EVERY DAY SEOUL

I am sitting in the guest house that is my new temporary home. I'm out of the love hotel neighborhood and living in a shi shi section of the city that caters to foreigners. It's filled with tea houses, Starbucks ("Starbuckses?") and even a vegeterian restaurant where I had lunch. It might be Korea American style, but it's quite pleasant, although they are dismembering pigs about two blocks from here so there is always a dose of reality around the corner if I need it. Yesterday I played with a very good 22 year old drummer, Shin Dong Jin, at a hall in a department store in Bucheon. It was packed with many non jazz fans,  people who were shopping, I suppose, lots of mothers and kids. After the concert, people came up wanting to connect. In many ways, Korea feels like Japan did about 15 years ago. I mean, the response to the music is similar. People seem very energized--they laugh and bow and come up to pose for photos and to get autographs. Although it is possible that I have an Elvis like-charisma that only works on Koreans, I think it's more likely that they are struck by the strangeness of this American cultural artifact. It's still interesting and somewhat novel for them to hear an American playing jazz in a department store in Korea, I think. Or maybe it IS the Elvis thing... In any case, it's a lot of fun to be here. I had another gig after the department store one--in a chic part of town near some University or other--probably a women's fashion university or something, considering the number of gorgeous young women strolling around  outside the club. The musicians were great--this was a guest appearance for me with another band and I will fill in their names on a later posting so that I get them right, but the drummer was a US midwesterner named Chris Varga, who has been in Korea for the last 9 years. He is a fine drummer, one of Korea's top players, and it was great to play with him and swap stories about mutual friends in Chicago, Nebraska and points in between. Kenji was also in this band and we had a moist but fun couple of sets in the humid Korean night.

One other quick note. The department store gig was set up by a former student of mine from Holland, Sung Ho. (I'll fill in more info on a later posting). He has started a music studio in Bucheon, and the place is really terrific. There were lots of jazz students at the concert (it wasn't all shoppers, it turned out) and afterward we stopped by his music academy. He has about 100 students and the number is growing. If you are in Bucheon this is the place to go hang. Congratulations, Ho, and keep it up!