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

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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. This approach makes listening to (2) fun, as you wait for the hint of the original to emerge. Di Liberto leads a very solid trio here, playing with equal voices in the Evans / LaFaro / Motian fashion. Bassist Cossu is usually playing a counter melody to the piano, and it is clear that all of these pieces are tightly arranged. I particularly enjoyed “Sometime Ago,” into which first Cossu and then Di Liberto weave some hints of “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” while drummer Russo keeps it all swinging gently along. Di Liberto is, of course, much more inside and straight ahead than Gaslini, though this approach to standards is still of interest."

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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.

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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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