Giuseppe De Gregorio aka Joe De Gregorio is an awarded Italian-born jazz pianist, vocalist, composer and educator whose work bridges jazz tradition, blues heritage and contemporary jazz. Leading his trio since 2004, Joe develops projects innovating the jazz canon.
In Blues (homage to the Greats) Ft Ron Carter & Peter Erskine
Joe DeGregorio’s In Blues breathes new life into Theme and Variation; Ron Carter/Peter Erskine appear together on same recording for the first time
The divide between jazz and classical music had frustrated Roman-born pianist, composer and educator Joe De Gregorio since his time as a conservatory student in Italy, where classical studies were the only option. “It’s an artificial divide—JS Bach moved effortlessly between composing, improvising and performing. Jazz inherited that ‘one act’ tradition,” De Gregorio states. Raised in a musician’s family immersed in jazz, he would spend two decades articulating that conviction through his own work.
In 2025 at the legendary Van Gelder Studio, De Gregorio captured his revolutionary vision in a single day, expanding the Blues form through the timeless classical model of theme and variation.
The result is the double album In Blues (Homage to the Greats), featuring legendary, multiple Grammy Award winning artists Ron Carter on double bass and Peter Erskine on drums, appearing together on the same recording for the very first time. Starting as an intimate duo—De Gregorio and Carter–listening deeply to one another inside jazz’s most storied room, the album was made complete on the West Coast with Erskine responding to the duo with his signature sensitivity, elegance and imagination, while preserving the duo’s intimacy and spontaneity.
With In Blues, De Gregorio brings Jazz home to its creative source—the Blues—(in Joe’s words “the lifeblood of Jazz”) while simultaneously showcasing his original teaching method “Developing Jazz Variations”, which fuses the legacy of Jazz master-educator Barry Harris with classical composer Arnold Schoenberg’s principles of thematic development and musical analysis.
Releasing this October 24th, Volume One and Two of In Blues features:
Eleven original blues variations including: solo piano, duo and trio renditions paying homage to Duke Ellington, Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, Roland Hannah, Roy Hargrove, Thelonious Monk, Hank Jones, Jelly Roll Morton, Ellis Marsalis and Barry Harris
Two beloved jazz standards: Miles Davis’s timeless “All Blues” and Thelonious Monk’s iconic “Blue Monk”
One original composition by Ron Carter, “Light Blue”
As the first chapter of De Gregorio’s Trilogy, a three-album work being released throughout 2026, In Blues articulates that jazz and classical music are complementary traditions. “Improvisation is composition in the moment, and a single musical idea can be endlessly transformed through the art of variation,” De Gregorio believes. The result is an album both timeless and contemporary that rediscovers the power of the blues.
Collaborations
Joe De Gregorio has collaborated with leading jazz artists including Ari Hoenig, Jonathan Blake, Greg Hutchinson, Joel Frahm, Ike Sturm, Ethan Philion and Kyle Swan among others.
Joe De Gregorio holds an O-1 Artist Visa valid through August 2028, allowing him to perform regularly in the United States.