Transylvanian Concert Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri

• 1 Not That Kind of Blues 10:05
• 2 Harlem Bliss 09:55
• 3 Monastery 08:03
• 4 Retina 08:06
• 5 Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen 04:41
• 6 Darn 04:24
• 7 Two Hymns 10:26
• Total Runtime 55:40

Info for Transylvanian Concert

Transylvanian Concert” marks an ECM debut for Romanian pianist-composer Lucian Ban and a welcome return for US violist Mat Maneri, in his 9th appearance for the label. The album documents a spontaneously organised performance in Targu Mures, in the region where Lucian Ban grew up. A large, highly-attentive audience follows Ban and Maneri through a programme of their self-penned ballads, blues, hymns and abstract improvisations, plus Mat’s chilling solo performance of the spiritual “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen”, the whole informed by the twin traditions of jazz and European chamber music. Rain, drumming upon the stained-glass windows of the Culture Palace, offers occasional melancholy commentary. In all, a unique and compelling set.

Transylvanian Concert” marks an ECM debut for Romanian-born pianist-composer Lucian Ban and a welcome return for US violist Mat Maneri, in his ninth appearance for the label. The album documents a performance in the Culture Palace of Targu Mures, in the heart of Transylvania.

Ban and Maneri (both born in 1969) are improvisers whose work is informed by jazz’s traditions and freedoms and by chamber music’s structural coherence and dynamics. “Structure can be learned,” Ban says. “Freedom is more an instinct. I think there’s no essential difference between composition and improvisation. The great players erase completely the line [...] their improvisations sound like compositions and the other way around.” This can certainly be claimed for the pieces heard in the “Transylvanian Concert”: Ban’s compositions here – “Not That Kind of Blues”, “Harlem Bliss”, “Monastery” and “Two Hymns” – were created with Mat Maneri and his uniquely liquid, dark sound in mind. “Ellington always wrote for Harry Carney, not for the baritone saxophone”, Ban reminds us. “Mat and I have a telepathic understanding when we play, and much of the music takes shape as we play it.”

The seeds of the duo were sown in an earlier Ban ensemble project “Enesco Reimagined”, featuring Lucian’s arrangements of the works of his countryman George Enesco, premiered in 2009. Mat and Lucian’s intuitive interpretation in the re-orchestration of Enesco’s 3rd Sonata “in the Romanian folk character” took flight: “We started playing and the music just flowed.” After that, “we knew we had to do something as a duo. I’m glad we did, as it’s become a special and productive collaboration.”

Lucian Ban, who moved from Romania to New York in 1999, first heard Mat with Paul Motian at the Village Vanguard, “I was impressed by the fact that he always knew what to play and when to play it, and also when not to play. Silence is very important to me. Nasheet Waits recommended Mat for the Enesco project, and as soon as we started working together I was struck by his ability to make anything he plays sound both good and highly unusual at the same time.”

Ban was raised in a small village in northwest Transylvania, in “the region where Bartók 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 his ensembles have included many of New York’s finest players.

Mat Maneri was born in Brooklyn. Important influences on his work – in addition to all the major forces of jazz – include baroque music (which he studied with with Juilliard String Quartet co-founder Robert Koff), Elliott Carter, and the 2nd Vienna School of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern which was of such central importance to his father, the late, great saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and educator Joe Maneri.. Mat’s solo feature on “Transylvanian Concert”, the spiritual “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen”, is a piece that was frequently performed by the Joe Maneri Quartet (as on the ECM album “In Full Cry”). Mat Maneri’s ECM discography includes his solo violin and viola recording “Trinity”, five albums with Joe Maneri in duo, trio and quartet formations, and two discs with Scottish singer, poet, harpist and guitarist Robin Williamson.

The “Transylvanian Concert” itself was, as Lucian Ban notes, rather “unexpected and unique”. Ban and Maneri were on tour in Europe in the summer of 2011 with a project called Tarkovsky Redux, offering musical responses to the films of the iconic Russian director. At the tour’s end, a local promoter proposed a duo concert in the Culture Palace of Tagu Mures, not far from the village where Ban had grown up. “I remember coming into Targu Mures as kid, with my grandmother, and seeing this big building in the centre of the city, never thinking that I’d get to play there. It’s a rather stunning place, built in the Viennese Secessionist style with a grand opera-like hall.” On the concluding “Two Hymns” (dedicated to the memory of Maria Voda, Ban’s grandmother) the attentive listener can hear rain thrumming on the hall’s roof, in subtle accompaniment. “It only rained during that tune.”

Lucian Ban, piano
Mat Maneri, viola

Concert recording June 5, 2011 by Tibor Kacso at Culture Palace, Targu Mures, Transylvania
Mastering: Christoph Stickel and Steve Lake
Album produced by Lucian Ban and Steve Lake

Lucian Ban
Twice nominated in 2005 & 2006 for prestigious Hans Koller “Best European Jazz Musician Preis“Award, pianist, bandleader, composer & arranger LUCIAN BAN is originally from Cluj, Transylvania, Romania. He currently lives in New York City where is part of the next generation of performers & composers at the forefront of contemporary modern jazz.

