Interview with Jonathan Chung
Chatting with the Glasgow-born, London-based saxophonist and composer about band dynamics, the influence of voice on tone, and Playing for Progress.
Jonathan Chung is a Glasgow-born saxophonist whose distinctive sound blends Celtic lyricism with free-spirited, narrative-driven improvisation. He was awarded Serious’ prestigious Take 5 award for emerging artists from the UK music scene in 2019. His main project, Glasshopper, is a trio that have gained acclaim for their captivating and euphoric live performances since their early formation in 2014. This unit of focused players explore melody and improvisation with complete reverence and abandon, intricately weaving together moments of sonic bliss and fearless rock-outs. Their latest release, I’m Not Telling You Anything, received critical praise from jazz and non-jazz audiences alike.
Eli Thayer: What were some of your first experiences or memories of improvising?
Jonathan Chung: I think, for me, it started with this curiosity with the instrument. When I was really young, I wasn’t into music. I found the instrument and unlocked lots of musical things from that. A lot of music that I’d been hearing around me I wasn’t that interested in, and then I heard about jazz through a teacher.
Or not even that; I was going through record shops, trying to find out what a saxophone sounded like, and picked up a Miles Davis compilation of all these hits. And then found Coltrane, and Cannonball… I was into that, and then heard of the idea that what they’re doing is just making it up. There was a teacher I had in Glasgow, and he had a community jazz orchestra. That was the earliest part of improvisation — just playing on little funk tunes. I think my first solo was on ‘Pick Up the Pieces’. I’ve got a fond memory of that tune. I wasn’t that interested in reading music, although I was learning it. I like kind of making it up.
It was then hearing some friends and contemporaries, and in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra I remember hearing some kids my age really improvising. I thought, “wow, okay. That’s how you do it.” That would’ve been guys like Joe Wright, Kieran McLeod, Alan Benzie, Richard Foote, a bunch of Scots. I went down that spiderweb of different musicians, figuring out who influenced who and all those connections. Oh, and Rick Taylor, who was on the faculty of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland. His ensemble was clearly for the people who didn’t know how to play any modes or knew what a 2-5-1 was. That was me. But thinking back, what he did was so musical. He pulled out the thing that we could do, and it was incredibly musical. That felt more like improvising; going off of what you could hear and what you could do with the material under your fingers. That was my real experience of improvising: feeling that freedom. There were no barlines, everything was loose and free, there was a mishmash of instruments — an oboe, a bassoonist, me on tenor, a drummer — it was really good.
ET: Did you ever have issues then with the relative rigidity and structure to jazz improvising?
JC: I don’t think I really had any issues with that. I was just learning as I went, and had no real opinions on anything. I was just following. I was interested in freer music, but I didn’t understand it. I remember hearing this Ornette Coleman record for the first time [At the "Golden circle” Stockholm] but still hearing only melody and what I thought was form. I couldn’t understand why it was free. It didn’t feel really abstract; there was something going on… I was still learning.
I think I was into the parameters of improvising, that there were things you “could and couldn’t” play, and working within that and trying to make it sound like a certain thing. When I went and studied down in Leeds, I’d come from being really open and up for learning loads of stuff to hearing other people in my year group, and the structures of education boxed me in a little more. In hindsight, after leaving I did find that a bit of a problem for me. Feeling a little bit lost, like, “what was I learning all that for? What was the context? Why did I need to learn this particular bit of language?” I’d lost direction a bit, but I’d gathered material. I just needed to condense it and make my own rule.
That scene was great, and kept my ears open. The year groups above me, and a couple that had graduated but stuck around, were starting nights. They brought in loads of people from Europe. James Allsopp and Matthew Bourne were bringing stuff up, like really open, avant-garde, abstract things. Quite punky stuff. Really out there music, keeping my ears wide. But I was still trying to just play jazz standards, despite listening to all this other stuff. I probably feel differently now. I like some sort of parameter to go against.
ET: Where did you meet James Kitchman and Corrie Dick (Jonathan’s bandmates in Glasshopper)?
