Gianluca Petrella

Petrella was born on 14 March 1975 in Bari and has been active since 1993, when he started with Roberto Ottaviano. In 2001 he won Italy's Django d'Or and the Musica Jazz critics' poll for best young talent, and in 2006 and 2007 Down Beat gave him its best emerging artist title in the trombone category. His influences include Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Sun Ra, and he uses loops and sound effects.

As leader he released X-Ray (Auand, 2001), Indigo 4 (Blue Note, 2005), Kaleido (Blue Note/EMI, 2007), Big Guns with Bobby Previte (Auand, 2008), Ida Lupino (ECM, 2016) and Lost River (ECM, 2019). Indigo 4, with Paolino Dalla Porta, Francesco Bearzatti and Fabio Accardi, recorded for Blue Note. He plays on Nicola Conte's Other Directions (Blue Note, 2004) and Let Your Light Shine On (MPS, 2018), on Rosalia de Souza's Garota Moderna (Schema, 2002) and on Mario Biondi's Handful of Soul (Schema, 2006), and has worked with Enrico Rava, Carla Bley, Pat Metheny and Manu Dibango.