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Biography

The pianist,  keyboard player and songwriter Maurizio Marrani has got a diploma in classical piano and a  bachelor degree in jazz piano  with honors at the university of Perugia. He has always devoted himself  to the jazz  composition and  improvisation.
During his career ha has had the chance to perform as a soloist executing his own  pieces of music or collaborating with other artists’ projects. He took part to some of the most important jazz festivals like Umbria Jazz, Jazz Fest Metronome, Young in Town, Siena Jazz 2, Gubbio Noboders, Ciampino Jazz Festival and  Viterbo Jazzup 2013. He has also had the opportunity of working and playing with   appreciated musicians as Massimo Manzi, Jo Ann Pickens, Pierre Drevet, Manu Roche, Daniele Di Gregorio, Marco Tamburini Alberto Borsari, Stefano Cantini, Maurizio Giammarco, Fabio Zeppetella and many more. He gained experience in  different plays  as composer and performer including  the show “Il mago” with Eugenio Allegri and   the collaboration with Perugia Liminalia troupe.
Maurizio Marrani teaches music   in several public and private  schools.
He recorded in Oslo Rainbow Studio  a CD of solo piano performance,  Solo in Oslo, for  the music label Pagina 3. A new CD, Azur Planet,  a quartet recording, has just come out.   Dowload


Maurizio Marrani Quartet
“Jazz:  a culture crossroads”

Maurizio Marrani’s Quartet offers an original program made up of his own pieces of music  and of rearranged standard pieces  influenced by different  music styles similar to jazz. The whole program reflects an open vision of Afro-American music and is able to contain different materials and kinds of music coming from various music worlds:  the Sixties’ Soul music, Jazz-Rock fusion, Bossanova, Movie music and Blues. A relevant role is played by  the improvisation and by the musicians interplay which make every single concert unique and unpredictable.
The quartet, who has just released his first CD Azur Planet for the music label Pagina3, consists of the pianist Maurizio Marrani, the guitarist Angelo Lazzeri, the bassist Graziano Brufani and the  drummer Nicola Polidori.
 
Maurizio Marrani. Graduated in classical and jazz piano at Morlacchi Conservatory.  He has always devoted himself to the jazz composition and improvisation. During his career he had the chance to perform as solo pianist playing  his own  pieces or collaborating with other musicians in some of the most important jazz festivals Umbria Jazz” 1990 , “Jazz Fest” 1992-94, ,”Metronome” 1998 , “Young in Town” 2006 ecc.. “Siena Jazz” 2008 , “Gubbio Noborders” 2010, “Ciampino Jazz Festival” 2012, “Viterbo Jazzup” 2013 . He also had the opportunity of working and playing with many musicians like Massimo Manzi, Pierre Drevet, Alberto Borsari, Manu Roche, Daniele Di Gregorio, Jo Ann Pickens, Fabio Zeppetella.
 
 
Angelo Lazzeri. Guitarist, composer, arranger. He has played with musicians like Joe Chambers, Dave Liebman, Manhu Roche, David Linx, Paolo Fresu, Pietro Tonolo, Roberto Gatto, Fabrizio Sferra, Gabriele Mirabassi, Bebo Ferra. He has been working for years  as a musician and  an arranger with  David Riondino. He is currently working  in different fields like Big Band, Perugia Jazz Orchestra directed by Mario Raja and Barga Jazz Orchestra directed by Bruno Tommaso). He is playing in smaller  music  bands of centre Italy  and collaborates with appreciated musicians like Rossano Emili, Massimo Morganti, Stefano Paolini, Enrico Bracco and others). He performed in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Japan and he took part in  festivals like Umbria Jazz, Time in Jazz, Ancona Jazz Festival, Potsdamer Jazzfest. He also got involved in  theatre music projects  and collaborated  with directors like Stefano Alleva, Maurizio Schmidt and Vincenzo Pirrotta. He performed in Venice Biennale, Gibellina Orestiadi and in several  theatres in Rome. He teaches guitar at Perugia  Conservatory and is a professor in Nuoro University  jazz winter courses.
 
Graziano Brufani.  Electric bass player graduated in Morlacchi Conservatory in Perugia. He has got experience in Chamber Orchestra (Solisti di Perugia) and Symphony Orchestra. (Orchestra Sinfonica di Perugia e dell’Umbria),  and is currently working with different pop and jazz musicians such as Mauro Negri, Mauro Ottolini, Michele Ascolese, Ellade Bandini, Stefano Zavattoni, Claudio Mastracci, Roberto Pistolesi, and many more.
 
Nicola Polidori. He started studying drums at  Marco Pellegrini’s STIX music school and  improved  his skills with the music  teachers Claudio Mastracci , Enzo Restuccia   and Maurizio Dei Lazzaretti. He also attended  jazz courses and workshops,  several  seminars organized by  Christian Meyer, Dave Weckl, Agostino Marangolo, Gavin Harrison and  Alfredo Golino. He is quite active both  in recording and in live pop concerts. He has joined Davide de Gregorio’s band since 2006 and he has won the national prize Musicultura.
 In February 2004 he recorded the whole soundtrack of the film A Ogni volta che te ne vai  by Fabio de Luigi and took part in the recording of some music for the television series   "Un medico in famiglia". He has been collaborating with Gabin since 2012 and playing in some concerts in Europe. Since 2013 he has been playing with the Reseau, an electro-swing group with whom he  has recorded some pieces of music  and has been playing with important Italian and International musicians like Fabrizio Bosso, Alfonso Deidda, Filippo Clary, Daniele Tittarelli, Claudio Corvini.  He regularly plays with Outside band in many clubs and pubs all around Italy. He works with different recording studios and records soundtracks for TV channels Rai, Mediaset and for cinema as well. He teaches at STIX music school in Perugia.   Dowload


Solo Piano
"One hundred years of jazz"

The solo piano experience is  a free  journey and not a philological one in the jazz history, through a new reading of some pianists and songwriters who marked its events. From James P. Johnson ‘s stride piano in the Twenties’ New York to Charlie Parker’s be bop revolution of the Forties, passing by Duke’s and Errol Garner’s music. It is based on  John Coltrane’s overwhelming energy combined with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s  bossanova and  Bill Evans’s romantic and moving  lyricism, a mix  completed by original Marrani’s compositions such as Moscow-Vladivostok, dedicated to the famous Trans-Siberian railway line. Each composition opens with an introduction describing the musical features or the historical connections, a  succession of words and sounds that promote both content and music. Solo piano formula allows the pianist to explore freely the music program and to reach the furthest dimensions of his unconscious inner world as well as  the hidden and secret places of his memories and feelings. In solo piano there are not any structural constraints being in a  group performance and  it is therefore possible to change the form and the content of music just following the improvisation and realizing  an extemporaneous composition.  Dowload