Red Balaban
American musician (1929-2013)
Leonard "Red" Balaban (December 22, 1929 – December 29, 2013) was an American jazz tubist and sousaphonist. He also played banjo, stand-up bass, slide trombone, ukulele and rhythm guitar.
Balaban resided as an adult in the Florida panhandle, where he worked as a farmer and played in regional ensembles from the 1950s. He held a regular gig from 1966 at the Dixieland jazz club Your Father's Mustache in New York City. He is the son of Barney Balaban, former president of Paramount Pictures. His sister is actress and author Judy Balaban and his brother is film producer and director Burt Balaban. He is of Jewish descent.
He worked extensively as a sideman, for musicians such as Wild Bill Davison, Eddie Condon, Gene Krupa, Dick Wellstood, and Kenny Davern. Balaban opened the third incarnation of Eddie Condon's Jazz club on W. 54th Street after arranging permission for using Eddie's name from Condon's widow. From 1975, he co-led the house band with Ed Polcer, with whom he later shared ownership of the club.
The public source identifies “Red Balaban” as american musician (1929-2013). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Balaban, American and musician.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7303672. VIAF identifies the subject as 311024943. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 2013, 1966 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Red Balaban” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.