Romanian folk meets Brooklyn jazz

The intricate weave of Mat Maneri’s raspy viola and Lucian Ban’s full-bodied piano has been a jazz pleasure for more than a decade. Ban’s Romanian origins, never far beneath the surface of his music, give contemporary jazz an original twist, and Maneri, a schooled and sympathetic collaborator, is equally strong. In their first duo album for ECM, Transylvanian Concert Ban’s roots were perceptible in the undercurrent of roiling emotions and a rhythmic turn of phrase but, overall, the aesthetic was that of New York left-field jazz. Transylvanian Dance, the follow-up ECM release, recorded live in Romania in 2022, makes Ban’s heritage even more explicit.  Tracks such as the mournful “Harvest Moon Ballad” and the brooding “Lover Mine of Long Ago” resonate with Transylvanian sorrows and up-tempo pieces conjure village festivities. But now the influence of downtown Brooklyn is stronger, viola and piano are more intimately connected and moods are downbeat . . . unfulfilled desires are captured as blues cadences and Romanian scales combine.