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Gigi Biolcati
Gigi Biolcati, began to play drums at the age of 11. He played with a dance group for 7 years. After studying with Enrico Lucchini he played blues, funky, soul with Aida Cooper and pop with Cristiano DeAndre.
He also collaborated with dancer Koffi Koko He went to Africa to study music and after coming back he collaborated with different groups suc as: Tendachent, Pino Russo trio, FamilyStyle, Ushi Laar and Alboran Trio.
Dino Contenti
Double-bass and Bass-guitar player, comes to the scene as a professional musician way back in 1985. Following a long experience as a bassguitar-player matured in the multi-faceted world of modern music (pop, rock, ethnic, blues, latin etc.), he makes himself known to a number of musicians with several artistic tendencies.
Through the study of Classical Music, he gets familiar with the double-bass. Successively, the inner urge to express himself through improvisation,leads to his "discovery" of Jazz. Since then non-stop jazz activity has seen him a much sought-after artist for many musicians both from the lively Italian jazz-mine and the international jazz-set; among them are
PIETRO TONOLO, EMANUELE CISI, ANTONIO FARAO', MARIO RUSCA, RICCARDO ZEGNA, PAOLO BIRRO, GIANNI BASSO, CARLO SOLA, ENRICO RAVA, GABRIELE MIRABASSI, TIZIANA GHIGLIONI, FRANCESCA OLIVIERI, FLAVIO BOLTRO, FRANCO CERRI, BOB BONISOLO, HAL STEIN, TONY CASTELLANO, BOB MOVER, DICK ECKSTALLE SMITH, BARNEY KESSEL, JIMMY COBB, RAY MANTILLA, TOMMY CAMPBELL, SKIP HADDEN, GARRISON FEWELL,MANHU ROCHE,FLORENCE FOUCARDE.
At present he's the resident bass-player with the Gianni Coscia Trio (ECM), the Claudio Fasoli Quartet, The trio with the american Harpist Park Stickney and the french drummer Manhu Roche and the european Trio of the american guitarist Garrison Fewell.
With this Trio he has taken part to the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1998 and 1999. The trio has often accompanied live performances of the British singer Norma Winstone.
A large number of televsion appearances for RAI and MEDIASET add up to his experience accompanying many pop artists like Elisa, the Matia Bazar, Elio e le storie tese, Enrico Ruggeri, Renato Zero, Anggunn etc.
From 1987 to 1999 has carried out teaching activities at the Centro Jazz in Turin . He had also made many jazz improvisation and bass class in european conservatory in Barcellona, Saragoza, Geneve, Munich, London, Perugia, Ivrea.
"With the Alboran Trio's debut album, Meltemi, the label has struck European piano trio gold again - and with something very different from EST. Dark Scandinavian nights are out; bright Mediterranean days are in.
The album, which was collectively produced by the trio, is infused throughout with warm sunlight and the smell of orange groves, mint tea and kif.
The Alboran Trio takes its name from the narrow stretch of water which connects Europe and Africa around the Straits of Gibraltar, long a conduit of cultural exchange.
Pianist and composer Paolo Paliaga, who formed the group with fellow Italians Dino Contenti (bass) and Gigi Biolcati (drums) in '03, consciously set out to draw on musical traditions from all around the Mediterranean.
Meltemi has one foot in the Bill Evans piano trio lineage, the other dancing nimbly between Latin, Maghrebi and Balkan influences. The music rarely breaks into clearly delineated multiculturalism - it's more subtle and elliptical than that - but it's shot through with fragments and suggestions of Mediterranean harmonies and rhythms.
Paliaga's tunes are sunny and often very pretty, but the trio is really more about collective improvisation. Piano and bass are equal partners in the front line, and Contenti's rich, singing and slyly dissonant lines dominate some of the most compelling passages.
Biolcati approaches the drums rather like a young Paul Motian, rarely breaking into straight timekeeping, instead preferring to colour and texture the collective momentum.
All three players are lyrical, quirky and rhythmically engaged. The Alboran Trio may just be too complex and sophisticated to score as big a commercial success as EST, but it's a fresh presence in piano trio music. Chris May, All about jazz - July 2006 (UK)
© 2008 Alborantrio.com
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