CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Lucian Ban
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City/Place:
New York City
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Teaca, Romania
Life
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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.
Contact Information
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Email:
info [at] lucianban.com
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Contact by Webpage:
http://www.lucianban.com/contact/
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Management/Booking:
BOOKING
Andreas Scherrer
Company of Heaven
info [at] companyofheaven.com
www.companyofheaven.com
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Wolfram Mathematics
From Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, the unprecedented integration of the creative economy. Creators planet-wide positioned within reach of each other and the entire world by means of technology + small-world theory (see Wolfram above). Bahia was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history. It was refuge for Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition. It is Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a sociocultural matrix which is all of these: a small-world matrix. Neural structures for human memory are small-world. This technological matrix is small-world...
In small worlds great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX