SSaW (봄여름가을겨울, romanized Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Kyeoul, literally "Spring Summer Autumn Winter") is a South Korean band that began in 1986 as the backing group of the singer Kim Hyun-sik and has been, since 1988, the guitarist and singer Kim Jong-jin (김종진) and the drummer Jeon Tae-gwan (전태관), with other players hired or invited for each record. The name is written several ways: 봄여름가을겨울 on most releases, 春夏秋冬 in Chinese characters, the short form SSaW that the band's own company and its album titles use (SSaW Entertainment, Feel SSaW Good), "Spring Summer Autumn Winter" on Spotify and in Wikidata, and Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Kyeoul or Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Gyeoul in romanization. English Wikipedia calls it a jazz-rock fusion band. In Korea it is better known as one of the country's biggest pop and rock acts, with vocal hits such as "Bravo, My Life" and "Someone's Dream" (어떤 이의 꿈), and that is why the question of how much of its work is jazz gets a section of its own below.

The group started with a record billed to "Kim Hyun-sik and Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Gyeoul", the 1986 album Kim Hyun-sik III, made by the singer with Kim Jong-jin, Jeon Tae-gwan, the singer-songwriter Yoo Jae-ha and the friends Jang Ki-ho and Park Seong-sik, according to Korean Wikipedia. Yoo died in 1987, and Kim Hyun-sik, who died in 1990, was unable to perform in 1988. Jang and Park went on to form the duo Light and Salt (빛과 소금), which Korean Wikipedia credits, together with SSaW, with bringing fusion jazz to a wide Korean audience in the first half of the 1990s, and Kim Jong-jin and Jeon kept the name as a duo.

Kim Jong-jin was born on December 19, 1962, graduated in history from Korea University and, according to Korean Wikipedia, was a guitarist with Kim Su-cheol's band in 1986 and with Cho Yong-pil's Great Birth in 1987. Jeon was born on May 16, 1962, studied business at Sogang University, first played in a band called Kinjex and, the Seoul Shinmun wrote in his obituary, worked as a session percussionist in Cho Yong-pil's band before he joined for the 1988 debut.

The first album, 봄여름가을겨울 (Spring Summer Autumn Winter, 1988), has ten tracks on the LP, three of them instrumentals, and Korean Wikipedia notes that an instrumental was promoted alongside the title song, which it calls a first for a Korean singer. The tracks carry season labels, "항상 기뻐하는 사람들" (spring), "거리의 악사" (summer), "사람들은 모두 변하나봐" (autumn) and "12월 31일" (winter). The credits on Bugs list Song Hong-seop (송홍섭) on bass and the keyboard players Hwang Su-gwon (황수권) and Hahn Choong-wan (한충완). The second album, 나의 아름다운 노래가 당신의 마음을 깨끗하게 할 수 있다면... (October 1989), opens with an instrumental and holds "어떤 이의 꿈", "쓸쓸한 오후" and a version of Kim Hyun-sik's "봄 여름 가을 겨울"; Bugs tags it as jazz rock, and credits Song on bass, Kim Hyo-guk (김효국) and Choi Tae-wan (최태완) on keyboards, a trumpeter named Kang Dae-gwan (강대관) on "쓸쓸한 오후" and the saxophonist Kim Won-yong (김원용) on one track.

Live! (1991) was recorded on New Year's Eve 1990 in the convention hall of the 63 Building in Seoul and released on February 5, 1991 as two discs and 18 tracks, with a band of seven around the duo, a saxophone on a few tracks and a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition". Korean Wikipedia calls it the first full live album in Korea and says it sold more than a million copies.

The third album, 농담, 거짓말 그리고 진실 (Jokes, Lies and Truth, released in February 1992), was recorded and mixed at ACME Studios in New York by the engineer Rory Young and mastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound, with New York players: the bassists Jeff Ganz and Paul Adamy, the keyboard player Paul Mariconda, the percussionist Joe Bonadio, the saxophonists Andy Snitzer and Lenny Pickett and the backing singers Barbara Bock and Eileen Flanagan. Bugs's release text calls it the first Korean album to be recorded, mixed and mastered entirely in the United States. It carries the hits "10년전의 일기를 꺼내어" and "아웃사이더", a song by the late Yoo Jae-ha ("내 마음에 비친 내 모습") and Lee Jung-sun (이정선)'s "외로운 사람들"; Kim Jong-jin's Korean Wikipedia entry says "10년전의 일기를 꺼내어" won an Ilgan Sports Golden Disc award in 1992.

