Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Mina Cho: Beat Mirage

21

Mina Cho: Beat Mirage

By

View read count
Mina Cho: Beat Mirage
Korean-born, Boston-based pianist Mina Cho's Beat Mirage represents a marriage between western contemporary jazz and traditional Korean rhythms and percussive modulations. The question that arises is this: on what basis should such a hybrid be evaluated? While it isn't strictly jazz, neither is it entirely Korean and thus devoid of such jazz components as interplay and improvisation.

The album's title, Cho writes, "encapsulates a broad spectrum of how beats are perceived." The concept of "grace beat," Cho explains, "was born from [her] curiosity to explore the intricate gestures of individual musicians as they execute rhythms and offer a variety of their tasteful interpretations—much like 'grace notes' in music." There is no doubt that Cho's quartet (Larry Ridley, bass; Insoo Kim, Korean traditional percussion; Yeongjin Kim, drums) traverses a broad span of rhythmic variations, orthodox and unconventional, as it unravels seven of Cho's diverse original compositions.

While there are some improvisations—mainly by Cho and Ridley—they are overshadowed by the session's cardinal pupose, which is to effect a merger of western and Korean rhythmic concepts within a jazz framework. It is here that one who is not well-versed in such disparate styles must listen carefully to discern what the musicians are trying to accomplish and how well they are succeeding. While Cho and her teammates are clearly exploring fresh and—for the most part—uncommon territory, their footing is sure and they seem to know precisely where they are heading.

That should be enough to assuage the purists. What remains is to assess the music itself, which is, generally speaking, quite charming and, needless to say, rhythmically impressive, even though hard to paint in words. Cho has a keen ear for melody, which she spells out at the keyboard while leaving the metric details to her colleagues. Beat Mirage isn't essentially jazz, nor is it especially Korean—which is precisely the point. Its target audience seems to embody those whose ear buds are primed to welcome something that is new and essentially different.

Track Listing

Nacht Song; A Bit of Grace; Beat Mirage; G-Street Dance; Prints of Imperfection; Parallel Destiny (Unmyung II); If There's a Stage for Me in Heaven.

Personnel

Mina Cho
piano
Insoo Kim
percussion

Album information

Title: Beat Mirage | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: International Gugak Jazz Institute Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.