He leads several projects and writes innovative music that reinvents the idiom of jazz music. His compositions are performed & recorded by other musicians and ensembles. Mr. Ban leads the super group ELEVATION featuring world renowned tenor sax Abraham Burton, Eric McPherson on drums and bassist John Hebert, the ASYMMETRY Quartet feat. Jorge Sylvester (alto sax), Brad Jones (bass) and Derrek Phillips (drums), and The TUBA PROJECT a group featuring the famous Bob Stewart on (tuba), Alex Harding (bari sax), Bruce Williams (alto sax) and Derrek Phillips (drums).

He co-leads with renowned bassist John Hebert the acclaimed project “Enesco Re-Imagined” an ensemble that presents a radical re-interpretation of 20th century classical genius George Enesco. An all star group featuring Badal Roy, Tony Malaby, Ralph Alessi, Mat Maneri, Albrecht Maurer and Gerald Cleaver the group toured extensively performing at London Jazz Festival, Barcelona Jazz Fest, Jazz d’Or, Guimaraes Jazz Fest, Glenn Gould Hall, Le Poisson Rouge & Merkin Hall among others. The album was released on Sunnyside Records in 2010 to rave reviews and won several “Best of 2010 Lists”

He also co-leads with soprano sax great Sam Newsome “The Romanian-American Jazz Suite” group, a project that presents Romanian Folk music from a jazz perspective. In 2008 their CD bearing the same name was released to great success by Jazzaway Records, followed by successful tours on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2003 the Lumination Ensemble featuring drum legend Barry Altschul was voted "One of the best shows of 2003 " by the All About Jazz Magazine NYC along with Cecil Taylor and Joe Lovano groups.

Mr. Ban has released 9 critically acclaimed albums as a leader for US and European based labels. 2003 sees his US debut recording with "Something' Holy" a duet CD with Alex Harding followed by "Premonition" a Quintet album featuring Alex Harding, Damion Reid, Erik Torrente and Chris Dahlgren both for CIMP Records. In 2006 he releases on Jazzaway Records “PLAYGROUND” by his Asymmetry Quartet one of his best albums to date, followed by a sideman appearance on Alex Harding’s acclaimed “The Calling“ CD (featuring Nasheet Waits, Brad Jones and Andrew Daniels).

In 2005 he releases the first album of the unique TUBA PROJECT band featuring Bob Stewart, J.D.Allen, Alex Harding, and Derrek Phillips. And in 2008 “The Romanian-American Jazz Suite” by Sam Newsome & Lucian Ban Ensemble is released to great success on Jazzaway Records. In 2010 Sunnyside Records releases the acclaimed Enesco Re-Imagined CD to rave reviews. His first 2 recordings as a leader, “Changes – Live at Green Hours” and “From now on” were released on the Romanian label Green Records.

He performs and tours regularly with his projects and as a sideman in New York jazz clubs and Europe Festivals and between 2002 -2005 was a member of The BMI Composers Jazz Workshop. Lucian Ban has performed/recorded with among others: Alex Harding, Barry Altschul, Gerald Cleaver, Bob Stewart, Badal Roy, Tony Malaby, Mark Helias, Sam Newsome, Art Baron, Curtis Fowlkes, Gene Jackson, Nasheet Waits, Mat Maneri, Pheeroan AkLaff, Reggie Nicholson, Drew Gress, J.D.Allen, Willard Dyson, Carlo DeRosa, Damion Reid, Jorge Sylvester, Josh Roseman, Abraham Burton, Essiet Essiet, Chris Dahlgren, Brad Jones, John Hebert, Bruce Williams, Bruce Cox, Hill Greene, Eric McPherson, etc.

Mat Maneri
Mat Maneri, born on October 4th, 1969 in Brooklyn, New York is an American composer, improviser and jazz violin and viola player, specifically derivatives such as the five-string viola, the electric six-string violin, and the baritone violin. He is the son of the saxophonist Joe Maneri.

Maneri has recorded with Cecil Taylor, Matthew Shipp, Joe Morris, Joe Maneri, Gerald Cleaver, Tim Berne, Borah Bergman, Mark Dresser, William Parker, Michael Formanek, John Lockwood, as well as with his own trio, quartet, and quintet.

He has also played on various band releases: Club d'Elf, Decoupage, Brewed by Noon, Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, Buffalo Collision. Maneri has worked with Ed Schuller, John Medeski, Roy Campbell, Paul Motian, Tomasz Stanko, Robin Williamson, Drew Gress, Tony Malaby, Ben Monder, Barre Phillips, Joëlle Léandre, Marilyn Crispell, Craig Taborn, Ethan Iverson, David King and many others.

Maneri started studying violin at the age of five and received a full scholarship as the principal violinist at Walnut Hill High School. He also studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, he then went on to pursue a professional career in jazz music.

He is an experienced educator who has taught at the New England Conservatory and the New School among others. He has taught privately for over 15 years and has frequently presented specialized workshops on improvisation, performance technique, ear training and theory both in Europe and North America. In 2006, Maneri was nominated for a Grammy award in the category "Best Alternative Music Album" for the CD Pentagon.

Mat and his wife Lucy live in Brooklyn.

Booklet for Transylvanian Concert