"His first full-length release as a leader, Faith delivers an excellent lesson in the globally transcendent nature of modern jazz."
       Chris M. Slawecki, All about Jazz

Jan Kus – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, composer, songwriter, arranger, Producer
Bandleader of Slavo rican assembly (please click on the text to learn more)

photo by: Vianca Maldonado

Jan Kus started his musical journey at age 5 in his native country of Slovenia, studying clarinet and general music studies.
He had always been drawn to various sounds of music from all eras and all parts of the world, and it all started from his father’s record collection of creative music from the 60’ and 70’s, and 80’s.
Spending a significant portion of his childhood in post-war Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina with his extended family, and participating in a Bosnian refugee choir in Slovenia, he was captivated and inspired by the sounds of other musical cultures from an early age on. 
After graduating from the National Conservatory for Music in Ljubljana in 2006, where he studied Jazz saxophone, the young recipient of the prestigious scholarship, granted by the Slovenian Ministry of culture, continued his musical studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Netherlands.

 During his time in The Hague, Jan performed as both a leader and a sideman with the who’s who on the scene of up and coming young as well as already established European jazz musicians, playing extensively in The Netherlands, as well as touring internationally throughout Europe (Slovenia, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Cyprus, and Slovakia).

Upon the completion of his Bachelor studies and his return to Slovenia in 2011, Jan continued his activity on the local music scene, most notably becoming a founding member of the Ziga Murko 13 Brass Band (originally known as Boben in Lajna Brass Band), with which he performed at several notable jazz festivals in Slovenia, including Ljubljana Jazz Festival, Festival Lent, and Jazz Cerkno. In collaboration with the Slovenian flamenco guitar virtuoso, Vito Marence, Jan also started his own international ethno-jazz group, AMNA, featuring musicians from Slovenia, Greece, Cypruss, and Indonesia, blending the sounds of Flamenco guitar, with those of the Balkans and India. The band was met with great enthusiasm by the Slovenian audience, having performed most notably at RTV Slovenia’s Studio 14, and Boben in Lajna Jazz Festival.

 In 2012, Jan arrived to New York City to pursue his Masters degree at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College under the tutelage of the saxophone legend, Antonio Hart., who took Jan under his wing and taught him about the depths of the Jazz tradition. Immediately upon his arrival, he participated as a core member and composer in the all star – lineup recording sessions of the Ziga Murko 13 brass band, which included Mark Turner, David Binney, Alex Sipiagin, Jason Palmer, Dave Taylor, and Josh Roseman, among others.

During his time at Queens College, Jan started collaborating extensively as a sideman with a number of international musicians he met on the NYC's thriving jazz scene, performing in various formats and musical environments, from piano-less saxophone trios, to large ensembles and big bands, including performances, recording sessions, and special feature solos written for him to perform in the context of a larger ensemble. He was also awarded with the prestigious Jimmy Heath Award for his outstanding academic work.

It was during this time also, when Jan founded his first New York-based formation, the Jan Kus Quartet, then featuring New York-native pianist Sean Fitzpatrick, and two Puerto Rican musicians - bassist Dan Martínez, and drummer Joel Mateo, and started composing original music for it. The band (in various formations) later toured in Slovenia, Puerto Rico and in South Korea, and it was around that time that the phrase “Slavo Rican” had first been coined, when Jan was trying to describe the unique mixture that seems to be spontaneously occurring in the sounds of his group.
The group went on to record their debut album, Faith, released in 2016, in which Jan’s eclectic musical horizons were showcased once again, with the album receiving contributions from a musically incredibly diverse cast of musicians, including Russian trumpet master Alex Sipiagin, Polish modern jazz guitarist Rafal Sarnecki, Brooklyn born Jazz/Neo-Soul vocalist and producer of Haitian origin, Melanie JB Charles, and Puerto Rican percussionist, Carlos Maldonado. Probably most meaningfully, however, the album also featured Jan’s reunion, this time in the studio, with his afore mentioned mentor, saxophone legend, Antonio Hart, with whom they joined forces on Jan’s original composition, inspired by his meeting of Buddhist monks in South Korean, Emptiness (please click here to listen).
The album was topped the Canadian and American charts, and was praised by various critics for its eclectic taste and strong musical vision (review highlights available in Reviews section - please click here).

