Biography

Colombian pianist and composer Ricardo Gallo has published five albums under his name. He leads different projects that relate aspects of Colombian traditions to contemporary musical expressions, and performs with several improvisational groups.

His main projects are his quartet that he leads since 2004 in Bogotá with some of the best musicians from Colombia’s scene: drummer Jorge Sepúlveda, bassist Juan Manuel Toro, and percussionist Juan David Castaño. With them he has developed original compositions and a way of improvising that integrates an avant-garde and free language with rhythmic and melodic elements from Colombian traditions. Ricardo Gallo Cuarteto has released three albums: “Los Cerros Testigos” (December, 2005), “Urdimbres y Marañas” (December, 2007), and “Resistencias” (October 2010), all of them with great critical acclaim both in his country and abroad. These three albums have been published under the catalogue of the musician’s collective “La Distritofonica”, from Bogotá.

In New York he leads since 2007 the group Tierra de Nadie, with musicians such as trombonist Ray Anderson, saxophonist Dan Blake, bassist Mark Helias, and drummers Pheeroan akLaff and/or Satoshi Takeishi. This quintet/sextet performs compositions conceived as a sort of imaginary folklore, providing space for contributing musicians to inhabit freely. With this group he published the album “The Great Fine Line” in November 2010 under the portuguese label Clean Feed Records.

Another release as a leader is the album “Meleyolamente”, a duo with Colombian guitarist living in New York Alejandro Flórez, under the Colombian label Festina Lente Discos (april 2009). Furthermore, his music has been published in several compilations in Colombia, USA, and Europe, and has collaborated in recordings of groups such as: Asdrubal, Fifo and Citizens of the World, Pacho Dávila, Peter Evans Quartet, among others.

He has performed his music in Peru, Puerto Rico, Canada, Kenya, several cities in U.S.A. mainly in New York in several venues (The Stone, Blue Note, Joe’s Pub, Museo del Barrio, Cornelia Street Cafe, Issue Project Room, Galapagos, Drom, Highline Ballroom, among others), in festivals in Colombia such as Barranquijazz, Jazz Festival at Manizales, Jazz Festival at Teatro Libre and Jazz al Parque in Bogotá, and in the majority of the main venues and theaters in this city.

In New York he has performed his music in several formats including in addition to the aforementioned musicians: Jorge Roeder, Tom Blancarte, Tony Malaby, Sam Sadigursky, Martin Vejarano, Pedro Giraudo, etc. He has participated in groups led by Ray Anderson and has performed in Europe (Portugal and Austria) and New York with Peter Evans Quartet, which is documented in the recording “Live in Lisbon” (Clean Feed Records, 2010).

He started his undergraduate studies in composition and jazz piano at Universidad Javeriana in his native city of Bogotá. He finished his undergraduate at the University of North Texas, where he was honored “Outstanding Composition Student”. He holds a Masters and PhD in music composition from Stony Brook University.