When Trinh's music is played in Jazz style
“Let’s Love Jazz” is a music project that renews and spreads Trinh Cong Son’s songs through arrangements in Jazz, Fusion and Acoustic styles, combined with translations into English, Japanese and Korean. The project welcomes and creates a creative playground for many young Jazz artists, talented singers from Vietnam and internationally, aiming at a generation of young, open-minded and artistically loving audiences with depth, hoping to become a bridge of musical culture between Vietnam and the world.
Hanoi Blues Note founder Quynh Pham, one of the rare and persistent Jazz singers in Hanoi for the past 25 years, shared the reason for the project: “For more than a decade, “renewing Trinh’s music” has become an inspiring underground stream in Vietnamese music life, especially for the youth. However, most of them are still just individual experiments, or in other words, beautiful notes… but not yet a long-term arrangement. No one has really drawn a complete, methodical and connected musical journey to bring Trinh’s music closer to the new generation and to the world .”
According to Quynh Pham, “Let’s Love Jazz” was born to build that connection journey with a long-term plan, lasting from October 2025 to the end of 2028, including 3 phases with many events and activities. Phase 1 of the project lasts from now until 2026, including communication, searching for suitable young singers; organizing mini shows, small-scale online concerts; producing and launching more new albums in the spirit of “dialogue” between Jazz and Trinh and between generations of Trinh music lovers.
The project will also build and develop “Jazz Love Stations” in Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City - places to guide, inspire, and empower young local artists to perform live and launch new works. By 2027, the project will enter phase 2. This is the time to promote cooperation with international artists and release digital music albums and small performances outside of Vietnam's borders.
At the same time, the project also plans to organize 4 larger-scale concert events in Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. Phase 3 - 2028, "Let's Love Jazz" will continue to produce and release new works, organize a series of music events to exchange Vietnamese and international Jazz music at home and abroad, release albums abroad, and aim to have the participation of a number of international singers loved by young people.
Cherish a sincere love for Trinh's music
Singer Trinh Vinh Trinh shared the reason why she and Trinh Cong Son's family supported the project: "I feel in the artists of "Let's Love Jazz" a sincere love for Trinh's music and a desire to converse in their own language."
“When talking about Jazz music style, we are talking about improvisation from many different angles, from the structure of the work, rhythm, harmony, or solo on the melody... When talking about Trinh Cong Son's music, it is the meaning and beauty of the lyrics, the melody is close and simple. I consider how to combine Jazz style with Trinh's music, still keeping the simplicity, still close to the listener but with a different color, more interesting, from harmony, rhythm, to the way each singer and artist handles the work", Music Director of "Let's Love Jazz" Vu Quang Trung shared about the experience of adapting Trinh Cong Son's music into Jazz-colored music.
Mr. Nguyen Nhat Tuan (Head of the Faculty - Graduate Training Department, Hanoi University), the project's language consultant, said that he not only "translated the lyrics" of the song but also had to almost rewrite the emotions in another language: "Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, rich in tones - just a small mark can change the emotional tone; while English has a completely different rhythm of stress, emphasis, and release. Therefore, processing a Trinh song in English is a parallel journey between meaning and music: keeping the meaning can easily break the music, and keeping the music can easily lose Trinh's soul. I always research carefully to find a similar emotional rhythm, not a sentence-by-sentence, word-by-word translation."
“The difference between the two languages is also reflected in the way they are arranged and performed. Vietnamese songs often have short breaths, almost like whispers, while the English version has to be expanded, adding or removing syllables to make the melody natural. When singing Vietnamese, the singer can sing long notes according to the tone; while when singing English, the singer has to follow the stress and mouth shape. Therefore, with the same melody, the Vietnamese version is a memory in the mist, while the English version is a clear narrative, with a more Western rhythm,” said singer Quynh Pham, founder of Hanoi Blues Note.
The entire project team emphasized: “Whether sung in Vietnamese, English or any other language, the melody still tells the same story: about love, loneliness, loss and the desire to live a decent life. We believe Trinh Cong Son can “live” in many languages, like different winds blowing through a single soul. Each translation, each voice is a new dialogue with beauty and sadness - a dialogue that never ends.
As the founder of Hanoi Blues Note, Quynh not only sings, but also creates an artistic space connecting the young generation of artists with Jazz with her own enduring passion and courage. Her debut album “Roi nhu da ngo” is a personal milestone for her with Trinh Cong Son and Jazz, where Trinh’s music is told through the voice of an experienced and calm soul.
Source: https://baophapluat.vn/hay-yeu-jazz-di.html
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