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Alessandro Di Liberto

Alessandro Di Liberto started studying the guitar at the age of eight, then switched to piano under the guidance of maestro S. Figliola, taking private lessons. In ‘85 he joined the Conservatory in Cagliari where he started studying classical composition with A.Guaragna. In the same period he formed his first live band and started performing in different venues in Cagliari. Having developed a passion for jazz he was accepted as a student at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague, where he studied jazz piano for several years under the guidance of pianist Rob van Kreeveld. During his stay in Holland, together with German saxophonist Klaus Gesing he founded the Di Liberto-Gesing quartet. With this quartet he toured around Holland and also took part in some international prestigious festivals as the North See Jazz Festival (The Hague), Beauforthuis (Holland), Villach (Austria), Jazz a Vienne (France). In '98 he recorded a CD in Austria entitled: "Harmonix" with the above mentioned quartet featuring Christian Weber on double bass and Ewald Zach on drums.

In the year 2000 he recorded a CD entirely on his name entitled: Tonalità Naturali, which features some of his most effective original compositions.The quartet features tenor saxophonist Emanuele Cisi, double bassist Sandro Fontoni and drummer Francesco Sotgiu. In 2003 he was asked to become one of the teachers of "Nuoro Winter clinics" led by Paolo Fresu until 2013. Since December 2004 he has become Main Jazz piano teacher at the Conservatory P.L. Da Palestrina in Cagliari, where he also teaches Arranging techniques both for small and larger ensembles (up to Big Band). In 2006 he returned to Holland in order to record his Clima di un'estate, a CD containing only own original compositions. This CD features Dutch trumpeter Eric Vloeimans, double bassist Hein v.d. Geyn and drummer Hans Van Oosterhout. Liner notes are written by Hein van de Geyn. This CD is distributed by CD baby on all main digital platforms.

Since 2010 he's been busy with the presentation of his trio CD entitled Memorie di standards, released in November with Italian label Philology. The CD features Daniele Russo on drums and Nicola Cossu on double bass, and gained positive reviews by Jazzit and Cadence Jazz Magazine. In 2011, together with Birmingham based double bassist Sebastiano Dessanay he recorded a CD called Songbook vol. 2 and the track list is made up of some of the best of Dessanay's compositions. It was produced by British label F-ire. Special guest in the project is trumpeter Fulvio Sigurtà.

In 2012 he recorded CD Songshine, a quintet featuring singer F. Corrias and saxophonist Stefano D’Anna; this cd contains a couple of his own compositions plus some of his arrangements. The CD was released with Sardinian label S'Ard music. In October 2014 he recorded in Cagliari (Auditorium del Conservatorio) another CD under his name entitled: Four jazz Suites. This CD features Daniele Russo on drums and Nicola Cossu on double bass. Special guest of this project is saxophonist Rosario Giuliani. This recording was released the year after (2015) by the American label “Art of Life” and is available on all main digital platforms. In November 2018, he took part in a studio recording in which a bundle of his original compositions arranged for quintet and String Orchestra are featured. This work features some of the most representative international jazz stars, such as the world famous Peter Erskine on drums (Weather Report, Steps Ahead and many other great formations) and Eric Marienthal on alto and soprano sax, whose name is inextricably linked to the Chick Corea Electric Band. The pieces are arranged for piano quintet and a whole string Orchestra.

In 2021, he recorded an entire work for piano solo entitled: Flowery piano. Most of the music is written on music score and sounds extremely communicative, evocative and at times very introspective. Stylistically, it derives from modern jazz, late Romantic western music, with a large use of counterpoint. CD is now out with label AurAle Music and distributed by Distrokid on all main digital platforms.

In the course of his career he's had the chance to work with some important leading figures of national and international scene such as trumpeters: Jon Faddis, F. Boltro, A. Gravish, Paolo Fresu, F. Sigurtà, Eric Vloeimans, saxophonists E. Marienthal, R. Giuliani, K. Gesing, E. Cisi, M. Carboni, M. Giammarco, S. Di Battista, S. D’Anna, M. Negri, J. Lourau, M. Rosen, vibraphonist Joe Locke, singers David Linx, I. Shaw, A. Flora, F. Claassen, F. Corrias, guitarists W. Bronnenberg, B. Ferra, M. Ferra, G. Corona, A. Lazzeri, percussionist Neil Percy from LSO, drummers P. Erskine, H. v. Oosterhout, E. Zirilli, D. Russo, A. Cosker, R. Gatto, D. Garcia, E. Zach, A. Garau, E. Nijhoff, F. Sotgiu, violinist Anna Tifu, double bassists H. v. de Geyn, D. Hall, T. Scannapieco, S. Dessanay, J. Somsen, D. Deidda, N. Cossu, S. Fontoni, P. Dalla Porta, N. Cossu, C. Weber, N. Muresu, Frans v.d. Hoeven and many others.