JC: I met Corrie in Glasgow, where I moved back to after studying in Leeds. Corrie eventually went to London to study. And when I eventually moved to London for my masters, he introduced me to James. I had a year or so of not playing when I moved to Glasgow — I had the post-uni blues, did nothing, just got a bar job — and then I picked it up again. When I moved to London, Corrie was like, “you need to meet James”. So we had a play, just us three, toward the end of my first year here.
ET: Is Glasshopper the main thing that’s kept you here?
JC: Maybe. I haven’t thought about it like that. I have thought about what’s kept me in London, because there was a period where I thought I’d move back to Glasgow, after I’d studied a couple years. I did two years of masters, and then I did a year of sofa-surfing. It was a bit rough, carrying around a suit, my rucksack, and a saxophone, just turning up to places and sleeping on sofas. I was still excited going around and hearing musicians, meeting people. I think I quite like the excitement of the city, business, things going on. Don’t know why.
But after about five years I did start to question if I’d move back to Glasgow. I’d met so many people, and had a bunch of friends from Leeds that had moved down to London. I had all these connections with different groups of people, which was nice. There was just a little bit more going on for me, because I’d already been gone from Glasgow for a bit. I was up for getting out.
And then that band started, and really got going after I finished my studies. I didn’t realize it was going to be this thing I’m still doing. So, it possibly is the reason, one of things that’s kept me here.
ET: How much of the band’s writing is collaborative?
JC: I had a discussion with James recently about all that. I’ve hit pause on the band, mainly ‘cause I thought I was just banging my head off a wall doing continuous admin for the band. Not a bad wall — we released an album and I am so pleased with it, got nice feedback and some nice gigs here and there, but maybe not as much as I wanted. I wanted to do a bit more playing.
I came to the conclusion that for me, artists’ projects can feel like they don’t have an ending. You have to give it an ending. This band has just kept going; it’s one thing after another. I felt like it needed to have some sort of conclusion, for now. Otherwise it would get a bit stale, like there was no purpose to what we were doing. With that project, I’ve always had a clear vision, and I felt personally I was losing track of what we were doing. It’d be nice just to play gigs, but it was starting to feel a bit tired. Maybe the momentum wasn’t tied in properly. I’m starting to write bits and bobs and think about it again, but I wanted to have that space.
So in terms of the writing, we had this discussion where I wanted it to be even more collaborative, for us all to write stuff. But James is dead against that. He thinks it really works how we’ve got it, so why would we break that?
ET: Which is?
JC: Which is me writing and leading it. But they contribute a lot. I’d say the most important thing is form. Tweaking things so it doesn’t feel long, changing things up so it’s quirkier, or just funny. Or if tunes don’t quite work — cause it’s a tricky lineup without the bass — trying to manage that or figure out what we can cover without copping out and adding an octave pedal, which we’ve vetoed. At that point, you might as well just get a bass. [James and Corrie] excel in that role, seeing the general vision and pulling things apart to mess around with it. There’s a real freedom to that, which I enjoy.
And trust, as well. I don’t think we’ve ever disagreed on things. We kind of just know, “oh yeah, it should be that”. Or it takes a wee while for us to hear the tune, and then imagine what ifs. That’s a lot of it. And then we try not to rehearse very much at all. We’ve found out that’s detrimental. We try to play tunes once, three times at most, and then rely on the gigs to give us more information.
ET: Can you elaborate on how gigs are useful for fleshing out material?
JC: I think that’s really important. I’m into an idea of Wayne Shorter’s, later in his life. I’m recalling the story from several different people. I think it was Dave Douglas telling us, or Joe Lovano in an interview. One of those guys was saying that Wayne brought in a tune for Lovano’s band that they all recognized, but there was new stuff in it and it sounded completely different. Joe asked why he’d changed it all. Wayne’s thing was that his tunes were never meant to be final. Tunes can keep developing, and they can change over time. I thought that was really cool, that this tune you’ve written now could be totally different when you’re forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years old. You can go back to it and totally change it, or add a new section, or rewrite the melody in a slightly different way. I thought that was a cool idea.
