Yeongjin Kim

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Mina Cho: Beat Mirage

by Jack Bowers
March 9, 2024

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 ...