Romanian born / NYC-based multi-instrumentalist Daniel Garbin takes jazz into some interesting new territory and other far-out realms on his 2025 album Rising. Inspired in his early years by the folk music of his native Transylvania city, Garbin combines the sounds of guitars with his expert sitar playing on an album that spotlights improvisation and keen melodic insights.

Moving to the US to further his up-and-coming music career, Garbin is concurrently teaching math and computer science at the Queensborough Community College in NYC.

Musically on Rising, Garbin’s band presents an impressive lineup, including saxophonist Scott Litroff, the piano playing of Camila Cortina Bello, the fretless electric bass of Eddy Khaimovich and the seasoned timekeeping of drummer Brian Woodruff.

Centered in mainstream contemporary jazz, Rising combines Pat Metheny-inspired smooth guitar sounds that also blend in a number of genres including Romanian folklore, Brazilian and Latin influences and of course Garbin’s sitar playing on the title track adds elegant touches of Indian flavors into the mix.

Equally amazing is how Garbin’s nimble-fingered fretboard work is colored by his graceful interplay with the band. Overall, Rising is best described as a feel-good jazz album that will be appreciated by fans of mainstream jazz, fusion, instrumental jazz-rock, and World Music alike.

RMR: Tell us about growing up in Romania or is it Transylvania? What is that part of the world like and how did living there inspire you musically? You mention inspiration from folklore music. What is the music scene like in Transylvania when were you first exposed to jazz and rock and music from India?

DANIEL GARBIN: I grew up in Baia Mare, a small town in north-western Transylvania, which is a region of Romania. The music scene there was small, yet mighty. The musicians played a variety of styles ranging from local folklore to rock, blues, and jazz. They were very serious about developing technique and being fluent in vocabulary from multiple music genres. I was exposed to local folklore music early on, and I was fascinated by how effortlessly the musicians communicated in that language and crossed between genres.

I also attended blues jam sessions, beginning to learn guitar with my friends. We spent long hours challenging each other to learn songs by ear. We listened to everything from The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Gary Moore, Mezzoforte, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Joe Satriani, Paco de Lucia, and Al Di Meola. The latter three were especially influential in my early guitar development.

I gradually became more and more attracted to jazz. By the time I was a freshman at university in Cluj-Napoca, I joined a big band there and continued to explore jazz standards and fusion.  In 2006, during my graduate studies, I attended a math conference at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute in Allahabad, India. While there, I had the chance to visit Varanasi, the birthplace of Ravi Shankar, and fell in love with the culture. On my return to New Delhi, I bought a sitar. Although I didn’t know how to play it at the time, the moment I held the instrument, it felt like an invitation to explore its sonic intricacies.

 

RMR: When did you move to the US and tell us how you balance your musical career with teaching at Queensborough Community College in NYC? If you have a PhD in Math you must be an expert. Does playing guitars and sitars and recording music provide a way to blow off steam and show another side to your talents?

DANIEL GARBIN: From rather early in my guitar playing, I began to see the many connections between mathematics, guitar, and music theory.  By the time I moved to the US in the late 1990s, I was determined to pursue both math and music. I couldn’t imagine limiting myself to just one. There were times, especially during graduate school, when math took priority over music which had to be placed on the back burner. But I have never turned off the flame: If I was not playing in a band, then at least I continued to woodshed on the guitar. I filled the breaks between my daily mathematical research sessions with guitar or sitar practice.

Mathematics and music require a lot of persistence as well as problem solving. It took me quite some time to find the right balance between the musical and the academic career. Nowadays, with both burners running high, I find myself often switching between the many tasks which challenges and rewards at the same time. I don’t do music in order to blow off steam. For me, both music and mathematics are avenues to funnel out my creative side. 

 

RMR: Are the songs on Rising your latest compositions and how many albums have you released? How did you put the band together on the Rising album and what is the chemistry like between the players. Also, tell us how you work with Simona Pop, who co-wrote some of the album tracks.

