Elusive Syncopations: In Search of 1920s and 1930s Jazz in Korea

It all began last December.

Down and beyond the bustling streets of South Korea I roamed. In all aspects of auditory senses, the atmosphere was most vibrant and lively, yet melancholy. Everything there seemed to own its melody. The doors sang welcomingly; the automated fridge chimed; a little vehicle backing up to unload rattling crates played “Für Elise.” To every appliance a little tune belonged and sang. Yet, briefly I supposed, a musical essence remained missing in the culture that cherishes music. . .

Everything in the cities of South Korea rushed by. In the midst of confusing hustle and bustle, since history is easily buried deep, sequestered under recent years of modernization, I stood for a moment. By the streets I strolled by, in the bustling subways I pondered, and one thing that lingered was: “where’s hot 20s jazz?”

Perhaps, I was homesick. But I began wondering—I know there’s traditional Korean folk music, trot, and K-pop that trended in the recent decades, but what came in between? Were there fellas there in bygone years that loved 1920s jazz too and dreamed of it as they might’ve earnestly listened through radio and gramophones? Peering into the war-torn history of the Korean peninsula, I wondered about the music that might’ve brought people hope and joy. Thus, in the midst of my pleasant stay, sparked a new musing that I had never imagined to dwell upon for half a year before completing this writing of ongoing research. In March, I was finally determined to begin composing. So, it was then, I gathered. . .

Long before the 38^th parallel north demarcated the Korean peninsula into two territories, a jazz band began there. Simply called “The Korean Jazz Band,” it was founded in 1926 by Hong, Nan-Pa (홍난파); Park, Gun-Won (박건원); and Baek, Myeong-Gon (백명곤), just sixteen years into the era of official Imperial Japanese rule (1910-1945). This became the first documented Korean jazz band ever to exist, consisting of nine band members. Yet little light has shined on them in the years after this musical, ephemeral creation.

The accounts of Baek, Myeong-Gon, son of a highly opulent family, along with his fellow musician Hong, Nan-Pa (1898-1941), unlocks a portion of how jazz entered Korea in the 1920s and influenced citizens. Among the strangest and funniest things I’ve learned, the introduction of jazz in Korea is highly and directly related to Korea’s history of professional soccer (more on that in my next writing!). In addition to their musical ingenuity, their accounts reveal contrasts in both musical and social perceptions between the East and the West during the early 1900s: jazz in Korea was upper-middle class music!

But. . . I wished to state in the finest words of delicacy; I stood in consternation before conveying this sad history. Back then, the upper-middle class of that era was (and still is) not seen positively by most Koreans. Under the control of Imperial Japan, any citizen who could remain wealthy was undoubtedly pro-Imperial Japanese. Although the caste system of Joseon was uplifted, divisions among citizens were apparent. It is inevitable that Imperial Japan’s history collided with Korea’s, and both sides’ citizens fell victim.

Of course, it would remain unknown whether these musicians really supported Imperial Japan at heart, merely due to social pressure, or because of perspectives as benefiters. It is just that they are deemed and listed as “traitors” now. It seems many of these musicians were rather born into the situation.

Politics always finds its way to strangle people. It bites, splits, and tangles individuals into confusion and bottomless fear. There never lies a satisfied side, I say! Then the music gets stuck in the middle of mayhem. Perhaps it might bridge one party of people with another. But in the case of Korea during the 1900s, this bridge of jazz music came short.

Therefore, it is crucial to comprehend relevant parts of Korean history. Unfortunately, little seems to remain on Korea’s history of early jazz, which is not to be confused with thriving “trot” or “swing” genres. It is labyrinthine, twisted and lost. Perhaps, in the twentieth century, early styles of jazz hardly developed in the Korean peninsula. Some scholars vaguely say jazz was orally passed down in Korea. Certainly, we might never know—there silently rests Korea’s post-1940s culture and music buried under events of rapid modernization that followed.

Korean Culture

It was only in the beginning that I believed jazz in Korea would be “explainable with a simple introduction.” Then contextualization caught my conscience. Unlike an event occurring in the U.S, jazz entering Korea during a time of unimaginable mixtures of change and tragedy never established nor settled. Despite illuminating a few vague decades prior to the 1920s, the history of the Korean peninsula dates back at least five millennia. On the political side, these majority of eras were naturally grasped under suspicion and isolationism against the West.

