Samsu Lee (이삼수) is a South Korean saxophonist whose name is on one album, the 2024 hard-bop record Catch And Jab, and appears in the credits of a good deal more: an 18-piece Seoul big band called AnnoyingBox, several pop and jazz releases from 2024 to 2026, and a K-pop session. This is a short profile because very little has been published about him. No interview, birth date, birthplace, school or teacher turned up, so what follows comes from release listings and track credits at Bugs, Apple Music and Discogs, a festival page, a grant-program application, a handful of news items and one review newsletter. The sleeve of Catch And Jab and Apple Music bill him as Samsu Lee; Bugs, Discogs and the Korean press use the Hangul 이삼수.

Bugs files him as a solo male artist of South Korean nationality who debuted in 2024 and lists AnnoyingBox as his group. Where he was born is not stated anywhere, so his place in the Korean scene rests on his working life: Korean-language releases on Korean labels from 2024, a set at the Seoul Forest Jazz Festival in 2025, and coverage in the Korean press. The notes to his album say it follows twelve years of working in music, without saying where he studied or played in that time.

Catch And Jab came out on May 27, 2024 on Re-way Music & Media, with J Major as the planning company (Apple Music dates it a day later). It has eight tracks and runs 37 minutes, and Bugs credits him with the composition and arrangement of every one. Bugs and Apple Music name four performers on each track: Lee, the pianist Esther Jo, Kim Hyun-gyu (김현규, billed Hyunkyu Kim on Apple Music) and the drummer Seokhyun Lee (이석현). Neither lists who plays what.

The album's Korean release notes call it his first full-length record and tell the story behind it. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling and doing nothing, when the thought "I should make an album" struck him. The same notes then go through the tracks. The short "Intro" is meant as a warm cup of tea before a meal. "Who Am I?" grew out of chords he played at random while fixated on the question of who he is, a worry that first took hold of him at 27. The title piece came from watching a bout of Hong Su-hwan, whom the notes call Korea's second world boxing champion, and noticing that the timing of the punches and the standoff between them felt like the hits in hard bop. "Nerd's Love" is a comic portrait of a shy crush; "Everything's Alright" was written to cheer on someone who dislikes him; "Movie" is about a fantasy that cannot become real; "1950 대한민국" is a tribute to the generation that lived through Korea's hardships, inspired by a lyric sung on the television programme that reunited separated families, in which a guest used a song to look for his mother; and "Smile, Be Happy" closes the record the way a performer closes a concert, with a wish for everyone's health and happiness.

The newsletter Jazz Docent, in its February 16, 2025 look back at the jazz albums of 2024, filed Catch And Jab under straight-ahead jazz and called it a fine record with the heat of hard bop and flashy saxophone playing.

His other main outlet is AnnoyingBox, a big-band project built around the YouTuber and streamer Charming Jo (조매력, real name Jo Jang-woo). Charming Jo told the news agency Newsis, in an interview published in July 2024, that he had formed the pop, punk, fusion, electronic jazz big band toward the end of the previous year, with an 18-piece lineup that has three saxophones, two trumpets, three trombones, a flute, a bassoon, a sousaphone and a taepyeongso (a Korean double-reed horn) beside the rhythm section and a synthesizer player. The festival page, news reports and a 2026 application to the CJ Culture Foundation's Tune Up program all name four people as the core: Charming Jo, the pianist Jimin Dorothy (지민도로시), the producer MUXANT, and Lee, whom the application lists on tenor saxophone.

Bugs credits Lee as co-composer and co-arranger of all five tracks on the debut EP First Contact (November 27, 2024; Re-way Music & Media, J Major): "i need a band", "BEAM ME UP!", "that's why we call it love", "QUANTUM JUMP" and "new day funk". On the second EP, Second Impact (May 15, 2026; MOAH, with CAM and J Major), he is a co-composer of four of the five tracks: "GET HIGH", "PARADE!", "train to the galaxy" (credited to him and Charming Jo alone) and "dust". Both EPs follow an invented story of aliens settling on Earth. The band played the Seoul Forest Jazz Festival on September 21, 2025, from 13:40 to 14:30, and the CJ Culture Foundation's page lists it among the entries to the 27th round of Tune Up, dated February 20, 2026. The same circle produced a game-soundtrack track, "COINS IN RUSH", on Coins in Rush (Goddess of Victory: NIKKE Original Soundtrack) (Genie Music, September 11, 2025), credited to LEVEL NINE, AnnoyingBox, Charming Jo and Cosmograph; Bugs lists Lee as a composer (with Charming Jo and Cosmograph) and an arranger (with Charming Jo). The group describes itself as a pop-punk, fusion and electronic big band rather than a straight jazz one, which is why this profile treats the hard-bop album as his main work.

Outside those projects he is a sideman. Discogs holds two credits under his name. One is alto saxophone on "Sonny never gets blue", the opening track of the pianist Yun Seokcheol's trio album My Summer's Not Over Yet (나의 여름은 아직 안 끝났어, Antenna Music, August 28, 2024), where Yun's own profile lists him, Park Ki-hun and Q the Trumpet as guests. The other is saxophone on "Slow Dance", the fourth track of the BTS singer Jimin's solo EP MUSE (Bighit Music, July 19, 2024). The Discogs entry is a bare Hangul name with no biography, and the Jimin credit rests on that name alone, so the match with this saxophonist is likely but not proved.

The credits Bugs attaches to his artist page add three more. He is one of seven arrangers named on "늦은 밤, 상수역" on Kang Daniel's EP 매일의 여행 (Daily Journey, Mound Media, January 14, 2025). He is listed as a performer, without an instrument, on four of the seven tracks of Song Hanna (송한나)'s album A Little Light (Biscuit Sound, November 5, 2025): "Forward in the Rain", "It Might Be Okay", "Drifting Blues" and "Same Old, Same Old", alongside Roh Kwang-rae (노광래) and Kim Tae-seon (김태선). And he is one of five arrangers of "송 포 마이 마더" and "눈치" on Jae-Kon Jeon (전제곤)'s album 혹시 모르니까 (Just In Case, Mound Media, September 28, 2026); the composer credits of the first include Kim Oki.

Much is not known. No birth date or birthplace, school, teacher or other live date than the 2025 festival set was found. He has no Wikipedia or Wikidata entry (the Wikidata item for the same Hangul name belongs to a politician), and MusicBrainz has an artist entry for him with no releases that links only to his Apple Music page. His latest credit found is the September 2026 Jeon album, so he is evidently still working.

No interview naming his influences was found, so this section sticks to what the records and the album notes show.

Catch And Jab is a set of eight originals that Jazz Docent hears as hard bop: a hot, driving saxophone record rather than a ballad session. His own notes show how personal the writing is. The title piece borrows the rhythm of a boxing match, with its waiting, its feints and its sudden hits, and the other titles are small stories about shyness, consolation, daydreams and gratitude to an older generation. The notes do not say which saxophone he plays on the album. Elsewhere the credits give tenor (AnnoyingBox) and alto (the Yun Seokcheol Trio).

With AnnoyingBox he works in a different register, co-writing and arranging funk, pop and electronic pieces for a big band with a story attached. The band's own description puts the music between a club and a concert hall.