Jaehun Kang (강재훈) is a South Korean jazz pianist, composer and teacher from the Korean jazz scene. He plays in the swing-based, mainstream tradition, leads the Jaehun Kang Trio, and has been a regular in other leaders' bands for years: the Soojin Suh Coloris Trio, the vocalist Woongsan's band, the vocalist Kim Ju Hwan's group and the drummer Kim Seong-hwa's groups, among others. His first record as a leader, the trio album Mean What You Say, came out on October 6, 2025 on Laura Records, with the bassist Jinkyo Park and the drummer Evan Sherman.

His own biography says he won the Jury Prize at the Jarasum International Jazz Competition in 2010, at the age of 19. The Esplanade listing in Singapore repeats the prize, and the Korean text of his biography places it at the fourth edition of the competition. He then entered the applied music department (piano) of the Seoul Institute of the Arts, listed as 2011 to 2012 and described as a top-of-the-class entrance, and left Korea for the United States during his studies. He completed a Bachelor of Music in performance at the Berklee College of Music (2012 to 2014, with the Berklee Global Jazz Institute), and then a Master of Music in jazz studies at the Juilliard School (2014 to 2016) with a Gluck Community Service Fellowship. The Esplanade listing and a Jeonbuk Ilbo article both call him the first Korean admitted to Juilliard's jazz program. His biography names Wynton Marsalis, Frank Kimbrough, Kenny Barron and Rodney Jones as his Juilliard teachers, and the Korean text adds Danilo Perez.

The Boston years left one document on record. In April 2014 he was the pianist on the quintet session that became Straight (2015) by the vocalist Song Yi Jeon, recorded at PBS Studios in Westwood, Massachusetts. His biography lists a semi-final place at the 2016 Parmigiani Montreux Jazz Solo Piano Competition and stage dates in Boston and New York at the Blue Note, Dizzy's Club, Shapeshifter Lab, Lilypad and Cafe 939, and says he shared stages and recorded with Jimmy Heath, George Garzone, Donny McCaslin and Don Faddis. None of these is documented outside his own materials.

Back in Korea he became a sideman in demand. His own CV lists teaching posts at the Seoul Institute of the Arts (September 2019 to August 2022), the Seoul Music High School (March 2020 to December 2021) and Baekseok Arts University (September 2021 to May 2022), and his current biography describes him as a piano instructor at Hanyang University. He is the pianist on Colorist (2020) by the drummer Soojin Suh's trio, which won the 18th Korean Music Awards prize for best jazz and crossover performance, and on the trio's later record Prism of Existence (2026); he wrote one piece on each, "Stream of Consciousness" and "ECNAD". Woongsan's 2022 album Who Stole the Skies credits him on piano, and the 2023 tribute album What a Wonderful World for the veteran singer Kim Jun has him on piano on three tracks and on organ on a fourth. In 2022 he recorded a live duo album, Duology, with the saxophonist Soojung Lee. In 2023 he and the saxophonist Hachul Song, billed as ARTBUS, issued the single "Retrohs", a piece of his dedicated to Wayne Shorter, and in 2022 he played synthesizer on two tracks of Song's Be Yourself.

The festival record is mostly self-reported. His own CV lists the Jarasum International Jazz Festival, the Seoul Jazz Festa and the Seoul Jazz All Stars among his appearances, and records him at the EFG London Jazz Festival in 2021 with the Coloris Trio and the saxophonist Camilla George. On October 25, 2024 the Jaehun Kang Trio, then with the bassist Jinkyo Park and the drummer Kim Sang-soo, played an "Ellington Songbook" program in Jeonju to mark Duke Ellington's 125th birthday, a concert that Jeonbuk Ilbo previewed. On July 27, 2025 the trio gave two free 45-minute sets of standards at the Esplanade Concourse in Singapore as part of Jazz in July. With Suh he is listed for the Soojin Suh Quartet in Heidelberg on October 14, 2023, for the trio's concert in Katowice, Poland on November 12, 2024, and for the trio's two shows at The JazzLab in the Melbourne International Jazz Festival on October 23, 2026.

Mean What You Say followed in October 2025. The release notes on Bugs quote three Korean critics. They describe a first record built around the traditional jazz language and sound, with a solo for every player, well-judged interplay and a careful choice of standards. One says his soft, transparent touch recalls crooners such as Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra, and another singles out his own piece "For Bennett", dedicated to Bennett, as lifting the whole album. The Korean newsletter Jazz Docent, in its October 24, 2025 issue, placed the record among seven new releases and noted that the trio was starting a five-city tour. In 2025 he also recorded the album Tough Life with the bassist Daeho Kim and the American drummer Lewis Nash (July 30, 2025), and on October 14, 2026 the Korean broadcaster EBS aired the Lewis Nash Trio with Kim and Kang on its Space Gonggam program.

He is a straight-ahead player. The Esplanade describes the trio as one of Korea's most representative straight-ahead piano trios, focused on original melodies and rhythms and playing standards by Gershwin, Ellington and others. Jeonbuk Ilbo calls his music swing-based mainstream American jazz and says the "Ellington Songbook" program was inspired by Oscar Peterson's album of the same name from 1959. The record's reviewers describe a transparent, singing touch that keeps the melody in view during improvisation, an ensemble that interacts with care, and a program that pairs standards ("It's De-Lovely", "Lullaby of the Leaves", "They Didn't Believe Me", "The Shadow of Your Smile") with originals.

Outside the trio he is an adaptable sideman. His CV lists piano and keyboard credits in vocal jazz, a five-pianist album called Canon (the notes describe his part as free improvisation), hymn arrangements, Korean traditional and crossover projects, and a few pop and rock sessions, among them a track on a TWICE release. Jazz is clearly the center of his work: his leader record, his recurring trios and the festivals that book him are jazz.