While the thought of jazz may conjure up images and sounds of Miles Davis on the trumpet and John Coltrane on the saxophone, it’s a safe bet to say few would ever consider, or know of, a jazz violinist.

The jazz scene is dominated by the uniquely free-styled sounds of brass, woodwinds and percussion. Up-and-coming Korean jazz violinist Park Yoo-jin is looking to slowly tear away at this genre stereotype.

“It is true that the world does not have that many well-known jazz violinists, I mean you can probably count them all on one hand. As a jazz violinist myself, it has been one of my life missions to show people that even strings have a place in the jazz and blues music scene,” said Park during an interview with The Korea Herald at the Universal Music Korea headquarters in Seoul on Monday.

Park recently returned to Korea from the U.S. to perform at Club Evans in Hongdae with her jazz band, the “Park Yoo-jin Quintet,” last Friday.  

“While the violin doesn’t have the ability to staccato and articulate like traditional jazz instruments such as the saxophone, instruments can adapt and I’ve been able to develop my own non-traditional way of playing,” she added.

Park, 35, first began playing music at the tender age of three, playing the piano and then picking up the violin for the first time at the age of four. For the next two decades the musical prodigy set off on a path to become a classical violinist, serving as concertmaster at Kay Won Arts High School and eventually going on to perform as a soloist at Seoul Arts Center.

However, after graduating from the Korea National University of Arts in 2006, the intrigue of jazz music continued to consume her and eventually led to her decision to study jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“Since I was a kid, I was trained as a classical violinist. But when I got older, I got to learn more and more about jazz,” she said. “And one of the biggest things that attracted me to jazz music is the ability to improvise, which is not something that is available in classical music.”

“While I was studying in college, I constantly listened to all of the world’s greatest jazz musicians all-day, every day,” said Park. “I even found myself listening to the saxophone and then trying to mimic the technique and sounds with my violin, attempting to make the violin sound more ‘jazzy.’ The moment that I will never forget and that forever changed the way I approach my music was when my professor said to me, ‘Why are you trying to make the violin sound like something else? Just be you.’” 

“From then on I realized I shouldn’t try to make the violin sound like another instrument, like the saxophone. Rather I should just focus on my own signature way of playing jazz on the violin.”

And that she did. Park is currently working as a jazz musician in Brooklyn, New York and has garnered a reputation as an indispensable member of the contemporary and highly competitive NYC jazz scene, having performed in iconic clubs across the city including the Blue Note Jazz Club, Rockwood Music Hall, Village Underground, Fat Cat, The Zinc Bar and Drom.

In April 2013 she unveiled her jazz violin debut album, “West End” and is currently working on the release of her second studio album.

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)