” …an unfamiliar player from Vienna … Rucker was a revelation.” (allaboutjazz)

Fabian Rucker grew up listening to his parent’s record collection that included basically everything from the Beatles to Pink Floyd, from Bach to Arvo Pärt and from Bob Dylan to Janis Joplin. His family got him tons of instruments: whistles, recorders, drums and what not. Till the day the director of the local music school said: “He is a saxophone player!”.

Not even a week later he had his first saxophone lesson followed by a visit to the local record store where he got his second record of all times (the first being “Peter und der Wolf”) “Charlie Parker plays Standards”. From this moment on he was obsessed with the idea of becoming a musician.

About 6 years later, when he was 15, he met his fellow friends and musicians at the Anton Bruckner Private University. Andreas Lettner (with whom he now runs their studio “Ziegelwerk” in Vienna and plays with in numerous bands), Phil Nykrin, Eva Klampfer (aka Lylit), Stephan Kondert, Matt “Pedals” Loescher, Peter Kronreif and many more.

He started to study not only saxophone but also composition, went to masterclasses to learn about Jazz, New Music and Classical Indian Music, listened to Coltrane, Shorter and the M-Base all day long and then found out that also Hip Hop won’t harm is mental state of mind too much.

His goal soon became being able to move freely in a huge variety of musical concepts but develop his own sound, not only as a musician but also as a producer.

In 2009 he founded “Namby Pamby Boy” together with Phil Nykrin (rhodes) and Andi Lettner (drums). A collective of musicians and producers who include anything and everything and worship nothing.

They released 3 records so far: “Lunchbreak” (2011), “Greatest Hits Vol.2” (2014) and “Namby Pamby Boy” (2017 Babel Label).

Some years later he met the man who opened his eyes and new doors for him.

Master composer and drummer Bobby Previte.

Previte’s unique energy, his ideas and concepts plus his immense generosity are a huge influence on Rucker.

Together they already worked on numerous projects including Bobby Previte’s “TERMINALS”(Cantaloupe), that Fabian Rucker mixed and co-recorded featuring Greg Osby, Nels Cline, Zeena Parkins, Jon Medeski and SO Percussion as well as Bobby Previte’s latest piece of work “Rhapysody”(Rare Noise).
He also produced Charlie Hunter‘s trio record “Let the bells ring on“ featuring trombone legend Curtis Fowlkes and Previte.

Fabian Rucker’s latest project “Fabian Rucker 5” is his first appearance as a bandleader and debuted in April 2017 at the well known “Porgy and Bess” in Vienna. The album will be released in early 2018.

Throughout the last years Fabian Rucker became an internationally performing musician and producer and worked in Europe, Asia and the USA.
He also worked as a lecturer at the universities of Vienna (mdw) and Linz (Anton Bruckner Privatuniversitaet).

Credits (as a musician and/or producer): Namby Pamby Boy, Bobby Previte, Charlie Hunter, Thomas Gansch, Lylit, Mike Gamble, Paul Gulda, Michael Mantler, Jim Black, Mühlbacher USW, Christian Muthspiel, Mathias Rüegg, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Mathieu Michel, Gerald Preinfalk, Wolfgang Puschnig, Harry Sokal, David Helbock, Alegre Correa, SK Invitational, Sunny Murray, Janus Ensemble Wien, Nouvelle Cuisine, Gerd Hermann Ortler Orchestra, Silke SILK Grabinger, Flip Philipp/Ed Partyka Dectet, Beni Schmid, Frank Schwinn, David Murray, Brittany Bosco, Erik Rico, Lia Pale, Peter Herbert, Philipp Nykrin, Andreas Lettner, Stephan Kondert, TEXTA, Blumentopf, Flip, Mono und Nikitaman, Russkaja…