Bio:
LUCIAN BAN was raised in a small village in northwest Transylvania, in “the region where Bartok did his most extensive research and collecting of folk songs" and grew up listening to both traditional and classical music. He studied composition at the Bucharest Music Academy while simultaneously leading his own jazz groups, and notes that his approach to improvisation has been influenced by “the profound musical contributions of Romanian modern classical composers like Aurel Stroe, Anatol Vieru and of course Enesco". Desire to get closer to the source of jazz brought him to the US, and since moving from Romania to New York in 1999 has been leading several projects creating music that reinvents the jazz idiom and collaborating with some of today’s most celebrated jazz musicians. His compositions are performed and recorded by several ensembles and he has released 19 albums under his name for labels such as ECM, Sunnyside, Clean Feed, CIMP, Jazzaway, all the while maintaining a worldwide touring schedule.
In 2013 ECM records releases Transylvanian Concert, a live album of self-penned ballads, blues, hymns and abstract improvisations with American violinist MAT MANERI that is met with critical acclaim spanning constant touring ever since. His 2nd album with ELEVATION quartet, Songs from Afar (Sunnyside 2016), featuring Abraham Burton, John Hebert, Eric McPherson and special guests Mat Maneri and Transylvanian traditional singer Gavril Tarmure won the 2016 DOWNBEAT BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR Award receiving a 5* "masterpiece" review. In 2017 Clean Feed Records releases to rave reviews Sounding Tears featuring Mat Maneri and legendary Evan Parker, one of the pivotal figures of European jazz experimentalism of the last 50 years. His Enesco Re-Imagined (Sunnyside 2010) album dedicated to reinterpreting the music of early XX century classical genius George Enesco and featuring some of NYC most celebrated musicians like Tony Malaby, Gerald Cleaver, Ralph Alessi and tabla legend Badal Roy wins multiple BEST ALBUM OF YEAR from Jazz Journalists Association and performs major venues and festivals on both sides of the Atlantic.
2019 sees the release of Free Fall (Sunnyside), a duet with Amsterdam based clarinetist Alex Simu, a tribute to jazz icon Jimmy Giuffre and his groundbreaking trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, followed by DARK BLUE a celebration of two decades of close collaboration with baritone sax master Alex Harding. In November Mat Maneri releases DUST featuring Lucian Ban, John Hebert & Randy Peterson and on December 6 Opera de Lyon presents the premiere of OEDIPE REDUX a radical new take on George Enescu magnum opera Oedipe conceived with Mat Maneri for an all star octet featuring Theo Bleckmann, Jen Shyu, Ralph Alessi, Tom Rainey, John Hebert and French bass clarinet virtuoso Louis Sclavis.
In 2020 Lucian Ban releases Transylvanian Folk Songs in trio with Mat Maneri & and legendary John Surman re imagining the Béla Bartók collected folk songs of Romanian people in Transylvania at the beginning of XX century. Album garners critical acclaim with features on NPR, Financial Times, Jazziz, etc.
Lucian Ban has performed/recorded with among others: Abraham Burton, Nasheet Waits, Louis Sclavis, Mat Maneri, John Surman, Billy Hart, Alex Harding, Barry Altschul, Gerald Cleaver, Bob Stewart, Badal Roy, Tony Malaby, Mark Helias, Sam Newsome, Ralph Alessi, Pheeroan AkLaff, Reggie Nicholson, Drew Gress, Brad Jones, Jen Shyu, John Hebert, Eric McPherson, Theo Bleckmann, etc.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).