Born in Salerno, Italy (1983), he arrived in Brussels in 2010 with a diploma in classical saxophone. In the capital of Europe, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in Jazz Saxophone at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, as well as two Master’s degrees in music pedagogy and jazz pedagogy.
At the age of 15, he travelled between Europe and the United States (New Jersey), where he had the opportunity to take many master classes with Vik Juris, Ted Curson, Lenny Argese, Enrico Granafei and other American jazz musicians.
Before arriving in Belgium, Angelo attended several jazz seminars in Italy (Veneto Jazz, Umbria Jazz, Orsara Jazz, Jazz in Laurino) with teachers such as Dennis Irwin, Michele Rabbia, Teo Ciavarella, Matt Renzi, Stefano Battaglia, Cinzia Spata, Paolino della Porta, Andy Shepard, Danilo Rea, Dick Otts and George Garzone. The latter, after awarding Angelo the prize for best saxophonist ‘Jazz in Laurino 2009’, says of him ‘He’s my man!
2012-2013: he releases, under the American jazz label “Trumpet Jazz LLC”, his first record “In Search of the Roots”, an experimental “Sax Solo” project in which Angelo strips himself of all harmonic instruments and plays only with his sax, combining modernity and tradition with an extraordinary and innovative technique.
In the same year, he toured with various European bands such as: The Cool School (50s Cool Jazz), The MoD (Electro Smooth Jazz).
2014-2015: gives birth to the Orchestra Italiana Bruxelles, a jazz big band playing Italian jazz standards from the 40s/50s arranged by Angelo for 16 musicians. This project leads Angelo to play for various embassies and the Orchestra becomes the official big jazz band of the Italian community in Belgium and the official orchestra of the Grand Bal d’Italie in Belgium organised by the Comites Belgium. In the same year, he started a hammond trio with two young Belgian jazz talents: Julien Gillain and Lucas Vanderputten. The name of the project is “Ceci n’est pas un trio”, a tribute to the country that welcomed him, Belgium, referring to Magritte’s surrealism. With this project he tours Italy, Belgium and Germany.
2016: Together with the Italian trumpeter Federico Mansutti, they founded an international project between Belgium and Italy called “The Hipster Project” with the aim of offering Hard-Bop jazz and original compositions. A two-week tour in the Friuli Venezia Gulia region of Italy brought this project to the table of the Italian label Artesuono, which recorded their first album the following year.
2017-2018: Angelo releases three albums on the same label “Artesuono”. The first is “Ceci n’est pas un trio” with his hammond trio. The second is “Orange & Sparkles” with “The Hipster Project”. The third is in collaboration with jazz singer Carla Piombino for the album “Take a Chance”.
2019-2020: 2019-2020: Founds the Belgian Italian Jazz Festival co-organised with the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels and Com.It.Es. Belgium and sponsored by the Italian Embassy in Belgium. He started a new project “Via Toledo Jazz Quartet” with Toots Thielemans’ legendary drummer Bruno Castellucci. With this project, he records the album “Caravaggio” supervised and edited by Stefano Amerigo for his Artesuono label and released on 7 February 2020. He obtains with this project the support of the Belgian Ministry of Culture as a project of artistic relevance and depth.
2020/2021: Despite the pandemic, Angelo does not stop. He streams 20 concerts and his activity on social networks is noticed by Italian and Belgian institutions. He develops three artistic-cultural projects for them, which receive the approval and support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, working with artists and productions from five European countries. 1) “Intro Culture Europe”, a project involving the fusion of several institutions representing Italians abroad with the aim of promoting local culture and the beauty of the region through music. 2) “La Sinergia delle arti“, a play where theatre, music and painting come together to tell the story of us all (in lockdown time) through a visual and musical work. The soundtrack, Il tempo delle Libertà, is composed by Angelo Gregorio and released on 9 July 2021. 3) “The post Belgian Italian Jazz Festival” streaming concert series in restaurants and concert halls closed to the public due to covid. A project that gives concrete support to the artists and indirectly also to the closed halls. In July 2020, he was chosen as a contemporary composer to write the first jazz suite in three movements based on the Divine Comedy on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of the supreme poet. The suite named DAS700 was commissioned by the Dante Alighieri Society in Genk, where the premiere took place on 10 October 2021, followed by Udine, Florence and Rome. In December 2020, he records a duo album “Far from our cities” to be released in October 2021. In May 2021, on the occasion of the Feast of the Republic, the Italian Ambassador to Belgium, Francesco Genuardi, asks Angelo for a jazz re-arrangement of the “Inno di Mameli”. The same is projected on the facade of the residence of the Italian Ambassador to Belgium in, Av. Legrand 41A, 1050 Ixelles and achieved viral resonance on social networks.