In the spirit of that eclectic taste and musical curiosity, Jan also very gladly embraced the collaboration with Indian and Serbia singers/songwriters Vasuda Sharma, and Aleksandra Denda, respectively, with whom they joined forces in 2015 on their original composition, Already Here (click here for the video), with Jan contributing as a featured soloist on the soprano saxophone. The single was later reviewed in the prestigious Rolling Stone magazine (click here for more info).

Out of all the musical genres, however, Jan has always been particularly interested in Latin Jazz, which stemmed from his friendship and collaborations in his early twenties with the now acclaimed latin jazz and flamenco jazz trombonist, Santiago Cañada.
That curiosity and research grew into a marvelous reality, when, in the year of 2015, Jan became a steady member of the acclaimed New York-based Latin Jazz ensemble, Fernando García Sextet (click for more info). Focusing on the Puerto Rican Bomba tradition and its jazz reinterpretations, the band’s first album, Guasábara Puerto Rico, was selected as one of the Best albums of 2018 by the Downbeat magazine, and one of Top 5 Latin Jazz albums of 2018 by the NYC Jazz Record. Being a member of the group enabled Jan to deepen his knowledge of Caribbean musical traditions, while performing with some of the household names of this generation’s and previous generation’s Latin Jazz musicians, most notably including Miguel Zenón, and Alain Pérez. The band also embarked on a tour of Puerto Rico in the fall of 2018, one of Jan’s several trips to the magical island, during which they performed at the XXII Festival Internacional de Percusión y 1er Encuentro de Bateristas Afrocaribeños, which featured many other acclaimed Laitn Jazz artists, including Horcaio ‘El Negro’ Hernández a.o..

All of Jan’s musical journeys and curiosities culminated in what he is today - a New York-based bandleader, saxophonist, composer, arranger, songwriter, and producer.  In addition to performing and recording with some of today’s biggest names in instrumental music (Miguel Zenón, Alex Sipiagin, Alain Pérez, Antonio Hart, Linda Oh, Marko Djordjevic), and being active in a wide variety of musical genres (Traditional to Modern Jazz, Latin jazz, Flamenco, Neo-Soul), he performs his original music on a steady basis throughout the Tri-State Area and Europe, with past performances in Asia and the Caribbean.

Most notably, Jan is also the founder and leader of his cross-cultural group, Slavo Rican Assembly (click for more info), in which he unites some of the most notable names from both the Caribbean (Dan Martínez, Gabriel Vicéns, Ahmed Alom Vega, Fernando García), and the Slavic (Aleksandra Denda, Zan Tetickovic aka Jean John), sides of that unique musical equation, to create a fresh and unique sound - a blend of South Slavic/Balkan and Caribbean folk music, rooted in tradition, yet continuously flying away into new sonic galaxies. In the Summer of 2019, the band performed a very well received tour of Slovenia, during which they appeared at notable jazz festivals, including Jazz Festival Ljubljana (alongside names such as Snarky Puppy), and Sax Go Festival ‘19 in Nova Gorica (which also featured Kenny Garrett as the headliner that year). During that same time, Jan also had the immense honor of appearing as the featured soloist on his original composition with Slovenia’s national Big Band RTV Slovenia, at a special concert for the 60th anniversary of the mentioned Jazz Festival Ljubljana, featuring notable Slovenian jazz musicians, based in New York City.
Slavo Rican Assembly released its debut audio-video single, Jan’s original composition, Moving Up, in October of 2019, and it was met by a great review at the acclaimed online portal, Latin Jazz Network (please click here to see the single and the review).

Apart from being Slavo Rican Assembly’s primary composer and arranger, he is also starting to contribute as a songwriter, having written the lyrics for some of their songs, and performing on vocoder in other songs as well.
His teenage interests in electronic music are also getting revived as of late, with him being increasingly involved with the post-production of Slavo Rican Assembly’s upcoming debut album, Slavo Rican 2020, on which he is collaborating with a wonderful up and coming producer, audio engineer, and composer on the New York scene, Danilo Pichardo, of Addictive Audio Studio.

Some of Jan’s latest ventures include scoring original film music for a feature film, set up as a collaboration between Slovenia and Thailand, which is scheduled for release in September of 2020, and working on a multimedia project for an atmospheric duet project, led by Dan Martínez, and a new, more electronically oriented quartet formation, currently still without a name.

