Born: February 12, 1961 Primary Instrument: Sax, tenor
GIANNI SAVELLI
Born in Naples in 1961.he begins his career in 1974 as flute player, switching later to the saxophone. He deepens the knowledge of his principal instrument ( the saxophone) and of the jazz idiom under the guidance of Baldo maestri , Larry Dinwiddie and Quarto Maltoni. He studies harmony with sergio Rendine and Marco Tiso and participates in master classes with Dave Liebman, Gary Bartz and George Garzone. Moreover he studies flute with Battimelli e Guerini.
At the age of 19 he moves to Rome, successfully introducing himself in the musical scene of the Italian capital. In 1983 the meeting with Bruno Biriaco, his mentor, with whom, playing jazz, he tours all over Italy. From 1988 he further broadens his professional activity trough a wide range of collaborations. For a few years He tours together with pop singers Riccardo Cocciante, Ornella Vanoni,Amy Stewart, Luca Barbarossa and Marina Rei, playing in Brazil, Venezuela, Canada and around Europe. He also takes part as saxophone and woodwind player in a large number of TV shows ensembles, mainly with the Rai orchestra, the Italian broadcasting public network. In this kind of contexts he plays with artists like Ray Charles, Manhattan Transfer,Leo Ferr, Mireille Mathieu, Barry White, Julio Iglesias, Domenico Modugno, Laura Pausini and repeatedly participates at the festival of Sanremo . He participates as a soloist at various motion tracks with Luis Bacalov, Gianni Ferrio, Renato Serio, Manuel De Sica, Riccardo Biseo, Stefano Mainetti. In parallel with all these activities he runs his own career as a jazz player, his great passion. He is a member of a lot of interesting ensemble like “Corvini & Iodice Roma Jazz Ensemble” , “ Six Sax” of Javier Girotto and “orchestra nazionale di jazz italiana”. with these and other bands he has the opportunity of playing and recording with great artists like Carl Anderson, Lester Bowie, Randy Brecker, Natalie Cole, George Garzone, Horacio Hernandez, Jimmy Knepper, Yusef Lateef,Ray Mantilla, Bob Mintzer , Alfredo Rodriguez. He also plays as a soloist at the “Aarhus International Jazz Festival” in Danmark and at “Malmoe Festival” in Sweden
In 2000 his research as a composer leads him to put together a project of his own “ media res” trying to accost his jazz oriented culture to the interest of other musical cultures, especially the Indian and the African, to which he has dedicated during the last years. In 2004 “media res” publishes its first album. He is a Rico Redds supported artist since 1995.
