Leo Genovese

Leo Genovese
Genovese in 2020.
Background information
Born	1979 (age 44–45) Venado Tuerto, Argentina
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer
Instrument(s)	Piano, keyboards, other instruments
Years active	Mid-2000s–present

Leonardo Genovese (born 1979) is an Argentine jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer. He has played with The Mars Volta.

Genovese was born in Venado Tuerto, Argentina, in 1979.^[1] He began playing the piano at the age of 5 or 6, but became more interested in playing around ten years later.^[1]

Genovese began studying music and accounting at the University of Rosario, but soon abandoned accountancy, and in 2001 he began studying at the Berklee College of Music.^[1] He graduated in 2003.^[1] His first album, Haiku II, was released the following year and was followed by Unlocked in 2008, but Genovese later talked them down, stating that they were "just a way to document where I was at the time".^[1] From 2005 he recorded and toured internationally with bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding.^[1]

A reviewer for The New York Times commented on Genovese's 2013 album, Seeds, that, "by refusing to privilege one historical style over another, he strengthens his claim as a polyglot".^[2] Down Beat observed that Genovese's compositions for the album "share an exploratory nature, whether the new terrain in question is a marriage of electronic and acoustic sounds, an unlikely use of chromatic scaling or the successful juxtaposition of otherwise disparate ideas."^[3]

Wayne Shorter & Leo Genovese, soloist won a Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for the Wayne Shorter composition "Endangered Species" for which Leo accompanied him on the album Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival.^[4] Genovese won the DownBeat Critics Award for Rising Star – Piano in 2023.^[5]

An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release.