I have that in the back of my mind for gigs. There’s a venue I quite like playing to test stuff out on, and it’s where the band was kind of born from. That’s The Royal Albert pub in Deptford. I like it because on the one hand there’s a really attentive listening audience, but on the other hand it’s a really rowdy pub. I think in its early days it was mainly a rowdy pub, so you were kinda battling to bring the crowd on your side, or play a set that suited that. You could go introverted with the music and play quiet stuff, but you’d have to contend with the noise. So the first few times it was trial and error, but then there was one gig where we managed to quiet the whole pub down. It was really fun. I was considering how to build a set, create drama, tell a story, and get them to shut up here. We pulled it off, and I felt like that was a space where I could try new material and see what goes down well. I’d written loads of material in there and tried stuff out with other bands, just to see what worked and what didn’t.
For the second album, there’s plenty of tunes that I didn’t bring back. We tried. I went through a writing craze during the lockdown, brought two albums worth of music to the guys, and cut the rest. They were like, “shit, this is a lot. What have you been doing?” Well, nothing. It’s a pandemic.
It’s great to get an idea of what the reaction is from the audience. I like thinking about writing as a set of music, like a suite. It’s not a suite — it’s just individual tunes — but they can interact with each other, especially if you’re listening to an album. Trying to consider more and more all the different colors, movements, and dynamics, how each tune sets the next one up and flows. That helps me when I’m writing music as well, so I can look at what I’ve got and think, “oh, I need a little viber for this one, or a funk, or a latin, or a ballad.” Not that way! That doesn’t happen.
Trying to not be precious about stuff. It’s cool to just play the thing. You might really like the tune, but the crowd doesn’t react to it. I think it’s cool to also think about their needs. They’ve come out to see you.
ET: I’m glad you mentioned Wayne Shorter. I hear that approach sometimes in single tunes, like ‘The Clydesdale’, which reminds me of ‘Nefertiti’ in that it’s one line that’s repeated and iterated on. And on the new record, ‘A New Thing’, which in a more condensed way takes this melody and gradually dissolves. I’m interested in that writing style. How do you take one theme and keep it interesting?
JC: I’ve never connected those two tunes together. I feel like for me they’re different, but I can see how there’s something about them. Maybe the thought process is similar. Both of them were written pretty quickly. I’d written ‘Clydesdale’ in a standard format; it’s really loose and free, but it has A, B, and C sections. I was also listening to a lot of Paul Motian at the time, so there’s that no time, but changes vibe. And that’s how the band was going, but it changed course. I like slipping in little quotes — I’m trying to remember what the standard was — I like Ellington and Monkisms, especially if I’m writing in that standard format.
‘A New Thing’ has got a really lazy title. I wanted to change it, but I figured that was what I called it, so I stuck with it. The band on that record was doing a new thing, new sound-ish. I kind of wanted to call it just ‘Running Music’, or ‘Soundcheck’. Just to play something for a soundcheck and make sure everything was working. The band’s got a habit of something going wrong and things cutting out, so I thought we could play something that keeps going and going as we fix all the mess. I always leave the possibility of improvising more notes and giving everyone a chance to have a blow. But it was clear for that tune that I didn’t want anyone to do anything. I just wanted it to build, creating an expectation that maybe something could happen. But it doesn’t, really — it just sort of crumbles. It’s a tune that sets up the next tune on the record. It’s attention: like, “look at me, start listening”. I do like that punk thing of just going with a really simple idea. Trying to stick with the same thing. I’m quite happy with playing the same melody. It might be a bit boring, but I think there’s enough interest around it to hold it down.
We had a discussion about form. I think it was a bit longer before, or there were other sections. So we chopped things, started from a different part, and rearranged the form a bit. There was another part I’d written that got cut. It wasn’t too dissimilar — just that main bit that dissolves — but it was a bit long. Form is the main thing with which to keep those simple ideas interesting.
ET: Could you tell me about the influence of female singer-songwriters on I’m Not Telling You Anything?
