Tribute
“Sunny Kim and Youngjoo Song have rewritten the history of women in music. The unforced, natural beauty that resonates in Tribute reveals why the meeting of these two luminous musicians is so special.”
Jeongmingap Seo, Voice of the People Magazine
This work was conceived by a single question that had become too loud for me to ignore; what does it mean for me to sing jazz standards, here and now? By 2012, I had spent about 20 years learning how to sing and improvise on the jazz standard repertoire. A decade had been spent in its motherland, America, to demystify the mysterious calling I had toward the music. I studied vigorously and had opportunities to hone my skills under the mentorship of some of the most prominent voices in jazz. These songs had shaped how I perceived music-making and had taught me how to communicate through my voice. I had become quite familiar with them and they had become an important part of my identity. Yet, I never felt quite “home” with them. The obvious reason had to with time and place, or what many would call lineage. Many of these songs had been written a long time before I was born and in a place far away—halfway around the globe— from where I had grown up. I was a complete stranger to the culture that gave birth to these songs. Yet, a more subtle reason had to do with the way jazz singers were supposed to look, talk, and present themselves which in my experience had become a distinct stereotype in modern Korea. The belated partaking in jazz, a celebrated entity of the American culture, signified class and prestige, and its distorted image was to be fed back constantly by the people who played a role in it. Despite this discouraging realisation, I couldn’t let go of the Great American Songbook so easily. I had acquired tremendous respect and admiration for the sonorous worlds that the jazz singers and instrumentalists had created over the century. I wondered if it would be possible for me to rethink my relationship to the jazz standard repertoire, this time bringing myself to these songs much more consciously. I decided to give the jazz standards my due homage, even if perhaps it would be an act of closing a chapter in my musical journey, like a final kiss to a lover I had loved dearly for a long time.
I began searching for jazz standards that I felt a connection with intimately; I began listening to and thinking about the lives of the singers who sang these songs and started to be curious about the creators and stories behind these works. My favorite singers of this massive world called “singing the standards” had included Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Carmen McCrae, Jeanne Lee, and Sheila Jordan - wonderful and powerful women who risked whatever they had to follow their hearts’ call to sing out. However, I realized the creators of the songs they sang were mostly men. I realized that less than 1% of this repertoire was written by female composers or lyricists. I wanted to know more about these female composers and lyricists. I wanted to celebrate their rare existence. I wanted to connect and allow for them to influence me, so I began to sing them, and arrange them until they felt right for me. The female contributors to the vast and deep world of jazz standards that I connected with include Anne Ronell, Bernice Petkere, Dorothy Fields, Mary Lou Williams, and Peggy Lee. I have also included a few of my originals as well as works by Youngjoo Song, a wonderful Korean female pianist and my collaborator in this project, as well as Joni Mitchell, Norma Winstone, and Korean female poet Hong Jo Yoon.
The original question that led me to this work eventually led to another question; how does femininity express itself through music-making? My answer to the question which I hope the listeners are able to sense in Tribute is that femininity is embodied in the musical act of “deep listening”. The ability and willingness to empty oneself enough to fully immerse in others’ sounds, sensitivities, and perspectives are the qualities of femininity that I hoped to embrace in this work.
Creating artistic works can be a lonely and arduous job. No matter how skilled and inspired you may be, many conditions in life make birthing of artistic creations a difficult endeavour. In the words of Virginia Wolf from Room of One’s Own, “dogs will bark; people will interrupt; money must be made; health will break down. Further, accentuating all these difficulties and making them harder to bear is the world’s notorious indifference… If anything comes through in spite of all this, it is a miracle, and probably no book is born entire and uncrippled as it was conceived.” Making Tribute, I was more aware and grateful than ever for the miracle that is witnessed in the body of music that the women in jazz have gifted us. Their legacies of courage, love, resilience, talent, and humility will continue to inspire us to manifest our own miracles.
TRACKLISTING:
01. York Avenue (Song)
02. Willow Weep for Me (A. Ronell)
03. A Case of You (J. Mitchell)
04. Exactly Like You (J. McHugh, D. Fields)
05. The Peacocks (A Timeless Place) (J. Rowles, N. Winstone)
06. Walk Alone But Not Alone (Song)
07. Scar (상처) (H.J. Yoon, Kim)
08. Close Your Eyes (B. Petkere)
09. You’re to Keep (Kim)
10. The Shining Sea (J. Mandel, P. Lee)
Sunny Kim voice
Youngjoo Song piano
Released 2019 on Universal Records Korea
Recorded by Daesup Shin at Yireh Studio, Korea
Mixed & Mastered by David Kowalski in New York City
Executive Producer Chan Jung
Photography Sung Hyun Sohn
[Tribute] was nominated for Korean Music Award, Best Jazz and Crossover Record category.