Lucio Terzano was born on March 22, 1954, in Guglionesi, a small town in Italy's Molise region, and moved to Milan while still young. He started playing around the city's Jazz Club Capolinea, where he came up alongside pianist Guido Manusardi, guitarist Franco Cerri, and pianist Enrico Intra, among others. His earliest Discogs-confirmed recording dates from 1977, the same year he appears on the Chet Baker Sextet's The Incredible Chet Baker Plays and Sings, cut during Baker's Italian sessions in Milan.

Through the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Terzano became one of the working bassists of Milan's jazz scene, recording with Manusardi's various quartets and trios, with Franco Cerri, and with drummer Tony Arco, who would become a recurring musical partner across the following three decades. In 1981 and 1982 he crossed the Atlantic to study double bass, harmony and arranging at Berklee College of Music in Boston, under Rick Appleman and John Repucci, before returning to Italy in 1983. That period bracketed a high point back home: in 1985, a quintet led by pianist Mario Rusca and featuring Terzano won La Coppa del Jazz, a placement that carried the group to the Montreal Jazz Festival the following year.

Terzano's association with Guido Manusardi is the single most consistent thread in his discography: Discogs confirms his presence on eight separate Manusardi-led releases between 1978 and 2003, including Namymanu (1978, recorded in Warsaw with Polish saxophonist Zbigniew Namyslowski), Symbiosis (1980, with bassist Red Mitchell also present), Doina (2000), The Woodpecker (2001), Siena Concert (2002), and Lost in Space (2003). Alongside the Manusardi dates, he recorded twice more with Franco Cerri and Enrico Intra together, on Cerri's Omaggio a Bill Evans (1981) and on Intra's Live in Milan, Duo, Trio, Quartet (2009).

The mid-to-late 1990s brought two of his most notable studio credits: pianist Mario Rusca's Milan trio, with Terzano on bass and Tony Arco on drums, backed both Lee Konitz on Where's the Blues? (1997) and Enrico Rava on D.N.A. (1997), the latter recorded at Mondial Studios in December 1996. In 2000, Terzano co-founded the piano trio Cues T (later billed as Cues Trio) with pianist Roberto Tarenzi and Tony Arco, releasing Introducing Cues T on Black Saint in 2002 and, the same year, Feel, a session billed as "Cues Trio Meets David Liebman" for Abeat Records, which paired the trio with the American saxophonist.

In 2007, Terzano stepped forward as a leader for the first time under his own name, forming the Lucio Terzano Quartet with saxophonist Pietro Tonolo, pianist Paolo Birro, and drummer Luigi Bonafede. The quartet made two tribute albums that year for Music Center: After All - The Music of Billy Strayhorn, with guest guitarist Sandro Gibellini, and Orbit - The Music of Bill Evans, with guest trombonist Roberto Rossi. His most recent Discogs-confirmed session credit is a 2012 date with the Cirinna Quartet, featuring pianist Dino Rubino.

Alongside performing, Terzano built a long teaching career: he taught jazz double bass, rhythm section and ensemble playing at Milan's Civica Jazz school from 1996 to 2020, and has also held posts at conservatories in Catania and Alessandria and at the Fondazione Claudio Abbado in Milan. In 2006 and 2007 he published two instructional methods through Ricordi editions, Master in Sezione Ritmica (with Tony Arco) and Master in Contrabbasso Jazz (with Marco Vaggi).

Beyond his Discogs-verified discography, biographical sources also describe collaborations with Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, Gerry Mulligan, Jimmy Cobb, Steve Grossman, John Surman, Massimo Urbani, and Franco D'Andrea, and credit him with two further albums under saxophonist Pietro Tonolo's name and a session with pianist Kenny Barron. None of these appear in Terzano's Discogs discography under his own artist entry, so they are noted here as bio-sourced claims rather than session-verified credits.

Terzano is described in Italian jazz press as one of the most in-demand double bassists of his generation, prized for an intense, full-bodied tone shaped by bebop. His own quartet's two leader albums both build directly on the American songbook and standards tradition, taking the writing of Billy Strayhorn and Bill Evans as complete repertoire for a full album apiece, a mainstream, tune-driven approach that runs through his sideman work as well: standards-based quartets and trios backing visiting American horn players (Lee Konitz, David Liebman) rather than original-heavy or free-leaning ensembles. His time in the Chet Baker Sextet and alongside Lee Konitz situates him inside the cooler, lyrical end of the bebop lineage, while his three decades as Guido Manusardi's regular bassist put him at the center of Milan's mainstream piano-trio and quartet scene.