Guido Santoni

Guido Santoni

Musicians | Instrument: Piano | Location: Italy

A masterpiece of piano trio improvisational work which combines the sophistication of modern European style with the energy of traditional jazz.

—Jazz Tokyo

Updated: May 10, 2023

Born: December 11

Guido Santoni started piano lessons when he was eight years old, and studied music at the G. Rossini Conservatoire in Pesaro, in Italy, during the ‘80s. He realised that jazz was his passion after listening to the sounds of electric jazz played by Miles Davis, Weather Report and the European influenced jazz culture of Pat Metheny, Jan Garbarek, Keith Jarrett, and Paul Bley.

After exploring electric Jazz, Soul, and Funk for a couple of years, beginning with 2000 he made the decision to focus on his personal musical vision and discover his own identity as a pianist in solo and trio sessions. His live concert at the Muse Theatre, Ancona, Italy on October 16th, 2005 led to his first self-produced album “Cinque Atti Del Tramonto Di Un Giorno”

In 2007, Guido met Stefano Amerio, a highly skilled sound engineer and producer who leads Artesuono, one of the reference studios of the German label company ECM. With Stefano, Guido formulated his concept for a piano trio which includes Danilo Gallo, double bass, and U.T. Gandhi, drums, and in February 2009, a dream came true with “Inside a Dream“, which was produced and distributed by the prestigious label Artesuono, available in Japan from 2011. Immediately, the album won the 2011 “Jazz Audio Disc Silver Award” from Jazz Tokyo, Jazz Critique Magazine.

The critics wrote:

“An awesome piano trio from Italy with a beautiful melody line which is generated by deep piano sounds, improvisation with unleashed exuberance and a wonderful rhythm section. A masterpiece of piano trio improvisational work which combines the sophistication of modern European style with the energy of traditional jazz”.

In 2012 the Vol.5 compilation produced by famous producer Mr. Terashima came out in Japan and he selected one of Santoni’s songs entitled “My Father” from Guido Santoni trio album--Inside a Dream.

The second work of the piano trio led by Guido Santoni, long awaited in Japan, is titled “Fit To Fly” and was released by Artesuono in 2015.

With the album Fit To Fly, Guido Santoni confirms expectations and consolidates critical success in both Italy and Japan.

He was awarded in 2015 by the authoritative Italian magazine Jazzit Award 2015-Jazzit 100 Greatest Jazz Album and interviewed in 2016. At the same time he achieved first place in Japan with the best-selling record in several months.

“There are so many ways to express your own creativity in music. I have always followed the emotional way, learning to listen with the heart in order to create a sound that reflects the deepest parts of my soul and feeds the emotions that are translated into warm colours." This is how Guido Santoni himself describes the way he creates his own music, and in fact this new album–Fit to Fly– literally takes the listener up to the clouds of creativity, still on the path of the first Artesuono album, Inside a Dream.

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Album Review

Guido Santoni Trio: Fit to Fly

Read "Fit to Fly" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Cinque anni dopo l'esordio su Artesuono con Inside a Dream, esce il secondo lavoro del trio del pianista marchigiano Guido Santoni, affiancato da Danilo Gallo al contrabbasso e U. T. Gandhi alla batteria. Le nove tracce in programma, tutte della penna del leader, sono caratterizzate da uno stile astratto ed etereo, che talvolta richiama alla mente Stefano Battaglia (per esempio in “Easy Words"), ma che ancor più sembra rifarsi alla lezione dei trii di Bobo Stenson.

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An awesome piano trio from Italy with a beautiful melody line which is generated by deep piano sounds, improvisation with unleashed exuberance and a wonderful rhythm section. A masterpiece of piano trio improvisational work which combines the sophistication of modern European style with the energy of traditional jazz”. --Jazz Tokyo, Jazz Critique Magazine.

As in the previous "Inside A Dream" (Artesuono, 2010), also in the new "Fit To Fly" Danilo Gallo on double bass and Umberto Trombetta Gandhi on drums complete the trio led by Guido Santoni. The pianist proposes a lineup of nine songs, all autographs, from which his passion for singable themes clearly emerges, characterized by linear and tonally smooth melodies with extreme precision. His is an elegant pianism, referable briefly to that of Bill Evans, with dynamics treated in detail and deriving both from classical studies and from the passion for the art of the piano trio. A coherent way of operating, which never betrays its own stylistic creed, as is clear from the opening track Sudden Flashes, where Santoni designs a harmonious soundscape, while Gallo and Gandhi create very subtle rhythmic textures. Patterns and meanings that chase each other during the entire lineup until touching a sort of expressive intimacy, almost confidential, as happens in Beyond My Boundary, even if there are some micro tensions close to introspection. The one contained in "Fit To Fly" is music essential and understandable, never simplistic and realized through spontaneous developments. The cover image is a photo signed by Mario Giacomelli. --JAZZit Magazine

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Paul Bley
piano
John Coltrane
saxophone
Miles Davis
trumpet
Jim Hall
guitar
Weather Report
band / ensemble / orchestra
Joe Zawinul
keyboards

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From: Hill Tribes
By Guido Santoni