Joshua Wong composes a name for himself through jazz music

Joshua Wong sits at a piano while wearing a black suit. The rising third-year global jazz studies student said he has played jazz music since he was six years old. (Courtesy of Tauran Woo)
By Layth Handoush
Aug. 3, 2024 2:39 p.m.
This post was updated Aug. 11 at 6:55 p.m.
Jazz music flows through Joshua Wellington Wong in every performance.
The rising third-year global jazz studies student has been making a name for himself by performing original compositions as a pianist in jazz clubs across Los Angeles. The work he has put into his catalog has brought him attention at renowned venues such as the Newport Jazz Festival and the Hollywood Bowl. Now performing at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and with the student-led band NPC Activities, Wong said he is enthralled by the strum and beat of every instrument at play, not just his own.
“I listen to the other instruments around me and I hear what they’re all doing, and I try to interact with what’s going on,” Wong said. “Sometimes I don’t think at all. I just kind of play.”
Wong said he has immersed himself in jazz since first taking improvisation lessons at age six, where he learned to come up with original melodies spontaneously. He said he has explored the music industry since attending the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts between 2017 and 2021. After years at the piano and countless hours spent listening to multiple instruments, Wong said his practice of threading together fresh melodies by layering several sounds has almost become second nature. By weaving together notes of different lengths and tones, he tries to elicit different emotions, he added.
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Otmaro Ruiz, an adjunct professor of global jazz studies at UCLA, said the presence of mind required of Wong’s improvisation is what makes him such a distinguished pianist. Ruiz added that Wong’s innate ability to be present with the music is a skill that even more experienced jazz musicians have difficulty executing.
“He has shown a maturity in his way of playing and processing the music, so that’s what really caught my attention,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz has guided Wong’s musicianship as a piano instructor since fall of 2023 and said the student’s drive to improve is self-sustaining and a rarity in today’s world. Moreover, Ruiz said Wong’s proficiency is complemented by his open-mindedness, with many of their lessons characterized by conversations about abstract concepts of jazz composition, including tone production and finger independence.

This openness has also shaped the bonds and playing style Wong has developed as the pianist of the student band NPC Activities. Micah Johnson, Wong’s roommate and the band’s bassist, said the band’s practice sessions follow Wong’s philosophy that fragments of every musician’s creativity should be expressed in their songs.
“Sometimes he’ll write a tune, and there’s not a whole lot of instruction on the sheet music, but on purpose in order that we may kind of put a part of ourselves into the chart too,” Johnson said. “It might end up sounding completely different than he had in mind, but he might like it a lot more, and it just provides a lot of room for creativity and shaking up ideas.”
Johnson, a rising fourth-year global jazz studies student, said he hopes listeners of NPC Activities’ music will similarly resonate with the collaboration that Wong’s practice style fosters and be moved by the band’s intimate performance style. Johnson also said some people mistakenly view jazz music as an incohesive disarray of sounds. One of the goals of NPC Activities is to change this perspective and highlight the forethought and intricacy the genre demands, he added.
“We want people to hear that we respect the art form of jazz in our performance, that we listen to the other musicians when we’re playing very intently and interact with them mid-performance, musically, and that we are creating music as a whole,” Johnson said. “We want people to feel that and experience it through our playing.”
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Outside of his own band, Wong has also played with the jazz band YOCOYA – assembled by drummer Angelo Velasquez – and is featured on their 2023 debut album, “Tierra Y Alma.” While juggling life as a performing musician and college student can be draining, Wong said he is grateful for the ability to grow both musically and spiritually at UCLA. Beyond the practice rooms of the School of Music, he is an active member of the Asian American Christian Fellowship, where he said he embraces his cultural and theological roots when not composing his debut album.
Ruiz said an important next step in Wong’s music career will be the discovery of his own unique sound and how it can serve as an expression of his character and personality. He said Wong’s research into the most compelling aspects of his life is what will make his compositions stand out. With that, Ruiz said he is confident that Wong’s artistry will continue to flourish.
“He already has a place, and that place will be solidified once he finds what really makes him untouchable,” Ruiz said. “What will make him untouchable is just being himself.”