Mircea Stan (b. 1943) was one of the founding members of UMO Jazz Orchestra in 1975 but he had founded his own band already a few years before, right after moving to Finland from Romania. The smaller ensembles have been an important basic unit for Stan also after the long career in UMO. The list of the groups that have had Stan as a sideman is long and versatile, for example bandleaders Edward Vesala, Heikki Sarmanto and Paroni Paakkunainen have cooperated with him.

Saxophonist-flutist Pentti Lahti has worked as one of the most long-lasting partners for Stan since 1970s. In 1980s the duo of Stan and Lahti was born that has worked for over 20 years. In the same decade Mircea Stan conducted a special trombone quartet that released an album Para Los Trombones in 1989. Even though Stan's own music has always been more straight-forward hard bop, he has played also free jazz. A perfect example of this is Braxtonia, a group of Finnish musicians formed by the American avantgardist-saxophonist Anthony Braxton, that did a Finnish Jazz Federation's tour in 1998.

Stan's own group has been a sextet since 1980s but it has had a featuring percussionst on albums. In 1987 the album The Touch (Kompass Records) was released and Stan's sextet did a Finnish Jazz Federation's tour in 1991. In the 21st century Stan's group has been called Mircea Stan Jazz Band whose debut album Roots Never Die was released in 2000. Stan's own compositions and arrangements are mainly hard bop, seasoned with the infuences of Latin jazz and Romanian folk music.

Besides working as a musician, Mircea Stan has for a long time also worked as a jazztrombone teacher in Pop & Jazz Conservatory. In 1998 he made a contribution for the jazztrombone education field by releasing a book Daily Practices for Jazztrombone.