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Artists: Riccardo Biseo - Gianni Sanjust quartet

Gianni Sanjust

A Self taught clarinet player, born in Rome on June 23rd 1934.

In 1952 together with Peppino de Luca he set-up the "Traditional Dixielanders" band and performed with them for three years. From 1955 he has been a member of "Il Roman New Orleans Jazz Band" till Lucio Dalla replaced him in 1960 with the "Traditional Dixielanders". In that same year Sanjust started a two year stint with Romano Mussolini, proving himself a celebrated clarinet player in a more modern jazz setting. In 1962 he started working with many groups ranging from traditional jazz, to swing and modern.

In that same year RICORDI, a very famous recording company in Italy, offered him a prestigious position in Milan. A few years later he started working with different local groups. In 1977 he returned to Rome and worked as a full time jazz musician, alternating his concert activity with his job as a record producer.

In his long career he has performed with Chet Baker, Lee Konitz, Wild Bill Davison, Billy Butterfield, Ralph Sutton, Oscar Kline, Romano Mussolini, Lino Patruno, Franco Ambrosetti, Enzo Randisi, Gianni Basso, Carlo Loffredo, Umberto Cesari, Eddy Palermo, Kenny Davern, Bob Wilber, John Paul 'Bucky' Pizzarelli and many others.
At present Gianni Sanjust leads his own quartet and performs at the main jazz clubs and festivals in Italy and abroad.

Gianni Sanjust is acclaimed by critics as the best Italian Clarinet player.

Riccardo Biseo

Pianist And Composer

Born in Rome, Riccardo Biseo has been an active member of the Italian music scene for many years.
Studies classical piano and organ with Enrico Pasini and classical composition with Gino Marinuzzi.
London 1980: studies piano jazz class with Brian Priestley and writing and arranging with Dick Walters at the Goldsmith University

Teaches jazz at Saint Louis Academy of Music and at I.A L.S. (Istituto Addestramento Lavoratori Spettacolo) in Rome and has assisted at the Perugia summer clinics run by Duke University and Berklee College of music during the Umbria Jazz festival.

Past collaborative works as a jazz pianist with renowned Italian and foreign musicians include: Buck Clayton, Tony Scott, Stephan Grappelli, Jimmy Witherspoon, Massimo Urbani, Giovanni Tommaso, Marcello Rosa, Gianni Sanjust, Anita o'Day, Bob Wilber, Buddy de Franco, Nicola Arigliano, Gegé Telesforo, Slide Hampton, Benny Golson, Terry Gibbs, Al Grey, Etta Jones, Lee Konitz, James Moody , Dusko Goykovich ).

Performed for a large number of Radio and Television programmes such as: Canzonissime, Rai Uno Jazz Sera, Indietro tutta, International DOC Club, Scommettiamo che, Mille lire al Mese, etc.. .

Performed at the main Jazz festivals and clubs in Italy and abroad: New York, Tel Aviv, Istambul, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Belgium, France,

Performed at the most famous Teathres such as:

QUIRINO, Rome
BRANCACCIO, Rome
TEATRO DELL'OPERA, Rome
OLIMPIA, Paris
TEATRO NUOVO DI MILANO, Milan
MANZONI, Milan

Teathre production works as a musician, arranger and composer:

Pirandello's "Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore" with M.Ranieri and O. Piccolo, Cy Coleman's Barnum . Conducted Hamlish' music in They are playin' our song with G.Guidi e M.Laura Baccarini directed by Gigi Proietti.

Musical Director for the italian versions of: My Fair Lady;, Jesus Christ Superstar (with Carl Anderson), Promises promises, No way to treat a Lady, Chicago. Composer for many comedies including L' Isola di Robinson Crusoe. Orchestration of the grand opera Jaquerie by Gino Marinuzzi.

Works as a Orchestra Director in Bulgaria on 11 films.

Wrote, arranged and conducted music for a large number of movie soundtracks in partnership with: M. De Sica ( Faccione, Il conte Max, Nel continente nero, Al lupo al lupo , Ricky & Barabba, TRE, Uomini, uomini, uomini, Anni 90, Ma tu mi vuoi bene?, Dellamorte Dellamore, Miracolo italiano, Nuda proprietá, Celluloide,Simpatici &Antipatici, A spasso nel tempo , Anni '50 ) and S. Mainetti (Donna d'onore 2 , Il grande fuoco , Il deserto di Fuoco, The shooter, Silent trigger, Sub Down, Talos the mummy) and D.Lucantoni (Arriva la bufera, Compagna di viaggio) and also La Carne and La casa del sorriso by M. Ferreri, Storia di una capinera by F.Zeffirelli, L'ultimo imperatore by B.Bertolucci.

Carlo Battisti

His artistic career began in the mid Seventies in various rock, jazz and progressive bands that developed from the Canterbury Movement (Soft Machine, Henry Cow etc.). He performed in all the youth music festivals in his home town, Rome and all around Italy.

His musical experiences focused on experimentation from the very start and soon lead him to jazz and improvisation. Carlo Battisti studied with great determination and discipline (with Jimmy Cobb, master of jazz drumming, Max Roach, whom he considers as his mentor and later at Drum Collective in New York);while listening to the great Afro-American jazzmen, by buying albums and attending concerts at the Music Inn; the legendary Roman jazz venue.

