I first heard Lựu sing at Bebop. They were hosting one of their monthly swing dance events run by Rosi, in which Saigon based swing dancers gather for an evening of dancing while a band known as the Saigon Swing Orchestra provides the music. The second floor of Bebop was organised so that the band played up front while seats made a U shape along the walls. Seated at one end of the U, several members of the band were getting ready. Lựu was among them. We struck up a conversation but I didn’t expect any of what happened next: as the band got ready to perform, she went up and taking centre stage, began singing a swing standard with a voice that at once reminded me of the jazz singers of old. With the way the spotlights hit the band and Lựu, it looked like a scene straight out of La La Land. I was floored, wanted to know more, and so a few weeks later we met at A Priori Cafe. It was the perfect place to learn more about her, a place where you could while away the hours as the noise of Saigon went mute out the doors. And so I listened to her sing.
Lựu was born and raised in Saigon. Some people are lucky enough to know what they want to do from a young age, and Lựu was one of them. As a child she was already a performer in her own eyes, mimicking singers on tv shows like Vietnam Idol and The Voice, as well as learning every song on Phineas and Ferb as a way to practice her chops. With such a clear love of music and singing, it wasn’t long before she picked up the mic. She’d been taking vocal lessons since the age of seven, and one night when her school hosted a performance, the girl who was supposed to sing didn’t show up. Lựu’s teacher handed her the mic and she took it away, recalling that she was so young the nerves never hit her—She was right where she belonged: on stage.
Despite an early exposure to singing, it wasn’t until high school that Lựu committed to the idea of being a singer herself. Up until then she’d mainly been listening to and singing anything poppy. Think Billboard 100’s and the type of music you’d hear regurgitated on the radio. While she doesn’t see anything wrong with this type of music, her true musical calling would come in the ninth grade. That was when she started songwriting, as well as learning the guitar, bass, and piano. Initially self-taught, eventually she reached a ceiling with the instruments and started taking lessons. It was at one such lesson when her guitar teacher showed her how to play the C major 7 chord. As soon as she heard it played, it struck her right to the core, so going home after that lesson she looked for more information about it and discovered the chord was commonly used in jazz. This kickstarted her appreciation of the genre. It was love at first listen, and as a teenager the depth and beauty of jazz could only be described as ethereal, a sound that was as old as time itself, foreign and yet all-too-familiar. She was hooked. Greats like Ella Fitzgerald became—and remain to this day—some of her biggest sources of inspiration. There was no looking back. Lựu applied to the Ho Chi Minh City College of Culture and Arts after high school and spent three years learning how to be a better singer. Upon graduating, she entered the Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory of Music, where she currently studies as a second-year student.
I’m of the belief that for any artist, what separates the good from the great is their willingness to develop a style that’s uniquely their own. In writing people call it a voice. In painting you might refer to it as a painter’s aesthetic. No matter what word you choose, developing your own style allows you to create the kind of art that only you could create, an act that’s akin to illuminating the world with a light that could only emanate from your soul. The question then is: how does one develop their own style? In my view, the reality is that though beneficial, school doesn’t help in this endeavor. Speaking from experience as someone who studied creative writing in university, those classes helped from a technical standpoint but when it came to making me more ‘myself’ as a writer, I believe I only saw consistent change when I was actually spending months on end putting pen to paper. What matters, then, is to be actively engaged in the creation of your art. This is why I was glad to hear that alongside her studies in the HCMC Conservatory, Lựu’s currently singing in three different bands.
Though Lựu’s had numerous other live performances since the first time she was handed a mic at seven years old, it wasn’t until last year that she started singing jazz live. The opportunity arose after she was in the studio making a Vietnamese bossa nova song she’d written herself. The producer also happened to be a pianist for the Saigon Swing Orchestra, a big band that plays jazz and swing standards with the aim of providing music for swing dancers in the city. He asked whether she’d be interested in joining and naturally, she said yes. Her first show was at Broma, and as we chatted at A Priori she recalled with a gleam in her eye about how nervous she was on the day of the gig. Jazz had been a genre she’d wanted to sing since she’d first heard that C major 7 chord in highschool, and it was surreal that she’d finally been given the opportunity to do so with a live band. Her nerves disappeared as soon as she started singing, the music made her feel happy and full and even though she remembers making a bunch of mistakes, they could never dull the experience. She continues to sing with the Saigon Swing Orchestra, regularly performing at Bebop, Broma, and the Sofitel Hotel. She credits the band members for a lot of her development since she’d started singing jazz with them a year ago, with tunes like Duke Ellingston’s Take The A-Train one of the most featured songs on their set list.
Lựu also sings with a jazz big band called the Mekong Delta Big Band. The offer to sing with them came six months ago from the drummer of the Saigon Swing Orchestra. With five members in the rhythm section, twenty horn players, and three singers, all the numbers they do are arranged in the big band style. This has given Lựu the opportunity to perform with a much larger group of musicians, all the while remaining rooted in jazz through covers of songs like All That Jazz and Summertime. Finally, Lựu also fronts a rock band called Nova. A four-piece that uses a backing track as something of a fifth member, Nova is the band Lựu’s been singing with the most. Playing with them came out of a desire to never limit herself to a single genre, so even though jazz remains her favourite, Lựu’s happy to experiment with rock through covers of Queen, Blur, and Muse. It’s nice to hear of this willingness to try different things, and again this comes back to the importance of style and how actively engaging in your art is one of the best ways to develop that magic which separates you from others. Lựu told me that nowadays she has a gig at least once a week with one of the three bands, and when you add onto that her studies at the HCMC Conservatory of Music, as well as her work as a vocal and performance teacher for college students, Lựu’s life is pretty much steeped in music.
Our conversation winded down. The two hours passed without any humps, passed like listening to a jazz album you’d play on a Sunday afternoon, like a bossa nova record you’ve always got on repeat at the beach. When I asked Lựu what she wanted to do next, she told me she wanted to leverage her base in swing, jazz, and rock to record more original songs in Vietnamese. I liked the idea, asked whether she was interested in getting a record label and she said she was—naturally—but that the music came first, then, and only then, the money. There was nothing left to ask but get a few names of musicians she liked—more for myself than anything. There were Vietnamese stars like Hà Trần, Trịnh Công Sơn, and Minh Tốc & Lam. Besides them, Yebba, Cyrille Aimee, and Queen, with iconic frontman Freddie Mercury someone she describes as a pure singer whose voice seems to come from the depths of his heart. Oh, and of course, Ella. How could you ever forget about Ella?
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