When confinement brought the world to a standstill in March 2020, Youn Sun Nah was giving concerts in the United States. “My parents told me to come home very soon. I got the last plane to Korea! » says the vocalist. Confined for a year and a half to her native country, she “a little desperate” before writing songs. Eleven very personal titles for an eleventh album sounding like a new beginning that she presents today for listening and on tour.
“This album is what I heard inside me. I prepared everything by myself. It’s like a dish that maybe you won’t find very good, but I made it from A to Z”she smiles with a touch of shyness, admitting: ” I’m a little scared. » To listen Waking World dispel those fears. In a delicious harmony, Youn Sun Nah installs a cottony atmosphere more pop than jazz. Carried by a dreamy voice on intimate tempos, breathing calm, his songs encourage meditation as much as they open the horizon.
→ REREAD. From Korea to France, Youn Sun Nah celebrates vocal jazz
Writing alone with software allowed him to experiment with electronic effects, to duplicate his voice, to refine his arrangements… This sophistication remains in the blueprint. She seduced the musicians gathered to record as in concert. Xavier Tribolet on keyboards, Thomas Naïm on guitar, Laurent Vernerey on bass, Airelle Besson on trumpet, Héloïse Lefebvre on violin and Guillaume Latil on cello: an impeccable set surrounds Youn Sun Nah.
Nourished by French song
Twenty years after her first record, ten years after being revealed by the album Same Girl, which we always listen to with pleasure “My Favorite Things”, interpreted with finesse to the sound of an African kalimba, several times Gold Record, passed by the greatest jazz scenes in the world, far from being jaded, she enjoys on the scene. There is no doubt that beyond his technique, his rigor and his creativity, his popularity is also due to his enthusiasm and smiling simplicity.
The French public acclaims the Korean artist who came in 1995 to learn jazz in France. She then wanted to swing like Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan. “You have to be yourself. Sing with your own voice”, his teachers told him. French songs – Ferré, Brel, Michel Legrand… – nourished her, and European jazz inspired her. “I admire above all the English singer Norma Winstone. She has a crystalline, very pure soprano voice, which she uses as an instrument. I cried listening to him on “Just Sometimes””, she says. In France which adopted her, in Europe where she revealed herself, Youn Sun Nah found her style and her freedom.