Alex Harding / Lucian Ban - Blutopia

June 18, 2024

Label: Sunnyside Records, 2024

Personnel - Alex Harding; baritone saxophone; Lucian Ban: piano; Mat Maneri; viola; Bob Stewart: tuba; Brandon Lewis: drums.

Baritonist Alex Harding and pianist Lucian Ban forged a friendship and musical collaboration around 1998 when the latter arrived in New York from Romania to attend the New School. Their first recording was for Ban’s debut album Somethin’ Holy (CIMP, 2002). With Blutopia, the pair expands the duo work presented in Dark Blue (Sunnyside, 2019), adding singular musicians such as violist Mat Maneri, tubist Bob Stewart, and drummer Brandon Lewis.

Having their musical ethos defying conventional jazz practices, the group begins hauntingly with “Speak Our Silence”, a collective improvisation that drifts slowly across the horizon, benefiting from the plodding dark sound of the tuba at the end. In the same vein but with touches of world music in its percussive tract, Ban’s “Mist” is inspired by Sun Ra, who seemed to be the inspiration for the album’s title. Paul Motian’s “Fantasm” perfectly fits the mood as an ambiguously exquisite piece limned by meditative cooing and a pleasant contrast of timbres.

Sculpted as a transcendental Eastern-tinged lament, the beautiful and hypnotic “Marrakesh”, inspired by and dedicated to the late pianist Randy Weston, showcases exceptional moments of improvisation and synchronicity between Harding and Ban. The group explores other directions, offering gospel and classical chamber narratives in Harding’s “Spirit Take My Hand” and Ban’s “Hymn”, respectively.

One of the most energetic pieces on the album is Andrew Hill’s “Blue Black”, here permeated with a monumental groove, gorgeous unison lines, and solos from Maneri, who employs his arresting exploratory melancholy to paint out of the frame, and Harding, whose bluesy wails expand into intense euphoria. Ban’s “Hieroglyphics” carries an implacably engaging blend of folk, avant-garde jazz, and fanfare-ish ragtime, with Lewis’ drumming standing out.

Blutopia underscores the maturity of these musicians who, engaged with focused attention, ascend emotional peaks together with multi-layered soulfulness.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Speak Our Silence ► 02 - Blue Black ► 06 - Marrakesh

Abraham Burton / Lucian Ban - Blacksalt

April 5, 2021

Label: Sunnyside Records, 2021

Personnel - Abraham Burton: tenor saxophone; Lucian Ban: piano.

American saxophonist Abraham Burton has turned heads in projects of drummer Louis Hayes, pianist Horace Tapscott, and as a member of the Mingus Big Band. Romanian-born pianist Lucian Ban has been building a name for himself through fruitful collaborations with saxophonist Alex Harding, violist Mat Maneri, bassist John Hébert and, recently, the British multi-reedist John Surman. The two musicians are not strangers to each other since Burton is a central constituent in Ban’s Elevation quartet. Yet, they team up for the first time as a duo on Blacksalt, a seven-track set recorded live at the Baroque Hall in Timisoara, Romania, in 2018.

The album’s first two tracks, “Opening / Freeflow” and “Belize” are representative of the personal and musical kinship shared by these two sonic builders. Dedicated to Pharoah Sanders, the former has the saxophonist blowing with prayerful utterance while the pianist - ushering into percussive muted notes, lush chords and flexible textural coils - finds efficient ways to better serve his associate's spiritual fire, expressed with range and tonal coloring. The latter tune, on the other hand, charts a dramatic Afro-Caribbean flux that comes peppered with blues movements and a faithful Coltrane terminology.

Like the two aforementioned numbers, the title cut was penned by the twosome, who gets cracking in a burnished post-bop dialogue that progressively leans toward a tempestuous avant-garde before bending into a Latin dance.

