Happy Lunar New Year from WWOZ and welcome to the Year of the Horse! In celebration, we're taking a look back at Saigon Jazz Revival's inaugural concert as they presented Carol Kim, live at Marigny Studios in New Orleans on November 14, 2025! This is just part of what was a very special night. WWOZ served as media partner for the event.

This song, entitled "Đón Xuân," is a Vietnamese classic about welcoming spring after the lunar new year. It was first recorded by Carol Kim in Saigon in 1971 with a traditional New Orleans jazz style of accompaniment and surprising Latin instrumental section. Carol Kim's recordings from that era went on to become a pillar of identity and freedom for all generations of the Vietnamese diaspora until this very day.

Saigon Jazz Revival is a new collaborative music project that seeks to revive a lost era of Vietnamese jazz and reimagine the cross-cultural energy of old Saigon through a contemporary New Orleans lens. Helmed by film and music director Marion Hoang Ngoc Hill and music directors Steve Lands and Oscar Rossignoli, the project entails both original collaborations with various Vietnamese diasporic artists as well as dynamic re-creations of Vietnamese folk songs.