Kim Park - Kansas City Jazz Musician

A Message From Kim

Hello Friends,

Thank you for visiting my internet home site. I would like to take this time to tell you something more about my life and music.

My music has always been a reflection of my life experiences. I have had the great privilege of being close to my strongest musical influences. While I have never studied music formally, my mentors have been incredible talents that gave me direct influence which transcend any performance degree.

John Park, my dad, was a brilliant genius of improvisation on the saxophone. A natural talent, he served as a master of music and life, and his sense of humor made him a fun person to be around. With such a keen mind and wit, he gave me a holistic sense that life and music were inseparable in profoundly expressing all the emotions and heartfelt feelings we have in living life to its fullest. I still play his saxophone.

He ultimately served as lead alto with the Stan Kenton Orchestra. After I attended two week-long summer camps with the Kenton Band, I joined Kenton with my dad and toured the world immediately after I graduated from high school. Being around Stan Kenton and the members of his orchestra and educational staff was an invaluable learning experience, as well as a boost to my career. Stan embodied the highest ideals in composing, arranging, and presenting music with a stirring spiritual quality.

While with the Kenton Band, I met one of my idols on the saxophone, Stan Getz. One of the greatest ballad players of all time (along with my dad) I met Stan backstage at the Hollywood Bowl. I remember that I heard him warming up with "Nature Boy" and his live sound blew through me like a cool spring breeze.

By 1988, Stan Getz had become a friend of both my dad and me, although I knew him as "Uncle Stanley." He asked me to join him as Artist In Residence at Stanford University, where we spent many hours together playing and talking heart to heart. I remember his saying: "It's the mood and not the mode that counts."

While I have become versant with the nomenclature of the jazz idiom, it is the feeling and the heart that come first in my playing. Evoking the emotions that I feel in performance with my audience is important to me. Sharing the gifts that I have been given is a humbling experience, which I treasure deeply.

December 13, 2006

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