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Alessandro Di Liberto: Flowery Piano

Read "Flowery Piano" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 13, 2022

With its ability, in the right hands, to make pretty sounds, the piano is an instrument made to take on of the themes of pretty things. For example, on 2022's 88 Butterfly (Playscape Recordings), Peter Madsen's CIA Trio explored the beauty, elegance, delicacy and grace of our favorite flying insect, with eighty-eight keys and the supplest of touches. Italian pianist Alessandro Di Liberto tracks a parallel lighter-than-air path with his Flowery Piano. The eleven Di Liberto-originals presented here ...

Cadence Jazz Magazine: "The fun part of "Memorie di Standards" (Philology 450) is the way that pianist Alessandro Di Liberto and his trio take standards like “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Stella by Starlight” and then recompose them into “Days of Empty Bottles” and “In Ricordo di Stella,” new compositions with traces of the originals hinted at deep in the performance. This approach is not unlike what Gaslini did with Monk’s tunes on his Plays Monk (Soul Note 121020) way back in 1986. Instead of playing the head to the tune and then improvising on it, you find a distinctive melodic fragment from the standard and let it emerge from the new composition being created

Primary Instrument

Piano

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Credentials/Background

I've been teaching in two differents Conservatories, since 2004. Conservatorio di Cagliari, P.L. Da Palestrina, where I'm still working full time and Bari, Conservatorio N. Piccinni (from '14 to '18). Up to now, I've been teaching several different subjects: from Jazz piano to Jazz harmony, Composing and Arranging for small and larger ensembles (up to Big Band) and Combo. Plus, I've had a lot of private students who came to me in order to improve their personal approach with jazz music and improvisational skills.

Primary Instrument

Piano

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Credentials/Background

I've been teaching in two differents Conservatories, since 2004. Conservatorio di Cagliari, P.L. Da Palestrina, where I'm still working full time and Bari, Conservatorio N. Piccinni (from '14 to '18). Up to now, I've been teaching several different subjects: from Jazz piano to Jazz harmony, Composing and Arranging for small and larger ensembles (up to Big Band) and Combo. Plus, I've had a lot of private students who came to me in order to improve their personal approach with jazz music and improvisational skills.

During frontal lessons, I always make sure I first try to understand what are the pupil's expectations in a musical sense, but also what's his approach with things in general. Every human being who is trying to improve in something, must feel some kind of inner motivation that must be always encouraged. That's where all departs from, a good teacher must be able to recognize it and offer some important tools in order to let it flow the best way possible. Teaching jazz music has nothing to do with pushing someone into a forced direction, but instead to stimulate pupil's curiosity in many directions (melody making, harmony, rhythm, styles etc.), trying to underline the fact that any of us has stronger and weaker parts and that the best musicians are people who've always been very eager and quite humble to address their daily practice on the weaker parts.

I also think that a good teacher should be able to "accompany" each pupil on the path that leads the pupil to get a bit more aware of himself, lesson after lesson, without forcing this process in any possible way. So, for example, it's useless for a pupil to start practising on i.e. Giant Steps if there are some basic problems on a simple jazz standard or a blues. A teacher must be patient and, if needed, transfer his patience to anyone who's attending to his lessons. In other words, a good teacher must have a strong method and eventually adjust it to the person he's dealing with.

Clinic/Workshop Information

My ideal clinic occours when I can count on the presence of different instrumentalists. I'm a pianist myself, but I never considered the piano as the most important of all instruments. It's just one of them with the advantage that it normally gives a much more complete view of all the different aspects in music. Normally speaking, a good jazz pianist is often involved in creating bass lines with his left hand, in juxtaposition of different rhythms, in figuring out advanced chordal voicings and so on. And this all depends on the characteristics of this instrument, where you can easily see all the notes you play and give each hand a different function.

This said, it's possible and somehow natural for a pianist to think to his instrument as a synthesis of a bunch of different other instruments. With midi keyboards we can also simulate all of them, although it requires a much more deeper knowledge to let i.e. a midi flute or a midi bass sound like they're real. This oversight upon music and the different instruments make pianists very "happy" when it gets for example to leading a combo. This is also the type of clinic that excites me the most, I like to speak about the final result in music given by the combination and the use of all employed instruments and always get very happy when I realize that the instruments start playing without standing on each other's way.

On the other hand, when I realize that the level of the musicians is very high and that some things I might point out are (or can be) superfluous, I like to concentrate more on the arrangement part, in other words how to make a tune sound really interesting. So, together with the attending musicians, we can figure out a certain type of arrangement based on their ideas and suggestions, where my function is that of giving all the different ideas a certain flow, placing them in the right spots to make the music sound effective. Which means a lot of fun, always!

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