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Mauro Gargano

About Me

My Jazz Story

My name is Mauro Gargano, I was born in Bari in 1972 in Puglia, southern Italy. I do not come from a family of musicians. There was a slightly different music in my childhood house… My father was a racing driver, the rustle of engines accompanied my early life until my adolescence. But thanks to my grandfather’s and sister’s record collection, I enjoyed and loved music, in all styles, since I was very young. I started studying jazz with the electric bass with the bassplayer and organist Vito di Modugno and then double bass with Maurizio Quintavalle. Then I followed the Siena Jazz seminars in Italy, with Paolo Fresu, Furio di Castri, and Marco Tamburini. I moved to Paris in 1998 at the age of 25, to continue my classical studies at the Conservatory of the 14th with Christian Gentet, then at the Paris CNSM with Riccardo del Frà and I eventually graduated in 2004, winning the First Prize award for “Jazz and improvised music”. I participated in many masterclasses where I could study and share with great musicians like Stefano Scodanibbio, Jean Paul Celea, Bruno Chevillon, Claude Tchamitchan, Mark Dresser, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Scott Colley, Anders Jormin, Kenny Werner, Kenny Wheeler , Jeremy Pelt, Eric Harland, Paolino Dalla Porta. During my professional life I had the chance to meet lots of talented musicians from very diverse stylistic universes who nourished my artistic imagination, and with whom I shared the stage in many festivals, theaters and jazz clubs in France, Italy, Germany , Norway, Greece, Japan, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Romania, Morocco, Algeria, Serbia, Macedonia, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, England, Greece, Norway, Tunisia. Among others: Aldo Romano, Paolo Fresu, Kenny Werner, Bojan Z, Jason Palmer, Chris Cheek, Jeff Ballard, Daniel Humair, Nicolas Folmer, Mike Moreno, Nasheet Waits, Soweto Kinch, Magic Malik, Flavio Boltro, Francesco Bearzatti, René Urtreger, Michel Legrand, Christophe Marguet, Bruno Angelini, Giovanni Mirabassi, Mark Small, Pierre de Bethmann, Roberto Ottaviano, Steve Potts, Giovanni Falzone, Fabrizio Bosso, Alexis Avakian, Emanuele Cisi, Laurent de Wilde, Thierry Eliez, Alfio Origlio, Achille Gajo, Junko Onishi, Junko Morya, Jean Charles Richard, Ricardo Izquierdo, Chihiro Yamanaka, ParisJazz big band, Minino Garay, Dede Ceccarelli, John Betsch, Rosario Giuliani, Maraca, Marcia Maria, Denis Leloup, Gaetano Partipilo, Macha Gharibian, Jens Duppe, Frank Lacy, Laura Littardi, Philippe Lebaraillec, Sebastien Jarrousse, Aidje Tafial, David Venitucci, Fabio Accardi, Fabrice Moreau, Michel Godard, Gianni Gebbia, Rusan Filiztek, Artyom Minasyan, Miqael Voskanyan, Gregory Privat, Alessandro Lanzoni, Jobic le Masson, Baptiste Herbin, Remi Vignolo, Michel Reis, Pascal Schumacher, Anis Benhallak, Karim Ziad, Jesse Davis, Bille Cobham, Nicola Stilo, Hervé Celcal, Dedé St Prix et and more others… I have always enjoyed playing with other musicians, and sharing important musical experiences and during the last few years I especially like composing and arranging personal music. My personal poetics tries to combine the more traditional components such as jazz, classical music, folk music, and pop-rock, trying to put them in communication with the new influences of contemporary music, and new musical languages. And I try as much as possible to expand my way of composing while remaining open to all forms of art, taking inspiration also in my personal human and musical experience.