Jazz collective The Primaries performs for first time at Kerckhoff

In just six short months, The Primaries have gone from an idea to an eight-person collective.

Second-year ethnomusicology student Ryan Yoo said he and second-year art student Sally Chung started The Primaries rather impulsively after he told her he was interested in creating a band. As an artist inspired by colors, Chung suggested they perform under the name The Primaries.

The Primaries, currently consisting of musician friends of Yoo and UCLA students, will perform its first official show at Kerckhoff Coffeehouse tonight as part of the Cultural Affairs Commission’s concert series.

Yoo said he first began playing guitar when he was in the ninth grade and then started studying jazz last summer. He said the demanding nature of jazz music is beneficial and has helped him develop into the jazz guitarist he is today.

“Jazz requires lots of breadth and lots of depth in terms of musical knowledge. Particularly with guitar, there’s a lot of technical prowess,” Yoo said. “So if you learn jazz it’s going to help you play anything else you want to play.”

Yoo’s influences include pop and blues musicians such as Stevie Wonder, B.B. King and The Black Keys. He said he would describe the group’s sound as a mixture of R&B and soul, but presented through a jazz framework.

Yoo said when he first learned during fall quarter that there was an opening for tonight’s show, The Primaries consisted of only him and Chung. The group still has not decided on its permanent members yet, but Yoo has held multiple jam sessions to meet other musicians who might be interested in joining and forming this collective.

“I figured it would be really fun to do the show, and I’ve just been practicing along the way with all of the other guys,” Yoo said.

After deciding to start this band, Yoo met first-year jazz studies student and saxophonist Michael Liao and invited him to join their musical endeavor.

“I met (Michael) this year in one of my classes and we got together and jammed and I was like, ‘Man, this kid is really good,’” Yoo said.

While still a member of the group, Chung focuses her efforts on creating the band’s image through logos and other artwork and leaves the musical side to her fellow band members.

“I don’t play the instruments or anything like that, but I’m part of the aesthetic side of the band,” Chung said. “Being an artist, I like helping people. … I’m used to it because my sister is also a musician and I’ve done some stuff for her, so it just came naturally that I would want to participate.”

Drummer Stanley Jeong will play with The Primaries tonight, and said Yoo’s ability to reach out to other musicians has helped the group become what it is today. Jeong also said that the group’s relaxed take on its music will suit this venue.

“Ryan is a very social creature, and through his music program he’s met a bunch of people,” Jeong said. “Most of the arrangements (for the performance) were Ryan’s idea, … and it’s the right mood for Kerckhoff, I feel.”

Many of the musicians performing tonight are jazz studies students who also play in other bands in addition to The Primaries. Yoo said they will bring their experience with this genre to a combination of original songs and covers.

“We’ll take some famous songs and then we’ll play them in a jazz format,” Yoo said. “We’ll play the choruses, and then we’ll take turns improvising over it and then close it with the choruses again. We keep it heavily improvisational. … The music we make always starts with a groove, and it’s built off of that. It’s very rhythmically aware.”

Jeong said the group usually sticks to a specific format when rehearsing and preparing covers of songs and original material.

“First we deal with the rhythm section, which is guitar, bass and drums. We get the skeleton of the music down and then the horns and piano come in and arrange their parts,” Jeong said. “A lot of the parts come naturally when we just jam together. It just blends together smoothly.”

Some of the covers The Primaries plan to play include Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” and Musiq Soulchild’s “Just Friends.” Yoo said he left the cover selection open to the group, and the members will also perform original songs he has written.

After gaining some experience through tonight’s performance, Yoo said he hopes to solidify The Primaries as a full-fledged group with a solid roster after gaining more experience and playing more shows together. For now, Yoo said he is excited about being able to play at UCLA and showcase what he and his group have been working on all year. “I think I’m most looking forward to being able to play music in a comfortable setting, in a place I love, for people I love.”