Gianni Gebbia
Gianni Gebbia is composer, saxophone player, movie director. Born in Palermo 5/1/1961, selftaught on saxophone, he moved in 1979 to New York City where has been in contact with the so called Downtown Loft Scene and No wave. Back to Europe he has started his professional activity as soloist and he started to be considered one of the most interesting improvisors on saxophone. In 1984 he got a Ph.D in Philosophy at the University of Palermo with a thesis entitled J.Coltrane. Liberation trough Sounds. In 1990 he won the first price as Best Jazz Talent by the Italian magazine Musica Jazz. Gianni Gebbia has produced around 40 recordings under his name for various music labels and participated in most of the maior festivals of contemporary jazz in Europe, USA and Japan. Since 2004 he regularly spends half of the year in Japan playing and keeping in touch with the local avantgarde music scene. In 1997 and 1998 he was curator of the Music program of the City of Palermo and the festival Palermo di Scena. In 2002 he has directed the multimedia festival Belluard-Bollwer in Fribourg in Switzerland and in 2005 directed the musical programs of S.Arcangelo dei Teatri Festival invited by Leo De Berardinis. He has collaborated with artists like Louis Sclavis, Peter Kowald, Han Bennink, Heiner Goebbels, Henri Kaiser, Fred Frith, Jim O’Rourke.