How Seoul’s All That Jazz, the first jazz bar in South Korea, is still setting the tempo
All That Jazz owner Jin Nak-won talks about the bar’s beginnings and when American R&B singer Anderson Paak took to its stage last year
For a lonely traveller in search of a lively night in a foreign city, Smalls Jazz Club might be the spot in New York. In Tokyo, there’s Blue Note Tokyo. And in Seoul, it’s All That Jazz, which has set the tempo for the city’s jazz scene since 1976.
Tucked away in Itaewon – perhaps Seoul’s most international neighbourhood – Korea’s first jazz bar, with its signature blackwood interior, has long served as a haven for music lovers and performers alike.
Jin Nak-won, who has run the club for nearly 40 years, says that his addiction to jazz all started with the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s “Take Five”.
“That saxophone drove me crazy,” says Jin, 68, a nostalgic smile spreading across his face. “I was in fourth grade, and music was always playing in my cousin’s house, usually from an old record player in the master bedroom. One day, I happened to hear the song – it was just unbelievably good. I loved it so much that I played it on repeat all day until their family came home.”
Jin did not even know what the song was at the time. It was not until a few years later, while listening to a compilation album, that he realised it was “Take Five” from the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out album.
That was when it clicked: the tune that had captivated him years earlier was jazz.