Burton’s “Dad” is a 4/4 ballad previously included in the 1999 quartet album Cause and Effect (co-authored with the drummer Eric McPherson). The session closes with two Ban compositions - the crepuscular, rubato tone poem “Untold”; and “Not That Kind of Blues”, the opening piece of Ban/Maneri’s 2013 ECM album Transylvanian Concert, here inflated through a jamming rock 'n roll-ish behavior and nice call-and-response.

With the duo’s sonic worlds closely attuned, this disc is worth searching for.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Opening/Freeflow ► 02 - Belize ► 06 - Untold

Lucian Ban / John Surman / Mat Maneri - Transylvanian Folk Songs

May 11, 2020

Label: Sunnyside Records, 2020

Personnel - Lucian Ban: piano; John Surman: baritone and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet; Mat Maneri: viola.

The new explorative trio co-led by Romanian pianist Lucian Ban, American violist Mat Maneri and British multi-reedist John Surman focuses on interpretations of Romanian folk tunes recorded and transcribed by Hungarian pianist/composer Béla Bartók in the early 1900’s. The latter, a pioneer ethnomusicologist, travelled the Romanian countryside for eight years to collect peasant songs, some of which appear here with special arrangements by the trio. Ban and Maneri's musical affinities with Bartok's work compelled them to point out Surman as the third member of the ensemble due to his strong folk background and erudite sound development.

“The Dowry Song” is a wonderful piece that develops with unflinching purpose. With Ban providing a solid base in 5/4 time, Maneri inserts some percussive substance by gently plucking the strings, while the unmistakable, astonishing sound of Surman on baritone gets on top of everything. Before the crescendo that anticipates the finale, saxophone and viola embark on melodic parallels underpinned by a dramatic piano accompaniment that becomes tonally richer whenever Ban hits the lower registers.

“Up There” features Surman on bass clarinet, an instrument from which he draws mesmeric melodies with a magic touch. Maneri contributes to this asymmetric sculptural exploration with an appealingly tenuous asperity, benefitting from Ban’s textural creativity. The pianist improvises on this number over an ostinato equally shared by sax and viola.

The dynamic “Violin Song” exudes the freedom of an avant-folk experiment. There’s muted piano pedals and bold harmonies, fast elliptical soprano trajectories alternating with carefully paced folk melodies, angular viola cries, and heartfelt unisons capable of creating a strong emotional effect on the listener.

From this point on, the trio concentrates more on profound, introvert, sometimes mournful meditations such as “The Return”, “What a Great Night This Is, a Messenger Was Born”, “Carol” and “Bitter Love Song”, an icy yet translucent exercise where a frank dialogue between bass clarinet and viola occurs briefly with an absence of harmony.

The coherently calibrated layering of these three instruments never ceases, and considerably more light can be found on “The Mighty Sun”, a motivic classical tone poem, and on the closing piece, “Transylvanian Dance”, a Garbarek-esque folktale with repeating rhythmic cadences and dexterous chordal work.

Following a structured course of action, Transylvanian Folk Songs manages to be at once freewheeling and languidly pastoral.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - The Dowry Song ► 03 - Violin Song ► 08 - Bitter Love Song

Lucian Ban / Alex Simu - Free Fall

February 27, 2019

Label: Sunnyside, 2019

Personnel – Lucian Ban: piano; Alex Simu: clarinet, bass clarinet.

Pianist Lucian Ban and clarinetist Alex Simu have many things in common. They are both of Romanian descent and share symbiotic musical aptitudes with each other, at the same time that reveal an admirable availability to dive deep into an unselfish otherworldliness of diaphanous enchantment.

The outstanding opening tune on Free Fall, their first collaborative work, confirms what I just said. “Quiet Storm” was penned for multi-reedist Jimmy Giuffre, whose trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow inspired the music on this album. Sensitive and prayerful, the heavenly melodies navigate the simple harmonization, also a carrier of exceptional delicacy and touching beauty. The same posture is followed on “Jesus Maria”, an early Carla Bley composition that was first recorded by and better associated with the Giuffre Trio. Although unexpanded in tone and texture, you will find infinite compassion expressed in the suave movements.

