GENE DINOVI

Candid Recording(s):

Renaissance of a Jazz Masters(CCD 79708)

Live at the Montreal Bistro, Toronto(CCD 79726)

Biography:

Hearing Gene for the first time one is instantly aware of an artist in the very top flight of jazz performers and improvisors. So how is it that Gene DiNovi's name is scarcely known outside a small circle of friends and knowledgeable enthusiasts? The answer probably lies in a self-imposed exile from jazz, from the mid-fifties until the early eighties.

Born in Brooklyn, New York City in May 1928, Eugene DiNovi started on piano at the age of six. Gene loved the piano and played all day long whenever he could. He got turned on to jazz after hearing records by Mel Powell, Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. As a teenager, the under-age DiNovi hung around the 52nd Street clubs particularly those where the new jazz, bebop was revealing itself- Bird, Diz, Bud Powell and company were in full cry. Powell made a big impact on Gene. Any jazz piano enthusiast will recognize that this DiNovi guy is one hell of a pianist with a beautiful touch for which lesser mortals would kill. Warm and fluent, always in complete control, his use of dynamics is outstanding, his melodic and harmonic lines superb. Above all he is a big swinger with that ability to swing at even the slowest tempo, coupled with a phenomenal technique which he never employs in displays of mere technical pyro-technics.