Jangeun Bae (배장은), who also goes by JB, is a South Korean jazz pianist, composer and arranger who works between Seoul and New York. Her record label's biography calls her a native of South Korea, and the Korean Music Awards, Discogs and MusicBrainz all file her as a Korean artist; no birth date or birthplace has been published. She took a bachelor's and a master's degree in music at the University of North Texas, served there as a teaching fellow and directed a keyboard ensemble called The Zebras. Discogs lists her among the players of the university's Two O'Clock Lab Band, and she is on piano for four tracks of the band's CD The Best of the Big O (North Texas Jazz, 2004), including "Exit Fairy Tale", which she wrote and takes the solo on. The same biography says she was invited to the International Association of Jazz Educators conference, the 2004 Betty Carter Jazz Ahead series and the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.

Her first album as a leader, The End and Everything After (Kang & Music, 2006), is a trio record with the bassist Ryan McGillicuddy, whom the 2026 announcement calls a musical companion since her North Texas years, and the drummer Jon Deitemyer. It has nine tracks, among them "Liberation Amalgamation", "Secret Place", a solo piece called "Donauquelle", a take on the theme of Rachmaninoff's Paganini variations and the standard "You Don't Know What Love Is". Budd Kopman reviewed it for All About Jazz on April 24, 2007 and heard a music more abstract and reticent than that of other pianists he compared her with, with an intensity burning underneath and a romantic streak close to the surface. The Korean Music Awards list for 2007, the fourth edition, names the Jangeun Bae Trio's "Secret Place" as best jazz and crossover song, and her own concert notices credit the award to this album. After the debut, EBS Space commissioned a project called "Mozart meets Jazz", and Universal Music released it in 2007 as Mozart & Jazz; her label biography says it led to a ten-piece big band version and a concert series called "Jazz meets Classics". The singer Sunny Kim lists the record on her own CV as a project with the Jangeun Bae Trio and Quintet.

The saxophonist Greg Osby then became her most important partner abroad. Go (Sony Music Korea, 2008) is billed to the Jangeun Bae Trio featuring Osby, with McGillicuddy and Deitemyer, and mixes originals with Björk's "Joga" and John Coltrane's "Giant Steps". Osby had started the Inner Circle Music label, which signed her, and the label issued an expanded North American edition of the record, Go+, in 2010, with two alternate takes added. Her label biography says she won the best pianist category in the readers' poll of the Korean magazine Jazz People in 2009 and again in 2012. At the 2011 Jarasum International Jazz Festival the festival's own video lists the Jangeun Bae Trio in the festival lounge on October 10.

Last Minute (Sony Music Korea) followed, a six-track album with the bassist Justin Gray, the drummer Adam Teixeira and Osby on alto saxophone; the Korean CD is dated 2011 on Discogs and streaming services list it from February 10, 2012. At the ninth Korean Music Awards in February 2012, the jazz album category had two nominations for her, one as a solo artist and one as half of a duo with the guitarist Jean Oh (오정수), whose joint album Is This All the Love You Have? her label biography places on Sony Music Korea; the prize went to BG Salon. In New York the Korean Cultural Center presented the trio at SOMETHIN' Jazz Club on January 18, 2012, with the bassist Daniel Foose and the drummer Ross Pederson, and Time Out New York listed her at Cornelia Street Cafe on January 22, 2013 with the saxophonist David Binney, Foose and Pederson.

JB (Inner Circle Music, 2014), her second record for Osby's label, shows her with two trios. The bassist Matt Penman and the drummer Clarence Penn play on four tracks (1, 4, 7 and 9 on Discogs), and Foose and Pederson on five more, with two solo piano pieces. Eleven tracks mix four originals, "100 Days Away", "Continuous Voyage", "Grandma" and "Teheran-ro", the last named for a street in Seoul, with Cole Porter's "I Love You" and "So in Love", Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee", Duke Pearson's "You Know I Care", Miles Davis's "Solar" and a piano arrangement of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", plus a solo "Never Let Me Go". Ian Patterson reviewed it for All About Jazz on June 1, 2014 and called her an improviser first and foremost.

She stayed on the Seoul scene as a collaborator as well as a leader. Her label biography lists the pansori singer Oh Jung-hae, the hip-hop artist Hyun Jin-young, Donny McCaslin, Ingrid Jensen, Ari Hoenig and a long run of New York players among those she has performed with. She is credited as the pianist on BG Salon's second album, 현재의 발견 (2015), and appeared with the band in its 2016 EBS programme and a 2017 concert. In 2019 she released JB Liberation Amalgamation on the Page Turner label, billed to a project of that name, with eight tracks including "감출 수 없는 비밀" ("Undisguised Secret" on streaming services), "모란봉" ("Moranbong") and "피보나치 보름달" ("Fibonacci Full Moon"). At the 17th Korean Music Awards, held in 2020, it won best performance in the jazz and crossover field, the same ceremony at which Kim Oki's Spirit Vanguard won in the jazz category and Black String's Karma in crossover. The same year she was named a judge for the UNISA International Jazz Piano Competition in South Africa.

She also teaches and writes. A government concert listing says she holds a doctorate in cultural arts from Seokyeong University, her label biography describes her as a visiting professor at the Seoul Institute of the Arts and Seokyeong University, and the same listing names a book of hers on practical harmony, 『화성에서 온 실용화성학』. In December 2022 she played The Vine Hall's Winter Jazz Days series with the bassist 신동하 and the drummer 이상민; the venue's video of the set includes "I Love You", "Go", "Liberation Amalgamation", "Teheran-ro" and a theme from the film Laputa: Castle in the Sky. In February 2023 she released the solo piano EP 기쁜자루와 피아노, whose five tracks include "100 Days Away" and "감출 수 없는 비밀".

Marking twenty years since her debut, she announced a concert for July 5, 2026 at 4 p.m. in the concert hall of JCC Art Center in Seoul. According to Newsis and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's event listing, it was to recreate the piano trio sound of The End and Everything After, with McGillicuddy flown in from the United States, the drummer 주화준, and her 80-year-old mother, the music educator 장숙자, as a special guest. The announcements count eight leader albums, two Korean Music Awards and a sideman's role with Osby. The critic Hwang Deok-ho is quoted there as describing her as a player who can tell her own story.

No interview in which she names her influences was found, so this section sticks to what reviewers and her own programmes show.

The two All About Jazz reviews describe a pianist who thinks in trio terms. Kopman hears long improvised lines made of short cells that she varies and ties together, and an echo of Ahmad Jamal in the cymbal work on the Paganini piece; Patterson notes a light touch, very clear articulation and right-hand lines that owe about as much to the classical idiom as to bebop, and calls her an improviser first and foremost. Her label biography stresses blues, improvisation, arranging and experiment.

Her repertoire is unusually wide for a piano trio. It includes Korean folk tunes and a Korean children's song ("Toad" on Last Minute), Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Björk, Leonard Cohen and a film theme, next to Porter, Parker, Davis and Pearson, and original pieces with Korean titles or named after places in Seoul. Discogs files her records as contemporary jazz, and the Korean Music Awards file them under jazz and crossover.