Overall culture has always had music deeply woven into the Korean lifestyle. There’s a special part in nearly every Korean’s heart for music. Traditionally, from classrooms to farm fields, from royal lineage to commoners, music, particularly singing, has been everywhere. Practically all social gatherings involve songs one way or the other. Although much has changed in the past half-century, singing remains present in daily work (e.g., songs during harvest, melodies for housework, and tunes throughout marketplaces.) If you ever travel to South Korea, this musical aspect is clearly apparent; all little proverbial appliances and vehicles have melodies and sound effects.

Two critical aspects that affected early jazz in Korea would be the closing of the monarchial Korean empire, called Joseon, with the consecutive Imperial Japanese colonization era (1910-1945). To simplify, the Joseon era ended with its monarchial nation succumbing as a protectorate of Imperial Japan, which enforced a transition into annexation. As for other details, Korea had policies of isolationism since the seventeenth century in contrast to China and Japan, both having accesses to modern Western technologies and weapons. Eradication of the Korean language, tradition, and national identity underwent, replacing with Imperial Japanese customs. At the same time, the caste system and policies of isolationism were revoked as the Korean monarchy was broken, and westernization entered mostly via Imperial Japan. Controversial civil unrest erupted as Korean patriots and collaborators supporting Imperial Japan fought and debated each other. Both radical and subtle movements of independence for Korea endured up to the 1940s.

It cannot be concluded of what Korea’s Western-influenced music development would have been like without this era. While this isn’t a matter of congratulating nor ignoring the annexation, it is illegitimate to claim that jazz couldn’t thrive because of the Imperial Japanese’ suppression of media freedom nor to state that Imperial Japan’s Westernization and trade assisted jazz. Ironically, if put into simple words, jazz was sort of introduced into Korea through Japan yet suppressed in growth due to the same political situation. I’ll try to stick mostly to music and recording history along with economic influences as opposed to the highly contested inputs of political happenings.

During the early 1900s, when distinctions of genres were unapparent in Korea, singers performed a range of styles from jazz to trot. This further blurred the distinctions, and having jazz limited to accesses of urban areas, audience were not well informed on musical differences. It nearly seems like trot, which thrives to modern days, is the Korean jazz—not in terms of musical definition, but the profound philosophical creation of genres bonded together into a single genre.

Further knowledge on perspectives of Koreans and jazz during the 1920s is elucidated on Donghyup Ryu’s 2012 dissertation entitled, “The Making of Modernity in South Korea: A Discourse Analysis of Jazz in the Mass Media from the 1920s to 2011.” Ryu states, “Many Koreans associated reasons for colonialism with the fact that Japan accepted the modernity of the West earlier than Korea. . . Korea had to catch up with the flow of modernity in order to be liberated from colonialism. To achieve modernity, tradition was considered something to be eradicated, and this created conflicts that continue until now. . . social debates, in fact, imply that Korean society fell into confusion in evaluating and receiving modernity. . .Jazz was a genre of music that was introduced in Korea in the middle of the sharp controversies discussed above, and therefore it is difficult to understand the status and meanings of Korean jazz apart from the concept of modernity.”

However, the acknowledgement of African American culture and roots of jazz was quite unapparent in East Asia. Ryu concludes, “The lack of understanding of African-American culture and music also resulted in the inaccurate use of the term jazz. In addition, there was the possibility of distortion in the process of importing the term and music by way of Japan. Despite the inaccurate usage of the term, it was undeniably true that jazz was popular at that time.”

(If you are interested in reading an in-depth social contextualization of Korea, I highly recommend the second chapter of Ryu’s dissertation.)

Whether contracted under Nipponophone (a noteworthy Japanese record company) or not, overall pop music in Korea during the early half of the 1900s was categorized vaguely into four genres: “jazz,” minyo (“민요”), new folk, and trot. A unique circumstance, comparable to the musical inventions of New Orleans, occurred in Korea. Most singers sang both trot and jazz, which as shown below, were intertwined in the “Koreanized” style. A significant factor was that jazz as a genre was not well-educated to Koreans back in the early 1900s. Music from the West entered via whatever passed through Japan, and only the wealthy families could afford sending their children to study abroad. Jazz was, indeed, taught in conservatories in Japan.

