Born in Perugia, Italy in 1970, Giovanni Mirabassi is completely self-taught. After working in Italy with several notable groups, (he played with Chet Baker in 1987, and Steve Grossman in 1988) he relocated to Paris in 1992. Awarded the prize for best soloist at the Lauréat international competition of Avignon in 1996, he recorded his album ‘Dyade – En bonne et due forme’. Since then he has collaborated with several musicians on the Paris and international scene such as Stefano Di Battista, Flavio Boltro, Aldo Romano, Louis Moutin, Glenn Ferris, Andrzej Jagodzinskj, Michel Portal, Nelson Veras and has worked as leader on several albums for the French record label SKETCH of which his solo album ‘Avanti!’ has sold over 20,000 copies. That album won him the prestigious Victoires du Jazz in 2002, and his album (((air))), a trio with Glenn Ferris and Flavio Boltro was voted best album of the year 2003 by the Django Reinhardt Academy of Jazz. He has played in numerous international concert halls and festivals such as the Paris Jazz Festival, Era jazzu, JVC Jazz festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Tokyo Sumida Symphony Hall and Japan……

Selected Discography :

Cambaluc – Egea Records - 1997
Architectures – Sketch – Harmonia Mundi -1998
Avanti ! – Sketch – Harmonia Mundi - 2000
Dal vivo – Sawano Shokai - 2001
Giovanni Mirabassi & Jagodzinskj trio –Dreadlines - 2002
(((air))) – Sketch – Harmonia Mundi - 2003
Live at Sunside (dvd) – Sawano Shokai - 2004
Léo en toute liberté – La mémoire et la mer – Harmonia Mundi - 2004

17/03/2006 John Fordham, The Guardian 4 Stars ****

"There's an earthiness mixing with the lyricism in UK saxophonist Tim Whitehead's playing that suggests he might just jump on a bar and start rocking. Dancing in the Street is apparently the inspiration for the soul-jazzy opener, and the same atmosphere reappears after pensive beginnings in an account of John Lennon's Imagine and the early-Jarrett drive of gifted Italian pianist Giovanni Mirabassi's vivid Barcarole.
Some of the music was recorded on this Anglo-Italian quartet's 2005 UK tour, and a live version of You Don't Know What Love Is almost steals the set, with its sax hoots over restlessly flying piano figures, intertwining group improv, and beautiful Whitehead closing solo of long, falling-cadence lines.

Mirabassi's originals don't flinch alongside classy materials like Steve Swallow's Ladies in Mercedes (on slow pieces the Italian has a bereft, purple-shaded Nino Rota-like quality, and he writes compellingly punchy chordal melodies at speed) and the rhythm section of Oli Hayhurst and Milo Fell doesn't miss a beat".

Chris Parker, Vortex Website

"With such an examplary cv (Graham Collier, Morrissey-Mullen, Loose Tubes and various projects involving the likes of John Parricelli, Harry Beckett and Martin Drew), Tim Whitehead might be reasonably expected to be one of the most assured tenormen in the UK, and this album, on which he collaborates with the classy Paris-based Italian pianist Giovanni Mirabassi, catches him in top form, whether he’s employing a full-bodied, almost shouting tone on up-tempo numbers, an earnest ‘preaching’ approach at mid-tempo or musing dreamily through the odd ballad (particularly affecting on his own ‘Tenderness’). Mirabassi proves the perfect foil (his rapport with Whitehead most obvious on a duo live visit to ‘Imagine’), his absorbing solos full of chiming, melodious runs and his comping packed with subtle rhythmic variations. The material addressed by this accomplished band (completed by bassist Oli Hayhurst and drummer Milo Fell) also includes some brightly optimistic Whitehead pieces (‘Lucky Boys’ a perky, shuffling opener based on ‘Dancing in the Street’, already covered on Whitehead’s 1999 album <i>Personal Standards</i>, ‘New Day’ a catchy theme with a climactic ending); three Mirabassi originals (‘Barcarole’, an eloquent, rippling theme, a particular highlight); Steve Swallow’s relentlessly building ‘Ladies in Mercedes’, plus a gorgeous visit to ‘You Don’t Know What Love is’, but whatever they’re playing is addressed with brio and elegance. A fine, varied, lively album from four musicians who clearly revel in each other’s company".

Whitehead/ Mirabassi, Royal Festival Hall, London

John Fordham
Tuesday January 25, 2005
The Guardian

The more casually engaged of British music lovers might be forgiven for thinking that the UK touring circuit doesn't need another straightahead, horns-and-rhythm-section jazz band. But listening beyond the point where genre has been defined almost invariably reveals something deeper.
The former Loose Tubes and Nucleus saxophonist Tim Whitehead, for instance, is a far quirkier and more imaginative player than the rituals of postbop require. And the self-taught, Perugia-born pianist Giovanni Mirabassi - paired up with Whitehead for this short tour - is a contemporary jazz pianist of a particular, rhapsodically southern-European character, as romantically eloquent in a luxurious, cafe-waltz manner as his piano compatriot Enrico Pieranunzi. Whitehead and Mirabassi make a compelling contrast, and the local rhythm section of Oli Hayhurst (bass) and Milo Fell (drums) enhances it.
At the Festival Hall's bar last week, the quartet ran through a mix of originals by the leaders and some inventive makeovers. Whitehead loves song themes (reworking classic pop is a favourite pursuit of his), so it wasn't far into his own structurally jumpy, Latin-sprung original New Day when he dropped in an elegant quote from It Might as Well Be Spring, and his dry, hollow-toned post-boppish persona was overtaken by a more relaxed, almost Stan Getz-esque, rolling lyricism.
A Mirabassi waltz emerged, sounding like a Nino Rota movie theme, and both he and Whitehead used its wide open spaces to spin fresh whimsical melody - the saxophonist sometimes recolouring a sharply struck phrase with an identical successor of different tones and articulation. Bassist Hayhurst opened a rearrangement of West Side Story's Somewhere with a symmetry and poise mirrored by Mirabassi, the pianist making his instrument sound plastic and delicately fluid in the manner of Bill Evans. Polished straightahead jazz, but with some attractive bends left in it.