Hocheol Kim (김호철, 金湖哲) is a South Korean jazz bassist who plays double bass, and electric bass on an occasional track, in bands in Seoul and Incheon. He has been the bassist of the piano trio Gentle Rain (젠틀레인), led by the drummer Dukwon Seo, since at least 2012. He is also the bassist of the Brazilian jazz quintet Souplus (수플러스), the leader of his own Organic Band (유기농 밴드), and, since November 10, 2021, a recording artist under his own name with the trio album Invisible Things. His name is romanized in several ways: Hocheol Kim on his Bugs artist page and in the trio's own concert videos, Ho Cheol Kim on the cover of Invisible Things, on Apple Music and in the Souplus credits, Kim Ho-cheol in Apple Music's songwriter credits for Gentle Rain, and Kim Ho Choul on one 2008 album.

His birth date and birthplace are not published. The biography attached to his Bugs artist page says he graduated from Hanyang University's department of advertising and public relations and then took a graduate degree in jazz studies at New York University, and it lists his teachers as John Lockwood, Martin Wind, Billy Drummond, Brian Lynch, Ralph Lalama, Don Friedman and Ron McClure. It gives no years. Korean press says he came onto the domestic jazz scene in the early 2000s, and the liner notes of his wife's debut album, released in November 2009, describe him as a longtime bandmate who had returned from New York a short time before. The same biography says he played on a Korean tour of the saxophonist Dave Pietro, a New York University professor, and the release notes of the second Souplus album, issued in March 2012, announce that Pietro would visit in May to perform with the band.

Gentle Rain is where most listeners meet him. Seo formed the trio in 2004, and Melon's release notes for Wish (2012) list Seo, the pianist Song Ji-hoon and Kim as its members, after the bassist Wonsool Lee had played on Second Rain and Dreams. Kim is the bassist on Wish (October 2012), Home (September 2015), Sunlight (March 2020) and Theme Park (March 5, 2025), and he is named with the trio in concert listings for April 15, 2017 at the Mapo Arts Center in Seoul, November 3, 2018 at the Bupyeong Arts Center in Incheon and March 24, 2024 at the Sejong Center M Theater in Seoul. The pianist changed around him: Song Ji-hoon through at least spring 2017, Jeon Yong-jun (전용준) in the 2018 listing, and Choi Han-geul (최한글) from 2020. Yonhap's report on Theme Park on February 27, 2025 describes the trio as Seo, Kim and Choi, and the release concert took place at the Guro Arts Valley Theater in Seoul on March 29, 2025.

He writes for the group as well as playing in it. The trio's own liner notes credit him with "Hoya" on Wish, a piece he wrote for his newborn daughter; "Airport", "G.R. Funk" and "Some" on Home, where the notes say "G.R. Funk" was meant to be a funk tune that stays polite and elegant and where he plays electric bass on "Airport"; "Spring Is Coming" (봄이 온다), "Blue Skies" and "Waltz for Melody" on Sunlight, of which "Waltz for Melody" is another piece for his daughter and "Blue Skies" grew from a tune he hummed while driving the Gyeongin Expressway on a clear day; and "Merry-Go-Round" and "Night Opening" (야간개장) on Theme Park. The trio posted a 2024 concert video of "Airport" that names him as composer and bassist.

Invisible Things (KEISER, 2021) is his first album under his own name. Money Today reported its release on November 5, 2021 as his first solo album, noted that he had worked as a sideman for many artists since the early 2000s, and said his modern-style compositions had won the support of fellow musicians. It is a trio record with the pianist Shim Gyu-min (심규민) and the drummer Shin Dong-jin (신동진), whom the article describes as players he had worked with for a long time. The release notes describe seven tracks, six of them original pieces: the title piece and "Stare" deal with unseen thoughts, fear, anxiety, hope and happiness, "Another Time" with regret and longing for time that has passed, and "Hidden Island" with a happy daydream about an island that does not exist. "Kay's Song" is for his wife, the vocalist Lim Kyung-eun (임경은, called Kay), and "Sea Lady / A Green Sea Turtle" is about the women divers of Jeju. The pianist Yoonchan Kwak (곽윤찬) co-produced it and mixed it at Blueshrimp Studio.

