Tenor Saxophonist Lucas Pino is often a sideman for Bryan Carter, Bryan Carter and Nick Finzer. He has also performed with Curtis Fuller and Benny Golson as well as Jimmy Heath, Christian McBride (Carl Allen, Benny Green, and David Sanborn). Lucas has played in Australia, Brazil, Spain, The Netherlands and Costa Rica as well as the United States. He has performed at many venues, including the Blue Note and Dizzy’s, The Jazz Standard and Yoshi’s. Since March 2013, he has been a leader and has held a monthly residency at Smalls as part of the No Net Nonet. Lucas is originally from Phoenix, Arizona. He grew up singing hymns at church and in school choirs. At the age of 10, he began playing the saxophone. Jazz was his first musical taste. Lucas was a high school junior and won the Downbeat award in 2004 for Best Instrumental Soloist. From 2005 to 2007, he attended the Brubeck institute, where he was closely supervised by Dave Brubeck. In 2009, Lucas received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jazz Performance from The New School. From 2009 to 2011, he attended Juilliard, where he earned a Master of Music. Lucky Thompson, John Coltrane and Michael Brecker are some of Lucas’ main influences on the saxophone. He is heavily influenced compositionally by big band sounds and composers like Walt Weiskopf, Maria Schneider, Wayne Shorter, Thad Jones, Walt Weiskopf, and Walt Weiskopf. from http://originarts.com
