Song Yi Jeon - Solitary Bloom (2024)

The title Solitary Bloom is a play on Jeon’s first name in Korean. “Songyi” is a way to denote the singular form for nouns. For instance, a bunch of flowers is “ahrum flower” and a singular flower is “songyi flower.” Yet many songs on Solitary Bloom are in fact for Jeon’s mother, whose adopted English name is Spring. [Many Koreans take an English name that is unrelated to their Korean name.] “I wrote ‘Chorinho for Spring’ for my mother,” Jeon says, “and we close the album with ‘Solitary Bloom,’ which is essentially my first name. I wanted to create some unity there.”

“Dancing Stars,” “A Lonesome Place” and “Expecting Spring” are all pieces that appeared on Home, the 2022 Greenleaf duo release with Gomes. “Some compositions are from back in New York, some are from Basel, so they cover over five years of my life and my transition from the U.S. to Europe—which was also the time that my mother was dealing with cancer. Life is strange, and you never know where it will take you. I hesitate to say that my mother’s illness gave me inspiration, but I am thankful that she remains here with me, with the songs I wrote.”

Jeon’s work is strongly inspired by classical music and modern Brazilian instrumental music. “I’m very influenced by Brazilian Choro, Hermeto Pascoal—it’s like bebop but with a Brazilian twist, with colorful chords and progressions. I hear strong melodies, phrases, chords and rhythm when I listen to Brazilian music, and I strive to reflect this in my sound as well.” She uses her voice as an instrument and typically sings without lyrics, apart from “Expecting Spring” which is sung in Korean. On “Undefined Mind” she can be heard using an echo effect to heighten the impact of her improvised flights. On the opening “Waterfog” she reaches past her comfort zone to summon a kind of primal energy. On “It Always Comes Back” she draws on the strong influence of contemporary classical music as the trio floats freely, yet together as one body. On “Solitary Bloom” Lorenzo establishes a relaxed rubato atmosphere that the trio nudges into a bossa nova feel, bringing the album to a contemplative close.

Jeon’s sheer technical skill can be almost startling: her prodigious skill with fast, leaping lines in odd meters is abundantly clear on Solitary Bloom and in all her work. She demonstrates rock-solid rhythmic and pitch control across every register. The great George Garzone has praised her for a way of making music “that sounds upside down when it’s rightside up.” At songyimusic.com one can view her performing her transcriptions of solos by Charlie Parker, Lyle Mays, Chris Potter, Miguel Zenón and more.

Jeon showed promise from an early age when she started with piano, Korean traditional singing, Korean traditional percussion and drawing. She went on to study classical composition at the University of Music and Fine Art in Graz, Austria, and jazz vocals at the Academy of Music in Basel before enrolling at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where she was the inaugural Quincy Jones CJ&E fellow and received the Billboard Endowed Award. In the 2023-2024 cycle of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, Jeon is being mentored by NEA Jazz Master Dianne Reeves, who specifically chose Jeon as her protégé. The Rolex mentoring programme was established in 2002 to aid in the transmission of artistic knowledge and craft from one generation to the next.