Souplus is his other long-running group. Its members on Bugs are the guitarist Ma Bo-hyeong (마보형), the saxophonist Choi Won-seok (최원석), the pianist Lee Gun-min (이건민), Kim and the drummer Han In-jip (한인집). Kim is named as bassist in the release notes of Souplus 2nd (March 7, 2012, PAG Jazz), recorded with the drummer Kim Hong-gi (김홍기), the percussionist Jo Jae-beom (조재범) and Lim Kyung-eun as guests, and he is the bassist of Souplus - The 3rd (January 7, 2019), on which each member wrote two pieces and Kim's "Some" and "Some II" are described as close to traditional samba. The notes to the group's first album (February 2, 2010) name its other members but not a bassist, so his place on it is not documented. A Munhwa News article announced Souplus and the Organic Trio, which he leads with Shim and Shin, for two Saturday concerts at the Bupyeong Arts Center in Incheon on October 26 and November 2, 2019, with the vocalists Lee Bu-young, Lim Kyung-eun and Heo Seong as guests of the trio.

The Organic Band is his own. In 2018 the Incheon Foundation for Arts and Culture supported a two-night Bupyeong series in which Gentle Rain played film music on November 3 and the Organic Band, with the guitarist Kim Jin-su, the tenor saxophonist Yeo Hyeon-woo, Shim Gyu-min and Shin Dong-jin, played looser, more improvised jazz on November 10. In July 2024 the Incheon club Bottomline listed the band, again led by Kim, with the saxophonist Han Seung-min and the drummer Lee Do-heon, for a free show on July 12.

As a sideman he appears on two dated albums before Gentle Rain. The Yang Joon-ho Trio's Portrait in Bill Evans (released July 8, 2008) is a piano trio record with Yang Joon-ho on piano, Kim, here spelled Kim Ho Choul, on bass and Lee Chang-hoon on drums, a group the liner notes call the pianist's regular trio since the 2000s; it has fourteen tracks and runs about 79 minutes. Lim Kyung-eun's debut My Favorite Standards (November 20, 2009, Ponycanyon Korea) is ten standards with the New York pianist Xavier Davis and the drummer Quincy Davis, and the notes say Kim had played in her band since before she went abroad. In spring 2022 he was the bassist with Yoonchan Kwak and the drummer Choi Yo-seph at the Daegwallyeong Music Festival in Pyeongchang. His own biography adds live sessions with Park Seong-yeon, Yoon Hee-jung, Jung Sung-jo, Yang Joon-ho, Cho Yoon-seung, Lim Kyung-eun and Lee Eun-mi, and recording sessions with Yang Joon-ho, Lim In-gun and Lim Kyung-eun; none of those is dated.

Kim and Lim Kyung-eun married in 2007, according to the Hankyoreh, and met at a jazz cafe, according to the Seoul Economic Daily. In 2018 they won support from the Jeju Foundation for Arts and Culture for a project on the culture of Jeju's women divers, and he was music director of the resulting concert, "Singing Sumbi Sori" (숨비소리를 노래하다), named for the whistling breath of the divers as they surface, at the Seolmundae Women's Culture Center in Jeju on September 16, 2018, with seven new songs and a new arrangement of the Jeju folk song "Ieodo Sana"; Shim Gyu-min, Shin Dong-jin and Kim Jin-su played with them. He also teaches. The version of his biography written around Sunlight lists a full-time post in the music department of Korea Nazarene University, and the later version on his own artist page lists lectures in practical music at Yewon Arts University, Seokyeong University and Soongsil University; neither version is dated.

He is not the volleyball coach Kim Ho-chul, nor any of the other Koreans of the same name who turn up in a search.

Kim's own biography reads like the training of a New York mainstream bassist: it lists Lockwood, Wind, Drummond, Lynch, Lalama, Friedman and McClure as teachers, and Bugs files Invisible Things under bop. His original pieces for Gentle Rain, a trio that aims at general listeners, are tuneful and compact: the notes describe "Airport" as a piece about the regret felt while watching hurried travelers, "Some" as the first flutter of romantic feeling, and "Merry-Go-Round" as the memory of a photograph taken on a carousel. The promoters of the 2018 Incheon concerts set Gentle Rain's friendly, accessible jazz against the Organic Band's unrefined, improvisation-heavy playing, with more interplay between instruments, and the same bassist leads both.

Souplus shows a third side. Its release notes call the group a Brazilian jazz band that moves among bossa nova, samba, partido alto and Afro-Cuban rhythms, and the third album adds modern jazz, with Kim's "Some" and "Some II" close to traditional samba. In a Seoul Economic Daily interview with his wife he explained his attachment to jazz by saying that a canvas can hold more in jazz than in other genres, because the possibilities are larger.