Seungmin Jung
Blue

Seungmin Jung is a versatile bassist from Seoul, Korea who moved to America and earned a master degree from the Manhattan School of Music. His debut album, Anecdotes, was released in February. His band for the album has musicians from many different countries who have come together in America: "Spring was beginning to show its face, though the air was still cold, when I decided to record my debut album. When it came to choosing my band members, it didn’t take me long. I had appreciated Felix Ambach’s drumming from the very first time I heard him. I still vividly remember how supportive he was - always putting effort into making the whole band sound better, rather than trying to stand out for himself. That kind of musical selflessness is rare, and I knew I wanted that in the group. As for the front line, I often thought about it like positions in football. If Tal Kalman is the one-top striker - powerful, direct, with the ability to score at any moment - Daphnis Moglia is more like the left wing: lyrical, emotional, with a smooth tone that brings contrast and balance. That contrast between the two was very much intentional on my part. Bomin Kim, with her classical piano training and background in music that lives outside traditional jazz boundaries, brought something unique. I trusted her intuition to interpret my music in a way that opened up new possibilities and directions for the band. Johannes Ravn was the last member I chose. Funny enough, I hadn’t originally planned to include guitar in this project. But when he subbed for Bomin one time, something clicked. His unique tone and the way he approached my music felt just right, and from that moment, I knew I wanted him in the group. We come from all over the world, and I’m so grateful our paths crossed. Since none of us are originally from the U.S."

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The first track on the album is Blue. It is a melancholic number, befitting the title, but what was the inspiration? Seungmin says: "Writing music, for me, isn’t just about theory or craft - it’s about listening to what my heart tells me in the moment. Intuition is easy to overlook, but inspiration is always around us - in the scent of spring air, a short humming by a kid on the train, or even in a mouse darting across the subway tracks. I try to catch those moments, hold them close, and let them shape my music."

"About six years ago, I watched (the Japanese movie) Tokyo Night Sky is the Densest Shade of Blue just because the title caught my eye. I didn’t even check the reviews like I usually do. The movie was pretty dark, all about young people feeling lost, dealing with death and loneliness. It wasn’t exactly uplifting, but something about it felt really real to me. I could relate to the characters and their quiet struggles. What stuck with me most was the color blue. It felt like more than just a color - it had a mood, a personality. Sometimes it felt warm and gentle, other times cold and distant. That complexity really hit me. Later, I wrote a song called Blue, inspired by that feeling. I wanted to explore all the different sides of blue - calm, intense, sad, peaceful."

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IMDB (the International Movie Data Base) sums up the story of the film: "Newcomer Shizuka Ishibashi throws herself into the role of Mika, a nurse by day, a 'girlie bar' hostess by night, subject to feelings of anxiety and isolation, and unable to reach through a hard outer shell that stops her from expressing tenderness to anyone else. Sosuke Ikematsu, one of Japan's most important young actors, stars as Shinji, who struggles as a day-hire construction worker with a sense of impending doom, but who still tries to find the source of an unnamable hope he feels inside. The setting is Tokyo in 2017, where empty words, a sense of doom, and feelings of isolation co-exist with hope, trust, and love. In the sense of real life conjured up in these two people is a new kind of film: the densest kind of love story." 

 

Here is a trailer. There is a point at 3.51 minutes in when the actors capture a really nice moment of a relationship.