I Photograph to Remember (June 1993) was made the same way, with Young and Jensen again and a horn section arranged by the tenor saxophonist Ole Mathisen, with Gary Valente on trombone, Walt Platt on trumpet and Andy Snitzer on saxophone, Robert Aries on keyboards and Jeff Ganz and Chris Parks on bass. Hahn Choong-wan is credited with a piano solo on "기억을 위한 사진들", Han Sang-won with guitar on "디밥" (Dibop), and Chung Won-young (정원영) with the words and music of "안녕, 또 다른 안녕". The closing track is Stevie Wonder's "Ecclesiastes" ("전도서"). Bugs tags the record as contemporary jazz and fusion jazz, and Discogs files it as jazz-rock.

In 1994 the Seoul Shinmun announced a new fusion-jazz group called Super Band, made up of Berklee graduates and two members of the duo: Chung Won-young and Hahn Choong-wan on piano, Han Sang-won on guitar, Song Hong-seop on bass, Kim Jong-jin on guitar and Jeon Tae-gwan on drums, booked for the second half of the second Spring Jazz Festival at the Seoul Arts Center on April 30, 1994. The paper described the music as jazz mixed with pop and blues, with a soul feel. Kim Jong-jin told the Seoul Shinmun in 2013 that in 1994, while recording in the United States, Han Sang-won told him that a guitar once played by the American guitarist Hiram Bullock had turned up in a vintage shop, and that he bought it; it is a 1962 Stratocaster body with 1961 Gibson humbucking pickups.

Mystery (February 1995) begins with a Morse code message that reads "We wanna go back to the past", leads with a remake of the rock pioneer Shin Joong-hyun's "미인" and ends with "Daddy Wes", marked as dedicated to Wes Montgomery. Han Sang-won wrote the music for "새벽 2시 5분" and "나만의 그대", Chung Won-young wrote "Dream House" and plays keyboards, and the horn section was again recorded in New York. "외로움의 파도를 타고" is dedicated to Jeon (the title line says it is for "my companion Tae-gwan"). Bugs tags it as jazz and fusion jazz. Banana Shake (1996), for the band's tenth anniversary, came in a metal can as the first Korean Enhanced CD, with guests from the pop side: the rapper Lee Hyun-do, Shin Hae-chul, Lee So-ra and Kim Hyun-chul, and a saxophone part credited to Lee Jeong-sik (이정식) on its opening track.

Best of the Best (1998) is a two-disc compilation, one disc of songs and one of instrumentals, and its sleeve notes say "항상 기뻐하는 사람들" was produced by Han Sang-won with the band. A live album of the New Year's Eve concert of 1999 was pressed in 2,000 numbered copies in 2000. The seventh album, Bravo, My Life!, appeared in January 2002 with 19 tracks. Its title song was the most played song on Korean radio for two years in a row, according to the label's text and the Dailian news site. It carries a larger cast than the earlier records: Kang Ho-jeong on keyboards, Jung Jae-il (정재일) on bass, Kim Yong-su (김용수) on saxophone, Hahn Choong-wan on keyboards for "和解戀歌", Kim Kwang-min on organ for "In the City", Lee Jeong-sik on flute for three tracks, Han Sang-won on guitar for the last track, and Kim Hyun-chul, Yoo Hee-yeol and Lee Juck singing backing vocals. The choir of the title song was recorded in Seoul, and its reprise was recorded in Hungary at Cseszneki Castle.

From 2004 the duo held an annual "wine concert" in November, timed to the release of Beaujolais Nouveau, and issued a live album from each one. Korean Wikipedia lists the first at Club Cosmo in Seoul in November 2004, then Club Agua (2005), Casa del Vino (2006), the W Hotel's Woo Bar (2007 and 2008), MIEL (2009), Villa de Bailey (2010), the Riverside Hotel (2011), Cafe M (2012) and, on November 27, 2014, the Itaewon jazz club All That Jazz, where Lee Juck was the guest. Korean Wikipedia says the 2006 record Feel SSaW Good uses urban-jazz arrangements of the band's songs: Bugs credits Kim Jong-jin, Jeon, an acoustic bassist (Choi Won-hyeok, 최원혁), an organist (Kim Hyo-guk) and the tenor saxophonist Kim Yong-su, and it opens with "Daddy Wes".

The eighth studio album, 아름답다, 아름다워! (September 9, 2008), marked the 20th anniversary. Four instrumental pieces carry the season subtitles of the debut, with a cello on the summer piece played by the Ewha Womans University professor Bae Il-hwan (배일환). Bugs lists Kim Kwang-min on piano on three tracks and organ on one, and Jeon Jeduk on harmonica on "사랑은..." and on the autumn piece, which Apple Music's English title lists as dedicated to Hiram Bullock. Korean Wikipedia says that in 2008, after a three-year copyright lawsuit, the duo won the online and compilation rights to its earlier recordings.

