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Dado Moroni

Edgardo “Dado” Moroni was born in Genoa, Italy, was exposed to Jazz music very early, thanks to his parents’ record collection, and he started playing piano at age four.

Basically self taught, Fats Waller, Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum and Erroll Garner were his first influences and Dado tried to learn their solos by ear until, around age 11, he met local Jazz pianist Flavio Crivelli, who gave him a more formal training and introduced him to the music of Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie and more contemporary pianists like Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal and Oscar Peterson.

Dado started playing professionally from age 14, with the most important Italian Jazz musicians such as Gianni Basso, Franco Cerri, Sergio Fanni, Luciano Milanese, Massimo Urbani, Sandro Gibellini and Tullio De Piscopo, performing in clubs and concerts throughout the country and in 1979, at age 17, he recorded his first album in trio with Tullio De Piscopo on drums and American bassist Julius Farmer. In that same year, the encounter with Swiss trumpet star Franco Ambrosetti introduced Dado to the international Jazz scene with the invitation to the Lugano Jazz Festival where Dado found himself sharing the stage with Ambrosetti, Chet Baker and Johnny Griffin. Dado returned the favor a year later, when he recorded a second album under his name, calling Ambrosetti along with Danish bass wonder Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen and, again, De Piscopo on drums.

In 1983, at the Sanremo Jazz Festival where Dado was performing with Ambrosetti, he met Ellington’s former bassist Jimmy Woode and Basie’s sweetest trumpet man, Harry Sweets Edison, who recommended him to Arnold Burri, owner of the famous WIDDER BAR in Zurich, one of the most important Jazz spots in Europe, where Dado started working in the fall of that same year with the James Moody quartet. Successively, Dado joined the Jimmy Woode Trio, with Alvin Queen or Sangoma Everett sharing the drum chair, often working as “house rhythm section” at the Widder and playing all over Europe backing Jazz giants such as Clark Terry, Freddie Hubbard, Bud Shank, Buddy De Franco, Zoot Sims and many others.

In 1984, Jimmy Woode introduced Dado to a talented young altosaxophonist, George Robert, and the two started a long lasting friendship and collaboration culminating, in 1987, with the foundation of the George Robert/Tom Harrell Quintet (with Dado on piano, Reggie Johnson on bass and Bill Goodwin on drums). This band recorded four CD’s and performed extensively in the U. S. and in Europe receiving international acclaim.

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In Pictures

Tullio De Piscopo "The Trio" at the Cremona Jazz 2022

Read "Tullio De Piscopo "The Trio" at the Cremona Jazz 2022" reviewed by Danilo Codazzi


A collection of photos from the Tullio de Piscopo The Trio concert at Giovanni Arvedi Auditorium in Cremona on May 27, 2022 featuring Dado Moroni and Aldo Zunino. ...

Album Review

Max Ionata, Dado Moroni: Two for Stevie

Read "Two for Stevie" reviewed by Mario Calvitti


Stevie Wonder occupa sicuramente un posto di rilievo nella storia della Black Music, posizionandosi all'incrocio tra soul, rhythm & blues, funk e jazz. I suoi temi hanno fornito stimolo e ispirazione a innumerevoli musicisti di varia estrazione che li hanno interpretati in tanti modi diversi. A questa lista si aggiungono ora il sassofonista Max Ionata e il pianista Dado Moroni, che con il loro ultimo lavoro rendono omaggio al maestro presentando la loro personale interpretazione di undici delle sue composizioni ...

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Album Review

Dado Moroni Trio: Dado Moroni Live in Beverly Hills

Read "Dado Moroni Live in Beverly Hills" reviewed by Larry Taylor


Italian pianist/composer Dado Moroni is internationally respected for his driving piano style and improvisational skills. Now, in his Resonance debut, he comes up with complex trio arrangements, always swinging and intellectually stimulating. Moroni was born in 1962 and raised in Genoa, Italy, taking to music early, playing the family piano at three. Later, he studied formally and started playing gigs with local Italian musicians Becoming discouraged, he decided to study law. At that time, however, he played ...

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Multiple Reviews

Dado Moroni: Anything Else; Live Conversations & Magone

Read "Dado Moroni: Anything Else; Live Conversations & Magone" reviewed by Ken Dryden


Rosario Giuliani Anything Else Dreyfus 2007 Dado Moroni & Enrico Pieranunzi Live Conversations Abeat 2007 Solitude Dreyfus 2007 Pianist Dado Moroni is essentially a self-taught player who learned by listening to a variety of artists and styles. His discography as a leader is still fairly small, though he ...

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Album Review

The Dado Moroni Trio: Out Of The Night

Read "Out Of The Night" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


What's in a name? Shakespeare had an answer to that one and so will those who listen to this album. Thenceforth, the mention of Edgardo “Dado" Moroni will no longer lead to a quizzically raised eyebrow.

Moroni has recorded well over 25 albums. The bulk of those were in Europe. Yet there were those in the know on the other side of the Atlantic, who hired him to play in their bands, among them Clark Terry, Tom Harrell and Lee ...

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"Wonderful pianists come from Genoa as well as New York...witness Dado Moroni!" Ron Carter

"...Dado Moroni is one of the great young pianists on the jazz scene today. After playing with and listening to him many times in the past decade or so, I have found his evolution in music to be sensational." Johnny Griffin

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Two for Stevie

Via Veneto Jazz
2015

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Dado Moroni Live in...

Resonance Records
2011

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Solo Dado

Abeat Records
2009

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Humanity

Abeat Records
2007

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