Riccardo Zegna
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2011-02-05
RICCARDO ZEGNA - piano
Riccardo Zegna was born near Torino in 1946 to a family of musicians. As a very young child he toured northern Italy playing the congas in the Zegna Big Band of his father Ilario. At the age of 5 he also started playing drums and at 13 years of age began studying classical piano. 
In 1970 gained a diploma at the Niccolò Paganini Conservatorio in Genoa Italy and began consequently performing in piano recitals. During the 70’s after performing in countless jam sessions at Turin’s “Swing Club” or Milano’s “Capolinea” club he then, in 1976, starting dedicating his career to jazz.
The late
70’s and 80’s saw him collaborating with musicians the likes of : Buddy
Tate, Eddy “Lockjaw” Davis, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Bob Berg, Bob
Haggart, Gil Goldstein, Lee Konitz, George Coleman, Steve Grossman, Kay
Winding…. In 1983 he played at the “Parade du Jazz” with Pepper Adams in
Nice France. He has appeared as sideman on numerous recordings and in
1986 appeared on the albums “Alliance”, “Simbiosi” and “Disguise” along
with saxophonist Pietro Tonolo and Joe Chambers’. 
In 1996 he finally made his first piano solo album to great critical and artistic acclaim with “Andalusa”, and soon after in trio entitled “Green Dolphin Street” both under his own name. In 1999 he was invited to play with Paul Jeffrey at the Savoy Club in New York and at the Duke University in Durham in the States.
That same year he formed his own cameristic group along with clarinettist Gabriele Mirabassi, where he was finally able to experiment with chamber music and jazz, amalgamated togeather, choosing jazz and classical musicians to portray his compositions. The result of this was the highly acclaimed album “Piccolo Valzer” and soon after “Barcarola” both for the Italian label Egea. He has appeared at Umbria Jazz Festival since 1999 almost every year either as sideman or with his own group. In 2002 he played for Radio O.R.F. in Vienna. 
In 2004 yet again with Pietro Tonolo, recorded the album “Oltremare”, with Paul Motion. Another milestone for 2004 was his piano solo performance at the Southport International Jazz Festival (U.K.) where he literally brought the house down. The year 2006 saw the release of his third album for Egea entitled “Carillon”. In 2007, he worked as arranger and pianist on the theatrical production of “Marilyn Monroe in Jazz” with the English Jazz singer Joanna Rimmer. Since 1983 Riccardo has been teaching every summer at the Siena Jazz Seminars in Tuscany, and he currently teaches jazz at the conservatory of music in Cuneo near Turin in Italy. As well as also being a very fine drummer, Riccardo is well known in Italy more so as being a “musicians musician”.