Wether it is leading his band, performing in a sideman role as a saxophonist, producing new tracks, writing lyrics, or scoring music for a film, Jan is always looking forward to broaden his musical horizons - studying the tradition on one hand, while always seeking for new opportunities for creative endeavors on the other.

PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS:

Performed and recorded with:

Jimmy Heath, Antonio Hart, Alex Sipiagin, Miguel Zenón, Alain Pérez, Mark Turner, David Binney, Jason Palmer, Reggie Workman, Linda Oh, Andy Hunter, Jonathan Powell, Chris Potter, Melanie JB Charles, César Orozco, Pablo Bencid, Gaby Vivas, Fran Vielma, Jorge Glem, Ricky Rodriguez, Luisito Quintero, Jonathan Finlayson, Alina Engibaryan, Santiago Cañada, Marko Djordjevic, Roman Filiu, Fabrizio Scarafile, Rafael Maya, Gabriel Vicéns, Rafael Statin, Carlos Maldonado, Diego Obregon, Alejandro Zuleta, Dan Martínez, Vasuda Sharma, Aleksandra Denda, Sean Fitzpatrick, Dan Martínez, Gabriel Vicéns, Gabriel Chakarji, Ahmed Alom Vega, Kalí Rodriguez Peña, Dimitrije Vasiljevic, Victor Pablo, Gabo Lugo, Miles Griffith, Marko Churnchetz, Jure Pukl, Lenart Krecic, Igor Lumpert, Igor Bezget, Robert Jukic, Vladimir Kostadinovic, Tine Grgurevic aka Bowrain, Milan Nikolic, Zan Tetickovic aka Jean John, Sri Hanuraga, Kristijan Krajncan, Ziga Murko 

Performed at:

NYC - Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), United Nations Headquarters NYC (performance for International Jazz Day), Birdland Jazz Club, Teatro Latea,  Blue Note Jazz Festival, DROM, The Cell Theatre, Brooklyn Museum, Louis Armstrong House Museum, Rockwood Music Hall, National Sawdust, Terraza 7, NuBlu 151, Nu Blu Classic, a.o. Indianapolis - University of Purdue
New Jersey - Hoboken Public Library, Ramsey free public library, Leonia Public Library
Slovenia - Jazz Festival Ljubljana, Festival Lent, Jazzinty Abonma, Cankar house - Linhat’s Hall, Gallus’ Hall, Jazz Ravne Festival, RTV Slovenia, Jazz Club Gajo, Ljubljana Castle, Sax Go 19 festival, Narodni dom Maribor, Jazz Festival Piran, Orto Bar, K4, a.o.
Puerto Rico - Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico, San Juan (XXII Festival Internacional de Percusión y 1er Encuentro de Bateristas Afrocaribeños), Nuestro Son, a.o.
Hungary - Mediawave festival, Romer house Györ
The Netherlands: North Sea Jazz Festival, DIZZY Jazz Cafe, De Doelen Rotterdam  Croatia - Groznjan Jazz Festival, BP Club Zagreb
Cyprus: Paradise Jazz Festival
Slovakia: Dunajska Streda Greece: Ladonas Jazz Festival, Zakhyntos Belgium: JazzOra Leuwen, Jazzzolder - Belgium;

Recording credits:

-Gal in galeristi – Fetis

-Robert Jukic – Jazz for Masses

-Robert Jukic – Operation Charlie

-Igor Bezget - Pangea Big Band live at Festival Lent

-Ziga Murko 13 – 13 EP (featuring David Binney, Mark Turner, Jason Palmer, Alex Sipiagin, Dave Taylor)

-Seoyoun Yang – You are there, released March 2014 in South Korea

-Ziga Murko - The Green Room EP

-Yongwon Cho – YWQ, South Korea, 2015

-Sooyoung Chin Jazz Orchestra  - The Fables (featured soloist)

-Jan Kus Quartet - Faith

-Aleksandra Denda - The Dreamer EP (guest soloist on the single "Already Here" feat. Vasuda Sharma), released in March 2016

- Fernando García Sextet - Guasábara Puerto Rico, ZOHO Music 2018

- Slavo Rican Assembly - Slavo Rican 2020 - Currently in the post production phase!