Jeon was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2012, had one kidney removed that year, and the disease spread. For the 25th anniversary in 2013 the band issued a three-disc set, Grrrng!, 46 songs from 19 albums plus the new song "고장난 시계", in homage to the Rolling Stones' Grrr!, and remastered its earlier albums. A tribute album for the 30th anniversary, 친구와 우정을 지키는 방법 ("How to keep friends and friendship"), with guests from Hyukoh's Oh Hyuk to Yoon Do-hyun, 10cm and Yiruma, was made in late 2018 to raise money for Jeon's treatment. He died on December 27, 2018, aged 56, after six years of cancer; the Seoul Shinmun reported that his last public appearance was at the Seoul Gayo Awards in January 2018, where Jeon was given a jury special prize.

Kim Jong-jin has kept the name going. At the end of 2019 he made the mini-album Re:union with Jang Ki-ho and Park Seong-sik of Light and Salt, the first time the three had recorded together since 1986. Korean Wikipedia lists a 2019 presidential commendation for Kim Jong-jin at the Korean Popular Culture and Arts Awards. He released the single "보고싶은 친구" on December 27, 2020, put out two studio-video concert releases in 2020, issued a 20th-anniversary vinyl edition of Bravo, My Life! in 2022 remixed from the original tapes and mastered by Bernie Grundman, and in 2024 a 35th-anniversary mix of the second album. Ten of the albums were released in high-resolution audio on streaming services on December 27, 2024, the sixth anniversary of Jeon's death. English Wikipedia says the band disbanded on December 28, 2018, after Jeon's death; Korean Wikipedia, the 2019 and 2022 releases and the label's catalog show Kim Jong-jin working under the name since.

Is SSaW a jazz band? Not primarily, and the profile keeps the jazz claims to what the records and sources show.

Evidence for a jazz identity: English Wikipedia's description as a jazz-rock fusion band; the Bugs store tagging the debut, the second album, Live!, Jokes, Lies and Truth, I Photograph to Remember, Mystery, Banana Shake, Bravo, My Life!, Feel SSaW Good and an instrumental compilation as jazz or fusion jazz; Discogs filing eleven of the fourteen main releases it lists under jazz, with fusion as a style on eight of them; the 1994 Seoul Shinmun report of Super Band, which called the music fusion of jazz, pop and blues; Korean Wikipedia crediting SSaW and Light and Salt with spreading fusion jazz in Korea; the New York sessions of 1992, 1993 and 1995 with horn players and the arranger Ole Mathisen; the instrumental pieces on the debut, on Best of the Best and on the 2008 album; the dedications to Wes Montgomery ("Daddy Wes") and Hiram Bullock; the 2006 urban-jazz concert album; the 2014 concert at the jazz club All That Jazz; and the fusion-jazz foundation that Newstomato's report of a 2019 interview with Kim Jong-jin, Jang Ki-ho and Park Seong-sik hears in the band's music. The reissue label Beatball Records, in 2019 and 2022, placed SSaW's "잃어버린 자전거에 얽힌 지난 이야기" on a collection titled Our Town: Jazz Fusion, Funky Pop & Bossa Gayo Tracks from Dong-A Records.

Evidence against: most of the records are vocal pop and rock songs in Korean, written by Kim Jong-jin, and the hits that made the band's name are those songs. Korean Wikipedia's entry on Kim Jong-jin and the TF News obituary call it a rock band; Bugs files the 2008 album and the 2013 anthology as rock and the 2002 album as ballad and jazz pop; Discogs files several releases as pop or K-pop; no jazz award or jazz-festival booking turned up in the sources read, other than the Super Band bill and the All That Jazz concert; and the improvising on the records is mostly in the instrumental pieces and the horn arrangements, not in long jazz forms. Press coverage of the 2022 vinyl edition describes the band as moving through fusion jazz, blues and rock.

The band's own choices of material show where it looks. It dedicated "Daddy Wes" to the guitarist Wes Montgomery in 1995 and an autumn instrumental to Hiram Bullock in 2008, covered Stevie Wonder ("Superstition" on Live!, "Ecclesiastes" in 1993), remade Shin Joong-hyun's "미인" and Kim Hyun-sik's title song, and arranged its own songs in other manners for the wine concerts: Korean Wikipedia describes a three-piece rock style for 2004, Latin and reggae arrangements for 2005 and urban jazz for 2006. Bugs's text for I Photograph to Remember names funk, Latin and R&B among its ingredients, with a jazzy flavor. Underneath it is Korean songwriting: lyrics about friendship and ordinary life, mostly by Kim Jong-jin.