Lee Dong Woo (이동우; born Kim Dong-woo, 김동우) is a South Korean comedian, television and radio host, actor and author who also recorded jazz. He was born on April 12, 1970, and became known in the 1990s as a member of the comedy and dance group Teen Teen Five (틴틴파이브), after joining SBS as a member of its second intake of comedians in 1993. In his forties he began to study jazz singing and released two albums on SM Entertainment's label, Smile - Turning to Jazz (2013) and Walking (2016), with a duet single, Definition of Love, between them. This profile covers those recordings and the concerts around them. The question of whether he is a jazz artist at all is addressed openly at the end of this section.

Korean Wikipedia says he trained in theatre at Kaywon High School of the Arts and the Seoul Institute of the Arts and began on stage in 1990 and in musical theatre in 1991. He was diagnosed with the progressive eye disease retinitis pigmentosa in March 2004 according to a 2013 interview in the Maeil Shinmun (Korean Wikipedia gives 2003) and, by Korean Wikipedia's account, lost his sight completely in 2010. He later wrote a book, 5%의 기적, hosted radio programmes for the Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation and received a Korean Broadcasting Award as a radio host in August 2013. A Maeil Shinmun interview of November 2013 called the jazz album the second of three personal "Superman projects", after finishing a triathlon world-cup race in Tongyeong in October 2013 and before a new family play in 2014.

His route into jazz came through the singer Woong San (웅산). By his own account in that interview, she appeared as a guest on his radio programme in January 2012 and proposed that he try jazz; one Tenasia report dates the meeting to November 2011. She became his vocal teacher for about eighteen months, according to Sports Khan, wrote two songs for the record and produced it, and the musicians on the sessions included the pianist 성기문, the bassist 오정택, the drummers 김윤태 and Shawn Pickler, the guitarist 박윤우, the percussionist 김정균 and the Japanese saxophonist Hisatsugu Suzuki. He said he could not read music when he started and that he was glad to have begun after forty, because he would probably have given up as a young man.

Smile - Turning to Jazz came out on November 14, 2013 with eleven tracks: standards ("As Time Goes By", "I Love Paris", "Smile", "Autumn Leaves", "It Had to Be You"), the Cho Deok-bae ballad "꿈에", "시간" written by Yoon Jong-shin, and two songs by Woong San, "My Love" and "Fly with You", the latter the promoted single. He gave a release concert at the Fiber Center in Samseong-dong, Seoul, on November 19, 2013, which the other Teen Teen Five members attended. In April 2014 he was the featured guest of a monthly KT charity concert streamed from Gwanghwamun.

In spring 2015 he began a charity appeal for children hurt by verbal abuse, and a benefit concert in the Jazz Park series was announced for April 14, 2015 at the Fiber Center in Seoul, with a first half by "Lee Dong-woo's Soul Jazz Trio" and a second half with the 17-piece women's K-Ladies Jazz Orchestra. For the autumn Tenasia announced a concert with Woong San at a broadcasting anniversary event in Daegu on September 11 and an evening with the same orchestra at an arts festival in Jeju from September 15 to 18, and called him a leading male jazz vocalist. On June 24, 2016 he released the neo-soul-jazz duet Definition of Love with the Swedish musician and songwriter Orphée Noah (Gustav Karlström) as the twentieth release of SM Entertainment's digital SM Station channel.

Walking - The 2nd Album followed on December 24, 2016: ten tracks, all with Korean or English lyrics by him, set mostly to music by the team of Andreas Öberg, Gustav Karlström and Simon Petrén (the writers of the 2015 Girls' Generation-TTS Christmas song "Dear Santa", according to Tenasia), with Hwang Chan-hee and the pianist Song Gwang-sik credited on single tracks and three other writers on "Marry Me". The title song "톡탁 (What A Wonderful Cane)", a swing-pop number about turning the clatter of city noise into a game with his white cane, has a Korean and an English version and a video directed by the actor Yoo Ji-tae and starring Hwang Jung-min and Kim Hwan-hee. On "사랑이 있었다 (Once There Was a Love)", a string-backed standard-style ballad, the label notes name the pianist Youngjoo Song, the drummer 이상민 and the bassist Hogyu Hwang. The singer Shin Yeon-a (신연아), formerly of Big Mama, is the duet partner on "Sweet Island".

After that he mostly returned to broadcasting, with a drama-concert series called 눈부신 길 in April 2018 at CKL Stage in Seoul (with Song Gwang-sik at the piano, jazz standards such as "What a Wonderful World" among two new songs and a series of guests) and a single, "완전한 사랑 (The Love in You)", with Song Gwang-sik in June 2019, which Bugs files as Christian music. The most recent releases and concerts found date from 2018 and 2019.

Is he a jazz artist? The case for it: his three releases of 2013 to 2016 are sung in a jazz idiom, from Great American Songbook standards to swing, bossa nova and gypsy-jazz-flavoured originals; the first was produced by one of Korea's best-known jazz singers; Korean Wikipedia files him under Korean jazz singers; the press has called him a jazz vocalist since 2013; and he has sung with a jazz trio and a jazz orchestra. The case against: he has worked since 1993 mainly as a comedian, broadcaster, actor and author, jazz has been a side project of three releases in four years, the records are on an idol-pop company's label and clips of him performing the first single on the television pop shows Show Champion and Inkigayo in December 2013 are online, Apple Music files Walking and Definition of Love under K-Pop, and no jazz-club, festival or jazz-school credential turned up. This profile therefore sticks to what the recordings and concerts show and makes no larger claim.

The label notes for Smile describe a warm, unforced crooning delivery in the manner of 1950s and 1960s Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, and an audience member quoted by Tenasia after the 2013 release concert spoke of a soft, weighty voice and an easy sense of rhythm. In his own words he found jazz singing hard, because relaxing was difficult, and he credited Woong San's constant encouragement.

Walking is described by its notes as swing, bossa nova and jazz-pop: "Wanna Be Your Guitar" is called a 1930s gypsy-jazz-influenced swing number, "Step It Up" a mid-tempo swing in the spirit of 1950s and 1960s Parisian jazz, "Marry Me" a light bossa nova, and "Lonely Night" a slow ballad in a smoky-club mood. Bugs files Walking under jazz (style jazz pop) and Smile under ballad (style jazz pop), and Definition of Love under jazz, while Apple Music files Smile as jazz and the other two as K-Pop. No source names his teachers beyond Woong San or lists his influences, so nothing further is claimed.