DANIEL GARBIN: The album Rising is the synthesis of my musical endeavor and an output for the many musical ideas that I gathered over the years. I have composed music since my teenage years. However, the uncertainties of a music career coupled with the lengthy and demanding work that I put towards my academic career, made for a delayed recording debut as band leader and composer. On the one hand, I wrote “Almost Forgotten – Like Satch” possibly in 2002, whimsically making up the first part of the title. On the other hand, the brunt of the music on the album was composed during 2023.

Simona Pop and I met during high school when we started playing jazz together. Not only did we share a love for the music, but also for each other. Simona is behind a lot of the work that went into the making of the album. She was the one that encouraged me to start the project, helped secure funding, and led the marketing and promotion. Simona was also instrumental in getting the sitar included on Rising and initiated the proposal idea for the funding that supported our next project, Sitarosaxophony, where I’ll be playing entirely on sitar. When we compose together, she typically writes the melody, and I provide harmonic support.

Simona introduced me to Camila Cortina, the pianist on the album. Camila brought rhythmic formulas and fluent melodies many of them being traced to her Cuban roots. I am extremely satisfied with the way she rendered the music and have plans to collaborate with her on the next album. I met altoist Scott Litroff at Queensborough as colleagues. We met by chance by serving in a college committee which usually consist of faculty from different departments. We bonded over our shared interest in jazz. Simona also encouraged me to collaborate with Scott, which led to the creation of Rising. Scott brought a more smooth-jazz sound to the album.

We met Eddy Khaimovich at a show of his and fell in love with his energetic play of the double bass. Aside from double bass, Eddy showed his versatility by using 2 electric basses - one fretted and one fretless. Simona and I met Brian Woodruff who plays drums and Takeshi Asai who is the sound engineer, as well as pianist and composer, at a jam session in Brooklyn. Brian’s drums are energetic and dynamic, always serving the music. The chemistry between the musicians can be heard in the music of Rising. My vision for the album was to create music full of energy, contrast, and versatility. Rising was released on March 10 of this year. It’s available on most streaming platforms.

 

RMR: How did you get interested in Indian music and applying it in more of a jazz setting? Tell us about your sitar and something about the intricacies of playing it. Do you have any favorite sitar player that comes to mind and what brand of sitar do you play?

DANIEL GARBIN: My first exposure to ethno-jazz was around the time I joined the Gaio Big Band in Cluj Napoca. There I was at the 1998 Napocensis Jazz Festival, which Mal Waldron headlined, watching a trio led by Dima Belinski, consisting of piano, flute, and percussion. This was my eureka moment in as far as the vast possibilities of jazz. Later that year, I emigrated to the US and came in contact with Indian food and culture.

The first time I laid foot on Jackson Heights’ Little India, I instantly became fascinated with the culture. I saw a sitar in one of the many vitrines therein.  Right away the thought of having such an instrument incepted. But I did not act on impulse and allowed some years to investigate further. In 2006 I went to India for a math conference and bought a Ravi Shankar style sitar which later was finished and modified by the renowned sitar maker Sanjay Rikhi Ram. The fact that I was naïve about what Indian classical music entails only helped me. In hindsight, the lack of preconceived notions on the matter turned out to be beneficial.

Using sitar in a jazz setting is challenging. The sitar’s challenges come from the fact that unlike jazz or contemporary Western music, Indian classical music does not make use of harmony, modulation, and hence a need for equal temperament tuning. The sitar has many strings, most are either sympathetic or drones. At its core, I see the sitar as a baritone range 4-string dropped D bass guitar. Due to intonation reasons, the brunt of the melody is played on the sitar’s main string.

To accommodate jazz playing, I created my own style of sitar, both in terms of playing technique and the physical modifications I made to the instrument. With the help of Sanjay Rikhi Ram, I modified the sitar by adding 4 frets and changed the movable frets so that this new style of sitar is an even temperament chromatic instrument. In contrast with the traditional style of playing the sitar, I use all fingers on my left hand. Another departure from tradition is to have 2 or 3 melody strings, as opposed to one. Whenever intonation permits, I venture even to the 4^th string.

When it comes to sitar players, my first and foremost idol is Nikhil Banerjee. For me, Nikhil is the one sitar player that managed to have a well balance between technical skills and lyricism. I also admire sitarists such as Mita Nag and Shahid Parvez Khan.

