eun Young) is a South Korean musician, actress and TV show host. She has been a leading figure in the jazz music scene in Korea and Japan for over a decade, having performed live over 500 times since her 1998 Japanese debut. She is the first Korean-born musician to perform at New York City's historic
Blue Note Jazz Club
Blue Note Jazz Club is a jazz club and restaurant located at 131 West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on September 30, 1981, by owner and founder Danny Bensusan, with the Nat Adderley Quintet being the featured ...
and has collaborated with many other well-known jazz musicians including
Benny Green,
Lonnie Plaxico
Lonnie Plaxico (born September 4, 1960) is an American jazz double bassist.
Biography
Plaxico was born in Chicago, Illinois, into a musical family, and started playing the bass at the age of twelve, turning professional at fourteen (playing both ...
, Rodney Green,
Conrad Herwig
Lee Conrad Herwig III (born 1959) is an American jazz trombonist from New York City.
Biography
Herwig began his career in Clark Terry's band in the early 1980s and has been a featured member in the Joe Henderson Sextet, Tom Harrell's Septet and ...
and Suzuki Hisatsugu. She is also well known for training
Ali (South Korean singer)
Cho Yong-jin (; born November 20, 1984), known professionally as Ali (알리), is a South Korean singer, songwriter, pianist, radio host and professor in applied musical arts at the Seoul Technical Arts College. Following her debut in 2009, she w ...
, a popular
K-pop
K-pop (), short for Korean popular music, is a form of popular music originating in South Korea as part of South Korean culture. It includes styles and genres from around the world, such as pop, hip hop, R&B, experimental, rock, jazz, gos ...
singer.
Biography
When she was 18, WoongSan spent a year and a half at a Buddhist temple in the Korean countryside. During her training she had a powerful realization: her calling in life was music. Initially she played in a college rock band, but after a friend played her a
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...
record, she began to dedicate herself to jazz. She spent several years performing as a solo artist then released her first album accompanied by a jazz ensemble in 1996. By the end of 1998 she was a recognizable figure in both Korea and Japan, and since then, she has released six albums, garnered numerous awards and critical acclaim, and continues to tour prolifically. She has also written many songs for films.
Last year, she proved her career was an ongoing path as a music performer on the stage collaborated with
Lee Ritenour
Lee Mack Ritenour ( ; born January 11, 1952) is an American jazz guitarist who has been active since the late 1960s.
Biography
Ritenour was born on January 11, 1952, in Los Angeles, California, United States. At the age of eight he started play ...
.
Style
WoongSan's style is a distinctive blend of jazz,
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
, Latin and
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
style. Her mid-low voice does not span as much tonal ground as other famous singers, but what she lacks in range she more than makes up for in creativity and malleability.
As an independent lyricist, Woong San has penned powerful ballads, cozy love numbers and everything in between. Buddhism has played a prominent role in her life, and it shines through in her songwriting: she often explores the themes of freedom, mindfulness and the beauty of change in her songs. Her work has been described as "soulful, fearless, sultry."
Albums
Awards
#1993 MBC Korean Popular Music Festival's "Best Singer' award
# 2001 MM Jazz's (jazz magazine), "best Artist" award
# 2003 MM Jazz's "Best Musician" award
# 2008 Korean Popular Music Awards' "Best Jazz & Crossover Album" award
# 2008 Reader Poll magazine's "best Vocalist" award
# 2010 Swing Journal's "Gold Disc" award for her album
# 2011 Jazz Criticism's "Jazz Disc Grand Prize" award
State honors
Soundtracks
# "Elegy" for Korean TV show, Kyungsung Scandal
# "I Think I Loved You" for Korean TV show, Mother, Sister
# Participated in OST for Korean TV show, Lema Lee, the Sun
# "Destiny" for Korean TV show, Ill Ji Mae
# "In the Mood" for Korean film, Who Slept With Her?
# "Pierro's Mask" for Korean film, The Shadow Murder
# "Outrageous Love" on soundtrack for Korean TV show, Chuno
# "You Make Me" on soundtrack for Korean TV Show, Kiss Sixth Sense
Notes
References
{{Authority control
1973 births
Living people
Blues musicians
K-pop singers
South Korean women pop singers
South Korean jazz singers
20th-century South Korean women singers
21st-century South Korean women singers
South Korean Buddhists