Robert Lee: Forbidden West
In The Sun Records

Robert Lee calls Toronto home, but the jazz bassist is also a proud Canadian-born Korean and the son of immigrant parents. Those different cultural strands coalesce in his third album, Forbidden West, when aspects of Korean traditional music pair with Western contemporary jazz. Drawing from Korean folk stories and poetry and integrating Roa Lee's gayageum into his ensemble sound, Lee's fashioned a nine-song set that individuates itself from other jazz recordings with a bold East-West fusion. The result is a refreshing and original presentation bolstered significantly by the involvement of distinguished contributors.

While all of the compositions are Lee's, their identity is as defined by the players joining him on the project. Two vocalists appear, Sangah Lee on the opening track and Jacqueline Teh the others, and the instrumentalists joining the bassist are the terrific saxophonist Allison Au, guitarist Jay Yoo, drummer Andrew McCarthy, and, from Au's own quartet, pianist Todd Pentney. Many of them are graduates of the music programs at Humber College and the University of Toronto and like Lee are up-and-comers in the city's burgeoning jazz scene. The bassist, the recipient of a Masters in Contemporary Performance from Berklee Valencia in 2021, has performed on many a Canadian stage and studied with an impressive array of jazz figures.

His colleagues bring impressive credentials of their own to the recording: Au's a gifted and sought-after player plus a Juno-award winning bandleader in her own right, while Yoo, originally from South Korea and now based in Toronto, is a University of Toronto graduate who plays in a number of ensembles. Sangah Lee, who earned degrees at Ewha Womans University (South Korea) and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, is a Korean music specialist, while the Toronto-based Teh is a Juno Award-winning songwriter and graduate of U of T's Master of Jazz Voice Performance program. Pentney, McCarthy, and Roa Lee, who's played gayageum since the age of seven, are versatile and adaptable players who dramatically enhance Lee's session.

Forbidden West opens powerfully with “Wah Arirang” and a unison bass-and-gayageum statement before Sangah Lee pairs with Au for a similarly forceful expression and Yoo makes the most of his solo moment. Alternating between wordless and lyrics-based vocalizing, Teh's lustrous instrument elevates the songs thereafter, and the cultural fusion the bassist effects proves appealing too. Decompressing from the driving thrust of “Wah Arirang,” “Daffodil” offers a pretty change in tone when the tempo slows and Teh emotes beautifully with wordless phrases that float serenely across a lilting base. The music blossoms into a lovely East-West ballad before Robert steps forth with a punchy acoustic bass solo and the alto saxophonist does the same with an intensifying statement that's both florid and dramatic. As a full-ensemble performance, “Daffodil” is a standout, though it's hardly the only one. The effervescent “Yokgu,” for example, is highlighted by an acrobatic vocal by Teh that would challenge any singer with its register leaps and features resonant solos from Yoo and Pentney too.

The ear's tickled by the gayageum when it opens “Bamboo” unaccompanied, but the song's as attractive for its lullaby-like lilt, Teh's delicate vocal, and flute contributions from Au. The bassist's solo gets to the heart of the matter, as does the alto turn by Au that follows. Any session she's on is bettered by her presence, including Lee's, but the others exert critical impacts of their own, with Roa Lee's gayageum, for instance, adding significantly to the album's identity. The harmonious aura emanating from the closing “Letters” suggests it might be a love letter of sorts from Lee to his Korean heritage.

February 2025