Giovanni Guidi is one of the leading figures of the latest Italian and European jazz music generation. He returns to Umbria Jazz with the suggestive and fascinating formula of piano solo, which is ideal for showing the skills of a sensitive and talented artist.
The audience at the latest summer and winter editions of Umbria Jazz has listened to Guidi in different situations: the quintet led by Enrico Rava and Tomasz Stanko, the piano solo project Planet Earth (Umbria Jazz Winter), the trio with Francesco Bearzatti and Michele Rabbia, the Not a What quintet with Fabrizio Bosso, the quintet with Bearzatti and Roberto Cecchetto, the piano solo performance tributed to Pasolini and the duo with Luca Aquino on the song form.
Guidi has also captured the attention of the jazz world by winning the critics’ referendum held by the magazine Musica Jazz as Best Italian Album (“Ida Lupino”). If this award represented a sort of official consecration (he was voted best talent in 2007), Guidi has been in jazz for some years. He started fifteen years ago with a band of young talents created by Enrico Rava. His relationship with Manfred Eicher led him to record four albums for ECM.
Rava stated: “In spite of his young age, Giovanni is without a doubt one of the most interesting and original pianists on the Italian scene. Knowing him as I do, and having the good fortune to perform with him regularly, I’m certain that this is merely the beginning of an extraordinary career”.
