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Ryu Bok-Sung

Ryu Bok-sung was a teenager fiddling with his radio dial in rural South Korea when he chanced upon a strange new music he couldn't name, but it struck an immediate emotional chord.

It was the mid-1950s, and Ryu had tuned to the Armed Forces Radio network popular with U.S. troops. When the boy heard the tune "Straight No Chaser," played by John Coltrane and Miles Davis, he reveled in its staccato-fire jazz saxophone riffs and melodious trumpet solos and knew his life was changed forever.

"I've been obsessed with the music ever since I first heard it," says Ryu, now 72. "I didn't even know what the music was. But I was hooked immediately and knew that I had to play that music."

For decades, Ryu has been a popular jazz drums and percussion player who has helped introduce his adopted music to a hard-driving nation unaccustomed to its free-spirited improvisation.

Now South Korea is paying its respects to its own godfathers of jazz. A recent documentary titled "Bravo Jazz Life" features Ryu and six other musicians. And on Friday Ryu and others will hold the second of two concerts. The first show in December before a crowd of 200 was so successful that fans demanded a reprise performance, this time in a venue seating 2,500.

Jazz critic Nam Moo-seong, who directed the documentary and produced the two concerts, said the time was right to make sure South Korea appreciates its own roots of jazz. "Without these people, there would be no ground for jazz in Korea," he said. "A lot of them are dying. So somebody needed to tell these musicians' story."

Throughout his career, Ryu has not only mastered such instruments as the jazz drums, bongos and congas, he's pondered why his countrymen have made such a deep connection to the music. African Americans spent generations as an enslaved people, he says, and Koreans also suffered a half-century of Japanese occupation.

"Jazz started out from people who were suppressed. And Koreans were suppressed too," he said. "I find a connection there."

But there have been sour notes, his passion for the music damaging his personal life. Ryu's obsession with buying better instruments and tens of thousands of jazz records ended his only marriage, his wife eventually walking out with the couple's four daughters. Now divorced, estranged from his children, he is uncomfortable discussing that part of his past.

With his buzz-cut white hair and relaxed posture, Ryu exudes the cool confidence of a younger Seoul hipster. At one recent gig, he wore a John Coltrane T-shirt and military cargo pants, making the rounds to joke with customers. But the easygoingness vanishes onstage, where Ryu works his instruments with boyish energy and inimitable virtuosity.

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Ryu Bok-Sung percussion

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Ryu Bok-Sung Jazz...

Unknown label
2009

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