JC: That second record doesn’t have any vocals in it; it’s got me shouting at the end, but that’s it. But I felt like I was listening to more female vocalists in the run-up to writing that album. I don’t want to say Americana, but American female singer-songwriters. Newer ones, like Margaret Glaspy and Kate Davis. I heard Glaspy at one of her first gigs in London, and she’s got this amazing guttural… [it’s a] sweet voice, but like [Jonathan emits a retching noise]. Her guitar playing is really cool, and she had this great band as well. I loved all her tunes from that first record she put out, Emotions and Math. And then Kate Davis, kinda similar American vibe. She put out her first record maybe during the lockdown or before, and I was into that a lot. And I think James put me onto Karen Dalton. I was really into her voice — she’s got a very frail, fragile voice that I really loved.
But those three in particular I liked listening to. Karen Dalton, ‘Something on Your Mind’. That influenced the second record in a subtle way. I don’t like making it really obvious, but there’s parts of it in the sensibility, or maybe the way a phrase links, or balance, the sound. There’s one tune where I realized I had to add some color to how I was playing, ‘cause James was playing a bit more clean. It needed a balance where one of us was playing dirty, so I started growling and using more breath, just to mimic a more vocal, human element. I felt like that was a recent discovery, but I’m also a massive fan of Pete Wareham and I love how he vocalizes on an instrument. He has one of the most unique sounds in saxophone playing, I think. I was thinking of him and how he shapes sound. I like listening to things and having them in the back of my mind. So it comes out at some point, but I don’t know if I can clearly draw a line.
On the first record there was more effort to have vocalists, and it was definitely about experimentation. It was my first record, and I was trying out lots of different stuff and having guests on. There was some poetry I’d seen that happened to fit on some of my melodies, and I was writing in a way that was more fitting to vocalists. Like the tune ‘Sky Circle’, that was Rumi’s poetry and it fit perfectly just by chance. ‘Build a Bridge’ took text from a play and shifted it around. The only one that I wrote lyrics for was ‘Ember’. And again, I’d written the melody and then the lyrics, and I don’t think that’s what singer-songwriters do. I’m not the best singer-songwriter. I’m not very poetic. That was quite fun, because it ended up influencing how I phrased the melody.
So yeah, actually- I kinda do think about it. I might just say random garble when I’m creating a melody, and I might have a title or a feeling and think how I would phrase the melody if it were to have words, even though it won’t. And that influences how I might play it.
ET: Is altering your saxophone tone a way of adding interest to a song while retaining its accessibility? Like, the second record is much more poppy, with clear, snappier songs. So in the same way that a singer will take a fairly straightforward song and transform it through their voice, do you attempt to emulate that with your instrumental tone?
JC: One thing I’m really obsessed with is saxophone sound. I used to just practice sound, and maybe I did too much of it. There was a program called Transcribe, and you could loop things and slow them down. At the time I was obsessed with Dexter Gordon, and I think it was the tune ‘Cheesecake’. He plays a long note, and I just looped that long note, and I would try and mimic that long note as much as possible. I would just do long tones for like an hour. It was really mental, I don’t know why- it was a waste of time. But I enjoyed it, and I really got a lot out of it. Just tuning into the way people played long notes, trying to hear how they make that shape and trying to copy it. Especially Pete Wareham’s Acoustic Ladyland albums, where it’s a bunch of tunes of him just wailing and screaming long notes. I was like, “okay, cool, great. Let’s loop that!” I’d try to get as close to that sound as possible.
In terms of sound for that record, I think I was going a little bit poppier. But it’s not that aggressive, how I play. I know my saxophone sound leans toward quite soft, rather than an aggressive, Coltrane-y, metallic sound. So I was trying to add a few more ingredients to balance it out. It’s more just to tell a story and have a part to play in it. Like, “what’s that tune about? Gotta serve that melody.” Gigs are totally different; I just go and do whatever I want, and try to change it up. But on the record I wanted to make each tune a little character and try to find its story.
