DR. KARIM YENGSEP
Qazaq-American bassist and music educator Dr. Karim Yengsep began his studies of music at an early age. He arrived to the United States in 2000 as an international student and enrolled at Western Oregon University (BA in Music/Computer Science ’05) and later continued his studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Master of Music ’09 and Doctor of Musical Arts ’12) as a recipient of highly competitive tuition waiver scholarship awards from both WOU and UIUC. His primary teachers were bassists Dan Schulte in Oregon and Michael Cameron and Larry Gray in Illinois.
Upon successfully completing his doctoral studies, he returned to his native Kazakhstan and held administrative and teaching positions at various colleges and universities advancing from Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and then to Docent of Music (Associate Professor) within the span of three academic years. Additionally, he authored thirty radio-essays in a program called Jazz Review for national radio. All in all, throughout his academic career, Karim has worked every step of the educational process from teaching music elementary through graduate school levels, to running the back office of an established Chicago violin school or the student affairs department at one of the top universities in Central Asia.
In 2015, Karim immigrated to the United States and after first landing in Chicago, Illinois, moved with his family to Southern California in 2018. Here he set out to realize his lifelong passion of creating a community jazz education program that addressed the needs of often overlooked groups in the music education process -- youth and adult learners -- at the street level. SoCal Jazz Academy was registered with the State of California in January 2019.
In the short time that Karim has spent in Southern California, he has performed side by side with many notable jazz artists as bandleader at venues such as Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood, Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach, Jazzville in Palm Springs, Mozambique in Laguna Beach, and many other local venues. In addition, he built out the Friday Night Jazz series from the ground up at OC Fish Grill in the heart of Irvine, where he leads his quintet every Friday night for over 3 years. As a sideman, Karim has performed with saxophonist Chip McNeill and guitarist Freddie Franken in Central Illinois, and enjoys performing with saxophonist Edmund Velasco, trumpeter Tom Cunningham, and pianists Ron Kobayashi and Mark Massey when such opportunity arises.
After 20 years of first landing in the US, Karim became a naturalized US citizen in August 2021.
Discography
Listen Online
Live at OC Fish Grill (2022), Karim Yengsep Quintet [YouTube]
Staying Home Blues (2024), Ron Kobayashi [SoundCloud]