Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Giovanni Mirabassi is a Paris-based Italian jazz pianist, born in Perugia, Italy. Self-taught, he learned by listening to Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Oscar Peterson. He is strongly influenced by Enrico Pieranunzi. At seventeen, after a few important experiences in Italy (he played with musicians Chet Baker in 1987 and with Steve Grossman in 1988), he settled in Paris in 1992.
In 1996, he debuted his first album with Pierre-Stéphane Michel on the upright bass and Flavio Boltro on the trumpet, and obtained the “grand prix” and the best soloist prize at the Concours International de Jazz d'Avignon, presided by Daniel Humair.
In 2001, Giovanni Mirabassi released his first solo album, Avanti!, a collection of songs about revolutions, which he had been thinking of for years. This record was an important milestone in his career (Django d’Or of the best young talent and a Victoires du Jazz in 2002). Mirabassi began touring regularly, as part a trio or alone. He became very popular, especially in Japan.
At the end of 2005, he released a new CD, Prima o poi, as part of a trio and of a quartet, under the Minium label. A year later, he released another record of standards of French “chanson”, Cantopiano, which brought together his two preferred musical universes. Those two CDs, still saluted by public and media, anchored his unusual position in the world of jazz. Over a period of ten years, Giovanni Mirabassi produced a dozen CDs and DVDs (some of them concerts released only in Japan) and performed all around the world.
In 2008, the pianist released a new CD as part of a piano trio, Terra furiosa.
Style
"Giovanni Mirabassi possesses a marvelous quality…: that of being able to make a melody sing, to make it blossom, thus liberating from it the fullness of its aroma, of its shape and of its chromatic shimmer…(…) Signed by Philippe Ghielmetti, the edition in itself is object of art."Alain Gerber - Diapason
Giovanni Mirabassi had the nerve and showed a lot of panache in tackling, so young as he is, such a repertoire… of revolutionary and patriotic songs, songs of resistance, struggle and refusal…As usual, he chooses to stay as close as possible to the original melody…which dictates his chords, imposes by itself its rhythmical logic, its own interior dance…Mirabassi dares to reveal the whole of his lyrical sensibility « à l’italienne », and to develop an already very personal sense of melodic drama and rhythmical staging. Well done!"Pascal Anquetil - Jazzman
Giovanni Mirabassi knows all about emotion reaching right out to the tips of his fingers…when he lays them on the keys of his piano, it is not only the melody of a song that he offers to us: the words, the profound meaning, the poetry are expressed with as much sensitiveness and respect as is the music itself. This is rare and precious. As for me, listening two of his songs played on the piano and interpreted by Giovanni Mirabassi, gives me the opportunity to become the very spectator of my own pieces… It’s a beautiful gift ! "Agnès Bihl
