Haeun Joo: We Will Find
Next Level

Professional speakers know that an audience's attention is often better caught by speaking softly rather than at the top of one's lungs. Illustrating how that principle can extend into other areas, Haeun Joo embodies it within a jazz context. Rarely on her debut album does her music rise to a raucous pitch; instead, the New York-based, South Korean-born pianist engages with sensitivity and nuance. Describing her sound as contemplative, even introspective feels right, at least insofar as the eight pieces on We Will Find can be taken as representative of Joo's music.

Her piano playing grew in refinement after she moved to the United States in 2011 to study at Boston's Berklee School of Music, where she studied under Danilo Perez, Joanne Brackeen, and others. If in its quieter moments Joo's music exudes an introspective melancholia, that comes naturally to someone who cites Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and Fred Hersch as key influences. Recorded in two sessions in 2019, the album, a compact statement at thirty-seven minutes, isn't without lively moments, however. Bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Ronen Itzik animate many a piece with drive, always thoughtfully attuned, of course, to the leader's playing (see the high-velocity “In the Rain,” for example).

Some pieces are classic piano trio performances, others quartet cuts featuring Matt Holman on trumpet and flugelhorn. As his elevating turns on the uptempo “Questions” and serenading closer “Eternal Love” show, he's a good match for the material when his horn tone is more mellifluous than brassy. For her part, Joo impresses throughout with an always assured attack, one that can be assertive when needed but calm too. She personalizes the recording by adding wordless vocals to many pieces, with her voice sometimes delivering lines in unison with another instrument and at other times taking free flight on its own. That aspect not only sets We Will Find apart from other piano-led jazz recordings, it intensifies the intimate character of her material.

The album instantly entices when it opens with “86,” a sparkling statement whose dramatic shifts in rhythm she enhances with her bright vocal presence. Weiss and Itzik contribute a constant, inventive swing that the pianist builds on with her own effervescent playing. As she wrote “John” in memory of guitarist John Abercrombie, with whom she studied during her time at SUNY (State University of New York) in Purchase, the piece is understandably ballad-like and dignified. Even more reflective is “Thursday,” a Jarrett-like ballad whose brushed drums and acoustic bass wrap themselves around her sensitive reflections like the warmest blanket.

September 2021