Self-taught soprano, alto and sopranino saxophonist, Gianni Gebbia made his debut in 1979 in New York in loft jazz, under the influence of saxophonists such as Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Arthur Blythe.
He has also collaborated with various jazz players such as Peter Kowald, Raul Ruiz and Jim O'Rourke.
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In 1990, Gianni Gebbia won first prize in the Top Jazz referendum of the Italian magazine Musica Jazz.
He is the founder of the record label objet-a and organizer of the improvised music festival Curva Minore and of Anassimandro, a musico-philosophy festival.
From the 2000s until 2012 he visited Japan every year to study Zen meditation with Shodo Harada Roshi of the Rinzai Zen school in Okayama and directed very visionary [non-neutral] films on the relationship between Western culture and Japan: "Asakusa No Brecht" (Brecht at Asakusa) in 2010, "Nanbanjin" (The Barbarians of the South) in 2011 and "O'Tama Monagatari" (The Story of O'Tama) on the life of the Japanese painter O'Tama Kiyohara who lived in Sicily most of her life.
Gianni Gebbia is considered one of the major specialists in the technique of circular breathing on the sax and in solo performances.
Gianni Gebbia has participated in many festivals such as Banlieues Bleues in Paris, Total Music Meeting in Berlin, Northsea Jazz Festival, the Victoriaville Festival, Bolzano Jazz Summer, Noci Festival, Ruhr Triennale Essen.
Gianni Gebbia collaborates regularly with the German composer Heiner Goebbels and participated in the show "Everything that happened and will happen", at the Mif festival in Manchester, at the Theater Olympics in Saint Petersburg, at the New York Armory Hall. He also performed in duo with Heiner Goebbels from 2018 (Unheorth Festival Zurich, Teatro Massimo Palermo).
Self-taught soprano, alto and sopranino saxophonist, Gianni Gebbia made his debut in 1979 in New York in loft jazz, under the influence of saxophonists such as Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Arthur Blythe. ... In 1990, Gianni Gebbia won first prize in the Top Jazz referendum of the Italian magazine Musica Jazz.