In 1981 he became a member of a popular dixieland band; the "Old Time Jazz Band" - they performed in another famous venue in Rome, called the "Mississippi jazz club". Whilst in the "Old Time Jazz Band" he had the honour of playing with the best classical jazz solo artists such as Wild Bill Davison and Billy Butterfield etc. Also, in those days the rhythmic section of the band accompanied many great jazzmen when they happened to be in Rome including Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Al Cohn, Joe Newman, Earle Warren and Al Grey. On these occasions Lino Patruno and trombonist Marcello Rosa noticed him and Carlo began working with them, playing all around Italy and recording with them.

Throughout the following years he played in all sorts of jazz scenes, in
small bands and big bands, in many different styles, along numerous great Italian and American musicians such as Massimo Urbani, Maurizio Giammarco, Gian Luigi Trovesi, Danilo Rea, Stefano Di Battista, Flavio Boltro, Franco Ambrosetti, Fabio Morgera, Riccardo Biseo , Gianni Basso , Dado Moroni , Fabrizio Bosso, Antonio Farao', Joe Pass, Mulgrew Miller, John Hicks, Tony Scott, Barry Harris, Joe Diorio, Steve Grossmann, Don Pullen, Chico Freeman, Artur Blythe, Bob Wilber Etta Jones, Jon Hendricks, Mark Murphy, Lee Konitz and Benny Golson. Carlo Battisti always has been partial to experimentalism and uses his art in collaboration with other forms of art, dance, fine art, poetry and prose. He has often played a part in projects that involved different forms of expressions.

He has had significant collaborations with great Italian actor Arnoldo Fo??, in a project dedicated to Leopardi's poetry with actors Alessandro Haber ("Bukowsky-memorie di un genio"), Italian-English actress Anna Zapparoli ("Molly Bloom", "1933 And All That") and Massimo Venturiello. One of the most interesting projects he worked on was "Aleph", on works by Borges. It boldly combined lighting, visual and digital effects with music played by a band called the "Projazz Quartet" creating a strongly emotional performance. Carlo Battisti also works as a drummer on movie soundtracks and on recordings for theatre shows. The most recently released was the soundtrack "Sweet Sweet Marja" in 2007.

He often teaches and leads workshops in music schools and summer festivals such as "Injazz" in Fabriano, he is also the frontman of a band called "Groove Therapy", along with Luca Velotti and saxophonist in Paolo Conte's band. He has played in the "Projazz Quartet", "Bassless Trio", "Boptet" (with Enrico Ghelardi), "Meeting Jazz Trio" (with Pietro Lussu and Pietro Ciancaglini) and "La Dual Band" (with Maestro Mario Borciani and Anna Zapparoli).

Mauro Battisti

Mauro Battisti, double bass player and composer born in Rome, Italy, 1963. After studying guitar and piano he concentrated on upright bass and graduated at the G. Rossini conservatory of Pesaro. Then he moved to New York where he studied with Buster Williams, Victor Gaskin and Andy Gonzales. He soon became one of the most requested jazz bass players in Italy and his collaborations and/or recordings include many renowned jazz musicians such as Lee Konitz, Cedar Walton, Benny Golson, Barry Harris, Stefano Di Battista, Maurizio Giammarco, Mark Murphy, Charles Davis, Joe Pass, Andrzej Kurylewicz, Etta Jones, Steve Grossman, Ronnie Cuber, Joe Diorio, Ernie Watts, Flavio Boltro, Al Cohn and Eddie Lockjaw Davis. Other credits include many television, radio and motion picture soundtrack recordings under the direction of Ennio Morricone, Nicola Piovani and Luis Bacalov.

In the past decade he has focused on his own projects that include music compositions for theatre and a large number of jazz performances with actors such as Arnoldo Foá, Gabriele Lavia, Massimo Venturiello, Pamela Villoresi, and Alessandro Haber. With dance companies such as Ater Balletto and with poets such as Pasquale Panella and Gabriela Kurylewicz. He has always been attracted by the interaction between jazz and the arts, in 2006 he founded 'Projazz' a band devoted to Jazz and the visual art based performances.

He acts as musical director of FORMA - the theatre and institute of arts & philosophical research of Varsavia. As a teacher he currently conducts a master class on the perceptive relationship between sound and image at the European Institute of Design in Turin and teaches a master class on the relationship between music and theatrical gesture at the DAMS University of Turin. He has published articles about the Walking Bass technique in British magazine "Double Bassist".

He has performed in Europe, the Middle-East, the United States and Australia and participated in many international festivals including Umbria Jazz, the Roma Jazz Festival of Villa Celimontana, Pescara, Roccella Jonica (Italy), Ascona (Switzerland), Dresden and Berlin jazz festival (Germany), Kristianstad jazz festival (Sweden), Jazz Jamboree (Poland), The Return Festival (Kosovo), The Fringe Festival (Scotland), Izmir jazz (Turkey), Heineken EuroJazz Festival (Lebanon) and the Manly Jazz Festival (Australia).