2021/2022 : “Far from our cities” is the name of his fifth record released in October 2021 with Italian-Belgian guitarist Paolo Loveri. In September 2021, he was entrusted with the artistic direction of the “Musica all’ingresso” festival at the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels. Following the great success of the festival, Angelo is appointed by director Paolo Sabbatini as artistic director coordinator of the first Jazz Orchestra of the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels, the first orchestra founded by an Italian cultural institute in Europe. On Remembrance Day, Angelo and the Brussels IIC Jazz Orchestra play and stage the show conceived and written by Angelo himself, Jazz & Shoah. The result of five months of research, this event mobilized the media and television stations in the European capital, which broadcast interviews and highlights of the concert on various TV news. The echo of this project reached the Belgian Jewish Contemporary Memory Foundation, which decided, in consultation with Angelo, to work on publications and to take the project to schools. In October 2021, the director of the IIC in Brussels, Paolo Sabbatini, commissioned him to write a composition based on ancient melodies by Father Matteo Ricci in honour of the 400th anniversary of his death. Thus was born the Poema Jazz Sinfonico Limadou 利瑪竇 . From traditional Chinese music via madrigals, blues, Latin music and jazz, a musical journey in four movements written and orchestrated by Angelo. The world premiere takes place in Brussels on 11 May 2022, followed by the Lauro Rossi theatre in Macerata on 3 September 2022. In November 2021, on the occasion of the Puccini commemorations organized by the IIC in Brussels, Angelo was asked to re-arrange for brass octet the national anthems, of Italy and Belgium, and Puccini’s famous string quartet, Crisantemi. The performance, in the presence of Italian and Belgian institutions, will take place on 29 November at the place where Puccini spent the last period of his life, located at Avenue de la Couronne 1, 1050 in the commune of Ixelles in Brussels. In December 2021, the Dante Alighieri Jazz Suite was recognized as a project of artistic lustre by the culture commission of the Wallonia-Brussels federation. In March 2022, he released his sixth record, DAS700 (dante alighieri suite 700). In the same month, he receives a Diploma of Merit as Artist Emeritus from the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Counsellor of the Italian Embassy in Belgium in recognition of his many years of promoting Italian jazz music in Belgium.
2023 : The “Jazz & Shoah” project arrives in Italy and with the endorsement of the Rabbi of Naples, Cesare Moscati, on 27 January there is the Italian premiere in Campania in Caserta. RAI included the show in its 10 events of national importance and Angelo, together with MAECI’s Head of Cultural Promotion Area, Paolo Sabbatini, held 3 conferences in Caserta’s high schools, Alessandro Manzoni and Liceo Artistico San Leucio on the research behind the show and cultural diplomacy. On 10 and 11 February in Poland in Natolin at the College of Europe, Jazz & Shoah is presented as an example project of Cultural Diplomacy. In March 2023, RAI (the Italian national television) chose to narrate Angelo’s musical life abroad with no less than five minutes (you can search on youtube) of prime-time television interviews in Italy and around the world, presenting his personal story and the successful projects that have made him a reference point for Italian jazz in Belgium. In September 2023, he started a creative research on jazz and sailing, aiming to discover connection between these two world. At the end of the research (spring 2025) he will publish a book and a new album that will be called “The Jazz Sailor”.
2024: in January Angelo recorded a new album with his Via Toledo Jazz Quartet, this album will be released on September 2024. At the moment Angelo is currently working various project.
Since 2018, he is teaching saxophone and jazz ensemble at the Brussels Music Academies and Professor of Music at two Royal Athenaeums in Brussels.
