Home » Jazz Musicians » Lao Dan
Lao Dan
Lao Dan / Vasco Trilla: New Species
by John Sharpe
A fortuitous meeting between Spanish drummer Vasco Trilla and Chinese reed player Lao Dan at a festival in the latter's homeland led to a concert and subsequent studio session. Yet it is that first encounter, recorded at Old Heaven Books in Shenzhen, a hub of the country's improvised-music scene, that New Species preserves. Both musicians share an experimental outlook and prove well matched, with Dan among the better-known Chinese practitioners to Western ears and Trilla commanding a formidable reputation as ...
Continue Reading...Lao Dan / Vasco Trilla: New Species
by Glenn Astarita
There is a moment on “Tea Horse Road," the album's fourth track, where the saxophone drops to a near whisper and the percussion seems to breathe rather than strike. You realize you are not listening to two musicians from opposite sides of the world so much as two people who have agreed, without a word, on exactly how much silence costs. Lao Dan grew up in Northeastern China near the North Korean border. He showed enough early talent ...
Continue Reading...Lao Dan / Deng Boyu: TuTu Duo
by John Sharpe
The profile of jazz and improvisation from China rates roughly the same as the chances of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, or an anti-vaxxer's feel for community (if neither of those comparisons sits comfortably, just make up your own)—vanishingly small. So the release of TuTu Duo by reedman Lao Dan and percussionist Deng Boyu, on the Lithuanian NoBusiness imprint, arrives as something of an ear-opener. It presents an idiosyncratic blend of fire music-inclined free playing and folk-inflected melodies ...
Continue Reading...Music
Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson
