Everyone Loves Leo

I have wanted to sit down with pianist extraordinaire Leo Genovese for years to ask him some probing questions. Aside from how the hell his fingers fly along those keys, something I don’t think I even bothered to ask in our interview because it is a magic no one can ever exactly explain, I want to know how it is that he is able to make everyone adore him.

This question sounds (as I warn him) like blowing smoke up his $%@, which maybe it is. But it is also a deep heartfelt question, the answer to which I feel a great need at this point in my life to understand, and learn from. I love his answer, in short how he has come to treating others in his lovely way by so much experience on the road, two decades, listening, watching, deciding who he wants to emulate (he doesn’t say “and who he doesn’t” because he is too nice.)

I’m sure that answer is true, as his capacity for learning and applying that learning is obvious from listening to him play with a wide variety of musicians, in a wide variety of genres. But the answer is also something maybe he himself cannot express in words, or even fully understand. It is something that becomes clear when watching Leo’s face during a show, how he lights up while watching his fellow bandmates play. The profound underlying joy and appreciation that shines through then is, I believe, what’s behind Leo’s energy, for playing, for people, for life.

“This party is for everybody,” he says about the culture of music and dance (and joy) at some point in our interview, his slowly articulate Argentine-inflected English accenting his wide laughing smile and big eyes to ensure you know he means it. And you want desperately to attend this party, this world he inhabits. Inclusivity is something he possesses in spades. You know why the great saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter chose to play with him on his last album (for which Leo won a Grammy), why jazz singer Esperanza Spaulding has chosen him as her pianist on many tours, why he plays all over the world all the time with so many great musicians. It is the music he makes, for sure, but it is also the magical ebullience he radiates.

I laugh thinking “THIS PARTY IS FOR EVERYBODY!” is the second t-shirt idea Leo has inspired in my mind, the first being, “EVERYONE LOVES LEO.”

This interview was sparked by seeing Leo at Bar Bayeaux after months of missing seeing him on the scene. He had left for a while to go back to his hometown of Venado Tuerto in Argentina and play with his mentors and friends there. I was gone too, and when I came back and headed out excitedly to see him, to hear him after all this time, something felt…different. I asked him about it afterward, after we embraced, happy to see one another.

“Did you get better?” I asked incredulously, as if it was possible. He smiled and said something about Argentina, about the land... “We should talk,” he said. And so was born this conversation. I had to hear more. How does one’s homeland affect their soul, their music, their self? How do we grow and change with a return there? He speaks of this a bit, about the beautiful culture of his home, about going back and paying rapt attention.

“True lessons come through deep listening…” Leo says. Oh, to have his ears!

Listen up to this man, Leo Genovese, in this interview and on April 25th at Bar LunAtico with his new group, Chupacabra. “Don’t miss it, there may not be a second grace,” he says lightheartedly in the promo for the night. He is experimenting, as he does. Improvisation is in his soul. And catch him whenever and wherever you can exhibiting this natural improv, including on his upcoming album. Leo is a special human.