Yan Kim (얀 킴) is a South Korean jazz pianist and bandleader who plays New York style straight-ahead jazz and leads the Yan Kim Trio. His birth date is not published. Regional newspapers describe him as a Gwangju native, and he is based on the Seoul scene. Yan is a stage name: his real name is Kim Yo-han (김요한), and he told the magazine Jazz People in 2025 that "Yan" was a high-school nickname, a fast way of saying Yohan. He adopted it because a search for his real name mostly turns up a far more famous YouTube pianist called Yohan Kim, an unrelated musician; the pianist of that name profiled on JazzProfiles is Yohan Kim.

He came to jazz late. In the same interview he said he did not grow up with it and first heard it in high school; before that he liked the pop singer Sung Si-kyung and the pianist Yiruma, and he played piano because he enjoyed the instrument itself. At 17, at a practical-music academy, a teacher showed him a black-and-white film of Wynton Kelly playing with John Coltrane, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers, and he decided he wanted to play like that. A concert listing says he entered the practical music department of Howon University in 2018, and a Gwangju Ilbo article and the same listing say he was due to begin the master's program in jazz performance at Hanyang University in 2025. Beyond that, the sources found give no account of his teachers or early years, apart from one: he told Jazz People that he studies with the pianist Jaehun Kang (강재훈), and Kang attended his recording session.

His first Seoul engagements came through the bassist Jinkyo Park (박진교), who from late 2021 set up stages for him and was, in his words, the first professional he played with in the city. His own listing names the 2022 Seoul Jazz All Stars series at the Devil's Door brewery restaurant among his appearances, and in October 2023 he played a one-hour set there with his trio at the Devil's Door Jazz Festa; Metro Seoul called him a promising newcomer and praised his careful touch. A review of the 2024 edition of the festa mentions him joining the Danish saxophonist Martin Jacobsen's quartet for a piano solo. In 2023 he recorded Easy Living with the vocalist Chaehee Lim (임채희), in whose working quintet he plays; he and Park arranged all ten songs on it. In September 2024 the two gave a duo concert in Gwangju, billed as two Gwangju-born players, and a 2024 concert notice lists him as pianist in her quintet.

In 2024 the monthly Jazz People named him one of its Rising Stars of the Year, with a profile in its March issue; the other Rising Stars that year included the saxophonist Kim Chan-young (김찬영), the bassist Kim Kang-bin (김강빈) and the flutist Kim Ji-yun (김지윤), and the group filmed a video and played together. The magazine's artist page describes a young pianist with a deep knowledge of the sounds the older masters left behind.

Night Chaser, his debut album, followed. He said a promoter, while a Korean tour for the American drummer Joe Farnsworth was being arranged in January 2024, asked whether he would like to record with him. He had been saving for a trip to New York and decided within half a day to make the album instead. The trio recorded it in a single day at Reve Music Studio, around August 10, 2024 by his account, with no rehearsal beforehand; Farnsworth arrived about an hour and a half late, and "It Could Happen to You," the first piece taped, was done in one take. Park had been playing some of the repertoire with him since their first Seoul gigs, among it "Tommy," "What a Difference a Day Makes" and "Who Cares?" The album reached streaming services on November 18, 2024, and the CD, issued by the Seoul label Biscuit Sound, carries a release date of December 30, 2024. It has ten tracks and runs 55 minutes: four originals and six standards. A year-end list of 2024 jazz albums in the newsletter Jazz Docent singled it out for its classic piano-trio flavor.

On March 7, 2025 the trio played an Oscar Peterson tribute at a jazz weekend at Credia Classic Club in Seoul. The next day, March 8, he led a concert titled Piano Trio Works at the Bitgoeul Art Space in Gwangju, with the bassist Daeho Kim and the drummer Kun Young Kim (김건영), playing the album's pieces and other standards. The trio was on the program of the Jaclyn Jazz Festa 2025 at Studio Neul on August 2, 2025. On March 14, 2026 he played piano in Daeho Kim's bebop group, Daeho Kim and The Boptist Church, with the guitarist Na Yeong-chan (나영찬), on a program of pieces by Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie. A blog review of a September 3, 2026 trio night at the Padak Padak Club in Suwon names a lineup of Kim with the bassist Jeon Han-guk (전한국) and the drummer Song Ha-yeon (송하연), and says the set included an unreleased original, "Dasoni." No second album has been found.

He plays New York style straight-ahead jazz and says he has never thought about doing anything else. The label's description calls the album a rare New York straight-ahead piano trio record for Korea, with standards interpreted from inside the tradition and originals that show a 21st-century view of jazz. In his interview he said the standards on the album are mostly pieces he wanted to record after years of listening to pianists such as Wynton Kelly and Mulgrew Miller and to Bill Charlap's Gershwin album, and that he has about 300 standards memorized and picks the ones he likes and can express. He asked Farnsworth for the feel of Art Blakey's "Moanin'" on one piece and a calypso rhythm on another, and Farnsworth obliged at once. His own YouTube channel carries a trio tribute to Red Garland ("June Night") and a live recording of "I Wish I Knew," and he has performed Oscar Peterson and bebop programs. He nearly always plays in a suit, which he says suits the pianists he admires and his own taste for classic clothes.

He also plays Hammond organ and said in early 2025 that he hoped to make a record on it someday, release two or three original singles that year, and write piano pieces outside jazz. No such release has been found. His stated aim is for the Yan Kim Trio to be the name people give when asked which Korean piano trio plays straight-ahead jazz. Everything of his that has been found is jazz.