Thus, “jazz” in Korea then referred to quite literally any mixes of genres introduced from the West, among them being Latin, European, and American popular music. A list of examples includes fox trot, canzone, hymns, classical music, chanson, waltz, and (later) swing.

Record-Listening

With that going on, I digitally encountered as many early Korean “jazz” records I could find on YouTube. It seemed rather terribly troublesome and challenging, although at times relaxing and rewarding, for in general, the majority of Korean records from this era have not been restored and remastered or brought to attention equal to, say, Bix records here. I wonder if they hardly survived events like the Korean War (1950-1953)? A majority I encountered and selected are coincidentally from 1939. Although enjoyable to listen to, they are much contrasting from what is reflected as “jazz.” It might not have the same hot energy as the sounds of Harlem, but there’s a different feel.

The very first record I stumbled upon was entitled “My Happy Life” (“즐거운 내 살림”), a translation of Walter Donaldson and George A. Whiting’s standard, “My Blue Heaven,” sung in (I think?) Japanese, followed by crooning, completed with its Korean verse. This 1935 record subtly holds a rather melancholy atmosphere:

Considered to be among the earliest jazz songs composed by Koreans, “청춘의 밤” (“Chung Choon Wi Bam”) written by Yun, Young-Hu (윤영후), translates to “The Night of Youth.” This recording is from 1933.

Influenced by the crooning of Bing Crosby’s 1931 rendition, Japanese singer, Dick Mine (1908-1991) features in a 1936 Okeh (collaborated with by the Teikoku Gramophone Co., Ltd., in Nara, Japan) recording of “Dinah.” This caught my ears for numerous factors. Firstly, relative to the East Asian records from similar era that I’ve heard, the record fidelity was remarkable. Secondly, the bright trumpet (or cornet?) solo held me in awe. Lastly, the arrangement style seemed quite westernized. However, it is only an inadequate find that no information could be uncovered on the unknown musicians so far:

Kim, Hae-Song (김해송) with Lee, Na-Neung (이난영) perform a husband-and-wife duet of “감격의 그날” (“Gahm Geok Eui Geu Nahl”), translated to “the memorable day.” This 1936 Okeh produced under Teikoku presents a vague mix of a large 1920s jazz orchestra-style instrumentation with trot singing. The choked cymbals are particularly delightful:

This spirited Korean Regal Records (subsidiary of Nipponophone) rendition of “Sing, Sing, Sing” brought encouragement and joy to me during my research. Sung by Son, Mok-In (손목인) and performed by the Korean Regal Orchestra in Seoul in 1939, this valuable find gives glimpses of jazz hit songs influencing East Asia. Singer and composer, Son, Mok-In became a celebrity among both the Koreans and Japanese, although quite forgotten now. This record holds a bright resemblance of jazz, two years prior to its legal banishment in 1941 by the Imperial Japanese government due to the Pacific War. Musically speaking, I found significance in the early “Korean scat singing,” which I heard for the first time via this record. The Korean language, being communicated and structured mostly by connotations, uses lots of onomatopoeia which seems to connect the lyrics with the scat singing in this record. When he sings “la-do-la” and so forth, the first is possibly equivalent to the American “vo-de-oh-do.” Due to the vast usage of onomatopoeias in the Korean language, I was fascinated to hear samples of early scat-singing integrated:

An example of traditional singing mixed into pop styles is shown in this catchy 1939 Nipponophone recording of a song called “팔도 장타령,” (“Pahl Do Jahng Tah Reong”), meaning “eight-region traditional market song,” which comically portrays the scene of Korean marketplaces in the 1930s. It is believed that the lyrics are also satirical in the perspectives of a colonized nation. Although closer to the trot genre, this ditty, sung again by Kim, Hae-Song (김해송), possesses an outstanding capture of the implementation of Western instruments. In this record, the ditty, originating from the “poomba”(품바), who were poor, roaming entertainers in Korea back then, was arranged into a “jazzed” form. Notice the introductory measures of muted horns trailed by a peppy, bouncing banjo, followed by repeating double bass rhythm breaks:

