There’s something ceaselessly special about jazz standards: pull any impromptu group of unrelated musicians on the spot with the same piece of music in mind, and they’ll play it as well as if they’d spent the last three hours rehearsing it nonstop. And when the classically trained Korean contrabass player Jun-Hyuk Choi was traveling through the bustling streets of Florence, Italy, this is exactly what happened to him!
After stumbling on a busking duo – one violinist and an acoustic guitarist – Jun-Hyuk spontaneously joined their street set, plucking the bassline to jazz standard “Autumn Leaves” with complete strangers he’d only just met. Their on-the-spot cover ended up being so phenomenal that it’s already racked up over 28.7 million YouTube views to date!
A happy-go-lucky violin melody opens this piece, padded about by some fresh guitar chords and a walking bassline. But when the violinist drops back to give the spotlight to Jun-Hyuk’s bassline, he truly shows off his skills. Even the violinist watches on, transfixed, assessing his co-star’s talent speechlessly, before looking around to his audience as if to say, “Check out this guy! He’s a pro!”
Making this clip even more incredible is the fun fact hidden in this clip’s YouTube description, reading verbatim, “In Korea, [Jun-Hyuk] played it with four strings, but there were only three, which might make him play a little bit hard but amazing.” Any guitarist, violinist, or bassist will know the pain of voicing riffs and chords with an incomplete set of strings. But Jun-Hyuk doesn’t miss a single note, despite having to jump around to unconventional positions to make this cover work.
This isn’t Jun-Hyuk’s only online cover of “Autumn Leaves” either. Music Man readers can check out his absurd “Cat Vibe” edition in the video above!
After winning the violinist’s instant approval, the melody-maker sits to let a bright, Nintendo-like melody flow, as the camera pans round revealing the beautiful, grey-skied city and architecture of Florence, and the smiling crowd building around the trio. One lady even poses for an inconvenient selfie beside the guitarist mid-song, and just as the crowd unleashes a round of applause, the trio stuns them with a double-time encore, as upbeat as you can imagine. Just wait until Jun-Hyuk’s second bass solo wows the crowd and violinist all over again, before the violinist totally steals the show with one final extravagant run.
While some fans have been busy praising the trio’s improvisational skills, other top commenters on this viral clip have been peering into the heart of this clip, with viewers writing:
“The guitarist is really the breadwinner. He’s the one who supports silently without stepping forward. It’s really hard to find someone like that in a band.”
“The violinist’s performance makes me feel the years and life he has lived… They say that life doesn’t flow as planned, and his performance sounds like that too.”
“The sound of coins dropping, people talking, a nice background, good music… This video has everything. If you put on your earphones and close your eyes, it feels like you’re watching a street performance in Italy. Thank you.”