Unearthing an improvisatory urgency, the title track brims with free, instinctive interplay, in which poised piano grooves and helical clarinet lines work together to achieve a dynamic combustion. The static shininess of “Mysteries”, another free piece, is diverted by a mildly stirring passage initiated halfway. At that point, the pianist opted to deliver pointed low-pitched jabs mixed with swirls on the middle-register, keeping pace with the clarinetist’s swift runs.

Simu claimed the spotlight during a solo bass clarinet presentation titled “Near”. He also co-wrote “The Pilgrim” with Folker Oosting, a piece initially marked by popping sounds while still denoting a classical innuendo refined by a bolero-ish vibe. Gradually, the blues takes shape, triumphing in the final section.

The duo brings the album to a close with two Giuffre numbers: “Cry, Want”, a scrupulous, bluesy lamentation, and “Used To Be”, a sort of blithe piano song that serves as a vehicle for Simu’s melodic expeditions.

Moving through wide and confined spaces with ease, Ban and Simu operate at the fringes of jazz and classical, communicating pleasant feelings as they search and create with abandon.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Quiet Storm ► 02 - Free Fall ► 07 – Cry, Want

Mat Maneri, Evan Parker, Lucian Ban - Sounding Tears

May 30, 2017

Label/Year: Clean Feed, 2017

Lineup: Mat Maneri: viola; Evan Parker: saxophones; Lucian Ban: piano.

Sounding Tears is a nebulous musical session devised by the improvisational masters Mat Maneri, Evan Parker and Lucian Ban, American violist, British saxophonist, and American pianist of Romanian descent, respectively.

While Maneri teamed up recently with saxophonist Tony Malaby and cellist Daniel Levine on New Artifacts (Clean Feed, 2017), another abstract trio work, the prolific Parker followed a similar path on the astonishingly atmospheric As The Wind (Psi, 2016), recorded with percussionist Mark Nauseff and lithophonist Toma Gouband. As for Lucian Ban, he, too, released an album called Songs From Afar (Sunnyside, 2017) with his Elevation quartet, which comprises saxophonist Abraham Burton, bassist John Hebért, and drummer Eric McPherson. Maneri also played as a guest on half of the tracks.

As expected, the music of this trio arrives on the spur of the moment, acquiring random shapes and apparently flowing without a fixed structure.

On “Blue Light”, we have Parker’s uninterrupted enunciations secured by muted viola sounds and low-pitched piano notes, both working as a percussive obbligato. A lethargic disposition embraces us in the beginning of “Da da da”, whose uncanny vibes shift into an odd dance of violin and sax while the piano remains actively involved in the discussion.

Neglecting tempo and forsaking harmony, “The Rule of Twelves” finds Maneri and Parker playing an avant-chamber duet immersed in ambiguity. Also rendered in duet, but this time featuring Ban and Parker, “This!” takes a conversational path that, despite experimental, feels more graspable than the previous compositions.
Afterward, it's Ban alone, who shines with a solo piece, “Polaris”, being also preponderant on the enigmatic “Blessed”, in which his penetrating low notes superimpose to the sparse high-pitched lines. The setting he creates is perfect for Maneri’s microtonal approach and Parker’s uncompromised strays.

The record’s two closing tracks are lenient yet contrasting in nature. If “Paralex” evolves into a compulsive manifesto of disordered small flurries and spasms, “Hymn” is the closest the band can get from a song format and the most touching and ear-pleasing tune on the record.

Sounding Tears is a one-of-a-kind experience. It can be a journey to the ends of a remote universe or a philosophical exploration about the measureless weight of some weird microorganism. It will all depend on the receptivity of your own senses.

Favorite Tracks:
04 – Blessed ► 05 –This! ► 10 – Hymn