 

RMR: What guitars are you playing on Rising and what amps do you use and your favorite way to record the guitars in the studio?

DANIEL GARBIN: The short answer is that when performing or recording I prefer simplicity coupled with a solid tone and technique. The guitar I used on Rising is a 17-inch hollow-body carved-top Heritage Eagle Classic, strung with flat-wound heavy gauge strings by Thomastik. While not the easiest guitar to play, due to its size and stiff strings, its extremely warm tone, smooth sustain, and clarity of notes makes it ideal for compositions such as Simi's Bossa or Rolling Hills.

For such clean tone compositions, the guitar signal bypasses a small pedal board, and enters a Schertler Jam 150 solid state wood cabinet amplifier. Unlike  tube amps, the Schertler adds little if any color to the sound of the guitar and crisply renders the bass register notes almost like no other amplifier. The amp’s direct line-out made it easy to capture the sound during live tracking. We also recorded the sound of the amp using a large diaphragm condenser mic, possibly a Neumann,  to blend the direct signal with the microphone capture for the final product.

For the heaviest piece Almost Forgotten - Like Satch, my tribute to Joe Satriani, I used a Gibson Les Paul coupled with a Tube Screamer on a minimal pedal board. Ironically enough is the fact that I decided not to use the Ibanez JS-1000, the earliest Joe Satriani signature guitar model, on the recording of this piece, even though I could argue that the JS-1000 is the better guitar to fit such a composition. By restricting the arsenal of guitar techniques, the Les Paul forced me to avoid certain flashy mannerisms better suited for performing in front of an audience. The whammy bar pinched harmonic glissandos during the first part of the guitar solo of “Into The Sunset” required me to use the JS guitar which helped create a sonic and stylistic contrast between the sax, piano, and guitar solos.

As mentioned earlier, I made use of a small pedal board. Aside from the Tube Screamer, the board also had a Wah pedal which I used sparingly during the keyboard solo on “DSD”.

Aside from the 3 guitars, I also played a Ravi Shankar style sitar made by Rikhi Ram for the “Rising” track. It is the only piece of the album that uses multi-tracking. I followed Simona’s suggestion to add the sitar, and mute the guitar. This decision was organic and came without premeditation during the recording of the album. So we had to change course and mute the guitar that was recorded during live tracking. At that point, we knew that the guitar from the live tracking would only serve as guide. We went back to the drawing board to compose the sitar part. While this resulted in increased production time, it made room for some exciting polyrhythms and a novel sound in the world of jazz fusion.  

 

RMR: What plans do you have for 2025 as far as writing, recording and performing and are there video for Rising on you tube?

DANIEL GARBIN: We are currently working on compositions for 2 new albums. The first project is titled Sitarosaxophony, where I will only play the sitar. It blends elements from Indian classical music and contemporary jazz. We wrote about 5 compositions which is half of the music on the album. The other half will be written by Scott Litroff.

Camila Cortina will once again play piano, and we plan to record in June 2025, with a release expected in 2026. For the second album, we’re incorporating themes from contemporary jazz, Romanian folklore, classical music, and hip-hop. We don’t have concrete recording dates yet, but we’re already including some of the new material in our live performances.

To complement live performances, we maintain a YouTube channel titled @dgarbin as well as an Instagram profile called @danielgarbin_and_simipopmusic.

Here are the links for YouTube videos of the songs on Rising:

Rising: https://youtu.be/hN640TT2WUk?si=TwQ9-QYIX7jmz2PW

Rolling Hills: https://youtu.be/qq9GhOzRqLk?si=_AKP3PSB55F3Nm4d

Anomisericordo: https://youtu.be/wBVtI-45vhU?si=VhaaWpXVdxTo8RTs

Simi's Bossa: https://youtu.be/nSJ7hKyTvPM?si=KgYCNGK0ZPSiZKTJ

Almost Forgotten - Like Satch: https://youtu.be/34L97R0ntSE?si=ZhYt7p-WkUk41Q1i

Into the Sunset: https://youtu.be/ss06iZ0Ijwo

DSD: https://youtu.be/bhT-kEBzbJY