Jihee Heo (허지희) is a pianist, composer and keyboardist born in Incheon, South Korea, who studied in Amsterdam and has built her career in New York. Her album biography on the audio retailer HIGHRESAUDIO and a WBGO event listing for her 2023 trio night at Zinc Bar both give Incheon as her birthplace, and her own label describes her as raised in South Korea. Her date of birth is not published. She releases under the spelling Jihee Heo, as Discogs and her albums bill her; her biography also gives the variant Jihui Heo, which appears in the copyright line of her first album. Korean press describes her as a Korean pianist (한국인 피아니스트) who divides her time between New York and Korea.

Her biography lists a bachelor's degree in jazz piano performance from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (2008) and a master of music degree in jazz piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music (2013). Her label wrote in 2024 that she was almost fifteen years into her New York life, and that her studies in Amsterdam and at Manhattan School of Music had blended experimental jazz with classical music and bop. Her own site lists Smalls, Mezzrow, Birdland, Zinc, Django, Dizzy's at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, Sunset Sunside in Paris and the Jacques Pelzer venue in Belgium among her stages, along with the Washington D.C. Jazz Festival and the Leverkusen Jazz Festival, and names the saxophonists Vincent Herring and Eric Alexander, the drummer Joe Farnsworth, the bassist Lonnie Plaxico and the drummer Todd Coleman among the players she has worked with.

She has led three albums. Passion came out on December 25, 2015 on her own Heonah Music label. Her notes describe it as a thematic album built on chapters 19:28 to 24:53 of the Gospel of Luke, with every piece tied to one story from start to finish, played by a band she calls a nonet: Philip Dizack on trumpet, Frank Cohen on trombone, Jure Pukl on tenor saxophone, Pat Carroll on alto saxophone, Daniel Stein on bass, Charles Burchell on drums and Patricia Wichmann on vocals, with Heo at the piano. Her biography says the album was reviewed by The New York City Jazz Record, by MM Jazz Korea and by the saxophonist Kirk Whalum.

Are You Ready? followed on November 20, 2020 on OA2 Records (OA 222185), her first trio record. It is eight originals with the bassist Marty Kenney and the drummer Rodney Green, who co-produced it. The label's note says she found her starting point in Robert Henri's book The Art Spirit and recites passages from it in the opening title track. The rapper Saidu Ezike appears on "Trust," which the label says voices her mixed feelings about New York, and "Oh, New York," the next track, is an instrumental that the same note calls a love note to the city. Michael J. West reviewed it in DownBeat in February 2021 and praised her touch, her lyricism and her writing, singling out the ballad "Dark And Light" and the solo piano closer "Letter To A Little Girl." George W. Harris at Jazz Weekly heard a trio of original pieces that moves through many styles. Michael Marciano recorded, mixed and mastered it.

Flow was recorded on September 21, 2023 at Rudy Van Gelder Studio in Englewood, New Jersey, engineered by Maureen Sickler, with the bassist Alexander Claffy and the drummer Joe Farnsworth, and with the alto saxophonist Vincent Herring on two tracks, "The Hidden Giant" and "The Late Bloomer." Her label says the connection she found with Farnsworth and Claffy several years earlier brought back sounds she had stored away since she first met jazz. Six of the eight pieces are hers; the others are Adolfo Utrera's "Aquellos Ojos Verdes" and Duke Ellington's "In A Sentimental Mood." The album was released digitally on June 21, 2024, and Challenge Records listed a CD edition (OA2 22229) with a release date of February 7, 2025. DownBeat's review praised a beautiful legato touch built on sturdy lyricism and lustrous harmonies. The reviewer at Take Effect gave it 9 out of 10, and the Korean newsletter Jazz Docent listed it among the memorable releases of 2024, crediting her work with Farnsworth and Herring.

Korea has stayed part of the picture. On August 11, 2024, Heo played Seongsu Art Hall in Seoul with Farnsworth and the Korean bassist Jinkyo Park (박진교), in a concert presented by Jazz Bridge Company (재즈브릿지컴퍼니) and billed in the Korean press as Farnsworth's first concert in Korea. The press notices describe her as a rising young artist working between New York and Korea, and quote Farnsworth calling her a rising star and a great bandleader. Mediapia and other Korean outlets repeat that DownBeat and All About Jazz reviewed her records favorably and that French and American jazz radio stations have interviewed her.

Heo plays and writes in the straight-ahead piano trio tradition, with a touch that reviewers keep returning to. DownBeat hears a legato touch, sturdy lyricism and lustrous harmonies, and her site quotes All About Jazz hearing fluid single-note runs joined to colorful chordal voicings. The Take Effect review of Flow hears her studies in classical music, bop and experimental jazz all present, and a trio that interacts with grace and warmth, from the quick opening of "New Yorker Step" to a quiet, introspective "In A Sentimental Mood."

Her records show a range beyond the trio. Passion is a through-composed story told by a nonet with a vocalist, and her notes describe unusual voicings and a strong rhythmic style. Are You Ready? mixes spoken word, a rapper, a gospel-tinged piece and a solo ballad, and Jazz Weekly describes it as a blend of many styles. Flow pares the music back to a working trio and adds Herring as a guest.

No interview in which she names her influences was found, so this section stays with the records and the reviews. Her label's own account places the Farnsworth and Claffy trio, and her time in Amsterdam and New York, at the center of how she describes her sound.