With other projects and other music, considering sound is still really important. Whether it’s trying to play really broad, or adding the darkness when it needs it. I like just playing around with sound, and knowing that I can play a really long note where our piano player can’t. It gives me opportunities to play with an idea and have people bounce off of it, and really take my time with things. I enjoy playing a lot of long notes now, rather than quick notes. Long notes are really cool. A lot of my favorite saxophone players play them.
I had a friend and musical hero, Robert Stillman. He was someone I was checking out when I was studying in London, and I ended up meeting him at a random play in the academy. I got starstruck, even though he’s the most humble, unassuming guy. I had all of his records. He does one-man band type things, just him on saxophone, drums, keys. Really beautiful music. Actually, ‘Clydesdale’ is really inspired by his music. There’s one album, called Horses, and it’s a nod to that album, the long notes and everything. We had a play together, and we just talked about long notes for like two hours. It was great.
ET: What is your role with Play for Progress?
JC: I’m a music facilitator, doing workshops. I’m doing a workshop today with the young people. That charity started about ten years ago as a service to provide music education to young, unaccompanied minors coming into the country, and then that slowly changed over time and became more of a therapy-informed music charity. We’re not music therapists, but we’ve now got this branch with a drama therapy team, caseworkers that work with us, and tutors that help in various academic subjects. The music thing is the front of it, and it’s a space where they can chill out. It’s more of a social club now.
Some people who come to us really express interest in learning something. Some of them already know how to play something, and we develop that with them. A few young people have come to us with real ability, but most of the time it’s just a hangout — something to take your mind away from things. That’s the biggest thing for me; just being able to play and show them fun stuff, even if it’s really simple. Last week it was showing one kid how to play a major scale on the piano, with the correct finger technique, and he was so into it. He wasn’t even playing a tune or anything. You think people just want to play tunes, but some people just want to do something that’s really tactile. Everyone learns differently, or needs something different at that moment. That kid wanted this technical grilling. So that was fun to do.
I’ve worked with them for a long time, since its inception. It’s progressed and changed a lot over time.
ET: What was it that brought you there?
JC: The people that founded the charity are Alyson Frazier and Anna MacDonald, and I’d met Alyson at the Royal Academy of Music, where we’d both studied. I think she was doing a masters as well. She just got in touch with me about needing a saxophone player. It was pretty random. The charity had a lot of teething and figuring out to do, so we all didn’t know what was going on apart from that we were there teaching instruments. But then that radically changed once we realized after a year what these young people needed and the trauma they were holding.
Inevitably, when you’re teaching music one-to-one you end up having these conversations about life — or at least I like tying that in in some way, talking about how music can apply to other things. Even if you’re not going to do music as a career, trying to tie it into your daily routine. Plenty of students are nervous about playing or performing, so you’re telling them that it’s okay if you make a mistake. No one’s going to get hurt. You just say “oh well” and move on. So you’re teaching these young people for a few weeks or months, and eventually they open out and feel like they can talk about stuff. But then their needs were more than what we could handle at the time. We couldn’t give enough, so we had to expand the charity and bring in this team to support them and us.
ET: Do you find that improvising is a useful tool in those settings?
JC: I think it certainly helps, being able to improvise not just on an instrument but in every aspect. Being able to think quick and change things if they don’t work. Especially with young people that haven’t done it before or don’t come to it in the same way… I’m always aware that I’ve been fortunate to have grown up where I did and have those opportunities. You realize that a lot of people didn’t have that and have come through a lot of trauma, or had no education, or all of their teenage life was spent traveling. So trying to show them the things that we take for granted needs to be thought about in how it might come across.
I try to do it in a way that feels natural, conversational, and fun. Something that’s not too alien and hasn’t got all this music language associated with it. I try not to assume anything. Even just playing four on the floor and getting them to clap that or play on the drum is great. If they want to improvise, that’s great. I try to tell them what the concept is, like, “just do whatever you want. Just play anything; I’ll keep it there.”