Another Lee, Na-Neung record, “다방의 푸른 꿈” (“Dah Bahng Eui Pu Reun Koom”), meaning “Blue Dream of the Café.” was recorded in 1939. This composition was created after knowledge of Western music began entering Korea increasingly. Notice the big band instrumentation and syncopation:

With much amusement, I ran into a Korean version of “The Laughing Song,” originally recorded in 1890s by the composer George W. Johnson (1846-1914). This version was recorded by Kang, Hong-Shik (강홍식) in 1939 under Nipponophone, and renamed “유쾌한 시골영감” which translates to “Jolly Countryside Old Man.” The record seems to resemble examples of songs that lay in the fine lines between Korea’s “jazz” and “minyo” genre:

One of the jazziest collaborations I found—a song called, “나무아미타불,” (“Na Mu Ah Be Tah Bul”) recorded by Kim, Hae-Song with the Japanese Columbia Orchestra in 1939 with “Capital City of Rumba” on the flipside. On the Global Popular Music website, Junhee Lee explains, “Kim Hae-song wrote this song when he was in the Columbia Record. He interacted with Japanese popular musicians and tried to extend his jazz senses. We can see many of his present works exhibiting Koreanized or Kin Hae-song-style jazz. Kim added sinminyo elements in this jazz song, which we can see his humorous expression as a singer.” Listen here:

Post-WWII & The Korean War

As far as I went into this research, the transition between jazz censorship by the Imperial Japanese government during the Pacific War and the impending Korean War (1950-1953) brought a near “end” to documentation of 1920s-1930s styles of jazz. As what occurred on the other ends of the globe, swing entered. In Korea, trot became the shining new genre that continued to develop and deepen.

Introduced through sources like the U.S Eighth Army Band, during the strengthening of the U.S-ROK Alliance of the 1950s, swing entered and flourished in S. Korea. It’s still apparent, and the lindy hop community thrives along with swing festivals.

But the Korean War (1950-1953) brought great trouble. The nation was divided at the 38th parallel north; folks, whose homes became enemy territory overnight, abandoned their hometowns, fleeing as refugees; severe aftermath led to diaspora. The peninsula was split. Families were scattered.

That Realization. Shock struck me at the entrance of a bold answer to: “Where’s hot 20s jazz?”

Due to the pains and humiliation of colonization, the majority of Koreans during the 1940s determined to censor all Imperial Japanese customs and resemblance that had penetrated into the Korean life. Happening immediately, pro-Imperial Japanese Koreans were blacklisted and persecuted. I guess, along with them fell early jazz—music played and undoubtedly accessed by mostly pro-Imperial Japanese Koreans back then.

In replacement, if I may state, swing was embraced, seen perhaps as “American” and “modern,” introduced largely by the U.S army and media. It was an era of erasing the past, retrieving national identity, and facing modernization.

Early twentieth century jazz lay in a mass grave shared with the nameless lives of those musicians who were on the opposed political side. I halted my research, briefly, and understood that it was over. It is nearly like reaching the timeline’s shady trail that leads to a tombstone somewhere yonder the 1940s mark in the midst of the woods.

But perhaps—there were even a few lasting jazz musicians. . ?

Will their names be left lost?

Halfway through the 2020s

Yet all this music somehow seems like yesterday. Near the beginning of my research, “Jazz in 1920s Korea” was a phrase made-up of words that didn’t seem to belong together. But now, I find its relevance and vitality.

Jazz remains niche in S. Korea, although tinges of it are written in modern songs. There are large swing communities, with the love of lindy hop perpetuating effortlessly, but “real hot jazz” seems unawaken. My hope is that some time in my life I can witness the introduction of hot jazz in Korea once more—that it could be like “Livery Stable Blues” of Korea if you understand my allusion. It’s not a guarantee of success. It’s a matter of curiosity.

But I am not an apt musician, so it’ll be interesting to watch how things will unfold. Imagine Miff Mole in Korea! It shouldn’t stop at Sinatra or Bing Crosby being a classy niche in S. Korea. What about Bix, Bennie Moten, Red Nichols, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Fletcher Henderson, and all those greats? Would it come to be? Maybe it’s my youthful optimism.

At first, I wondered, “Jazz in 1920s Korea?”

Now I say, “How about 1920s jazz in Korea?”