It’s more the composing side of it that helps. Trying to plan out the whole thing and, again, create parameters for people to work within so that they understand what’s going on. Because it can be overwhelming: first of all, just being there and with other things in their lives; and then they get in and are faced with a saxophone, or a conga or bongos. Like, I don’t want to give them too much stuff. Let’s just bang on a drum and have fun, try to make a really loud noise, and make a tune with it. Most of the time I’m thinking of the compositional side, and getting them to find a thing they enjoy, lock into that, and then move out of that. A lot of them might play the piano, and they’ll just play the same three notes round and round in five or something, and they’re just into that. So I just go with that and try to make something out of it. And obviously musicians can improvise around that and try to make something out of it.
Compositionally, I try to plan something out and push people in a certain direction so it grows into that. Maybe I’ll ask a question like, “what if?” But actually, the what if has already been answered by me and I’m trying to push them into that. There have been times where I’ve asked “what if?” and had a plan for where I think it would be helpful to go, but instead it goes somewhere completely different. That’s also cool; just leaving that room for whatever to happen.
ET: If Glasshopper is on pause, what’s your next thing?
JC: At the moment, I’m sort of just trying to enjoy life. Not that I wasn’t before, but enjoying not feeling like that’s my purpose and I have to do that band or write music. That’s not who I am. There’s other parts to me. I’m also playing for other people and in other bands. I’m in this new band that’s wildly different from what I usually do called Dar Disku, which I’d describe as Middle Eastern disco. It’s fun party music, we’ve done a few festivals. That’s been interesting because some of the tunes need saxophone, but they need more than that as well; some auxiliary keys and synth parts. I’ve been doing that, enjoying getting into sounds and using it as an opportunity to figure stuff out. It’s been fun discovering that side. I’ve only done it a little bit, but I’m quite interested in opening myself out to not just being a saxophone player, but being someone who can provide extra sounds for things. I’d been curious about that for Glasshopper but I’m not sure if I want to do that, because I like playing saxophone in that band. That’s why I just use pedals. There was a period of time where I thought I’d use Ableton, but that would take my hand away from the instrument. So I figured just a delay pedal was great.
The other thing I’m doing is writing things that are not for Glasshopper. I’m just writing tunes that are really flexible for any sort of lineup, and I’ve been gigging those with various friends. So I’ve got a little collection of tunes, and I’m thinking of having another little project that’s just with revolving musicians, or maybe a band of people that I really want to play the music. Essentially, a band with a bass. I’ve been writing a lot of basslines. I’m just going wherever the wind blows and seeing what happens. But I’m starting to get itchy feet, so I’m playing a bit more of the jazz that I like playing and thinking about unpausing Glasshopper. But it’ll probably be a little while until that shows its face again.
ET: What sort of things are influencing this new writing?
JC: Definitely bass. The idea of having more than just three people. The idea that I don’t really have to care so much. I feel like I care a lot with how I write for Glasshopper, and I’ll spend a lot of time trying to get a thing down before presenting it to the guys. The writing I’m doing now is just sort of slopping it down on the page. It’s been really fun and open. It can go anywhere: you can play the changes or just not; you can take the melody anywhere you like. I’ve still got a guitar in my head, I like playing with guitar. I think it’s the rhythmic element, and I just like a lot of rock music. But I’d also like an opportunity to play with piano players. Tunes are influenced by little things that I’ve heard or am thinking about, but there’s no clear direction. It’s just an opportunity to stretch things out a bit. It can be for anyone to play, and it doesn’t have to be played in any particular way. I’ve played with some people who ask how it goes, and I’ll say I don’t really care. It goes however it goes, and I really enjoy that. I make some suggestions, but it doesn’t have to do anything. Those are the main influences. It does whatever it wants, and there’s a bass.
ET: Is there anything else that you’d like to talk about?
JC: Hm. No, I think that’s about it. I don’t know, I could probably talk about loads of stuff. Let me think if there’s anything musical I’ve been thinking about. It’s just been stuff with the world I’ve been thinking about, really.
Jonathan Chung is based in London and plays saxophone with Glasshopper, Dar Disku, and other projects. You can find his work and any news at the following links: https://www.instagram.com/glasshoppermusic/, https://www.instagram.com/jchungmusic/, https://www.instagram.com/dardisku_records/
