Last updated October 21, 2026
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Andrea Grossi was born in Monza, Lombardy, in 1992 and now lives and works in Milan. He studied double bass and jazz composition at the Conservatorio "Arrigo Boito" in Parma under bassist and composer Roberto Bonati, earning his diploma in jazz double bass in 2017 (110/110 cum laude, with special mention) and a second diploma in jazz composition in 2022 (110/110 cum laude). Alongside Bonati, his conservatory teachers included drummer Roberto Dani, pianist Alberto Tacchini, and reedists Riccardo Luppi, Fabrizio Fanticini and Riccardo Ceni, and he took masterclasses with Bruno Chevillon, Barre Phillips, Han Bennink, Misha Alperin, Arild Andersen, Bruno Tommaso, and Franco D'Andrea and Marcus Miller, both already profiled on this site.
In 2016, the Beatrice Arrigoni Quartet, with Grossi on bass alongside pianist Lorenzo Blardone and drummer Matteo Rebulla, won the MIDJ prize for Best Jazz Band Under 30 in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. He has also received a Special Mention in the Giorgio Gaslini International Prize.
Grossi founded his trio Blend 3 in 2017 with alto saxophonist Manuel Caliumi and electric guitarist Michele Bonifati, a working group that plays entirely through collective composition and improvisation rather than a fixed lead-and-accompaniment format. The trio's debut, Lubok (2019, We Insist! Records), was recorded September 24-25, 2018, with liner notes from photographer and artist Roberto Masotti, whom Grossi has named as a lasting influence on how he thinks about his own work. A year later Grossi expanded the group into the twelve-piece Andrea Grossi Blend Orchestra for Four Winds (2020, We Insist!), a suite built around the four Greek winds and their cardinal-direction symbolism, reviewed in Italy by The New Noise and Jazzitalia. Blend 3 then turned to song form on Songs and Poems (2022, We Insist!), setting Emily Dickinson and e.e. cummings texts with singer Beatrice Arrigoni added to the trio (plus Gledis Gjuzi's toy piano on two tracks), recorded around Monza in the second half of 2021.
The trio's fourth album, Axes (2024, We Insist!), added American drummer Jim Black for the first time on a Blend 3 record. Discogs' own Top Jazz 2024 compilation credits the album's inclusion in Musica Jazz magazine's year-end poll, and Axes drew reviews from All About Jazz, Jazz Journal and Jazzword; on the record, Grossi plays double bass, electric bass, Bb clarinet and an Albanian lahuta (a long-necked lute) in addition to composing.
Beyond Blend 3, Grossi is a regular sideman for his former teacher Roberto Bonati, appearing on multiple recordings by Bonati's Chironomic Orchestra and Roberto Bonati ParmaFrontiere Orchestra between 2016 and 2024, and he plays in the recurring Pipeline/Trio Pipeline/Pipeline (21) project. Other credited sideman work spans HIIT's For Beauty Is Nothing But the Beginning of Terror (2023, Clean Feed Records), Korr's Tombé de la Voûte (2021, We Insist!), Nexus's Nexus Plays Dolphy (2024, Red Records), Daniele Cavallanti & the Songlines Band's The Dreamtime (2023, Felmay), the Francesco Chiapperini Extemporary Vision Ensemble, Luca Perciballi's Organic Gestures, Biagio Coppa & Intrepid Trio, and Beatrice Arrigoni's own quartet and solo releases. Grossi also composes for dance and theater, including a 2018 commission for the Danzability Company, one of ten finalists that year at the Festival Escena Mobile choreography contest in Seville, and he teaches double bass, electric bass and improvisation at the Accademia Musicale Crepaldi in Pogliano Milanese.
Grossi's own account of his bass playing runs through a specific lineage of composer-improvisers on the instrument: Mark Dresser, Barre Phillips and Barry Guy on the freer end, and Gary Peacock, Dave Holland, Scott LaFaro, Miroslav Vitous and Eddie Gomez on the more harmonically rooted side, with Chick Corea's A.R.C. and Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds singled out as formative records. Blend 3's own music follows from that split: a trio built to work without a drummer for its first two records, using collective composition and improvisation as its only structural tools, in a format one reviewer described as a kind of chamber jazz where each instrument's sound is left to develop and communicate on its own terms. Adding Jim Black's drums for Axes did not push the group toward a more conventional rhythm-section role - reviewers describe the record's title suite as a rigorously written but rhythmically explosive polymodal piece, and one review called the album's shift into groove-driven material its "free-funk" side. That range, between fully open improvisation and tightly constructed writing, runs through Grossi's other work as well, from the orchestral scale of Four Winds to the text-setting of Songs and Poems.
Compiled via the Discogs API. Grossi's own artist entity is Discogs artist 6076997 ("Andrea Grossi," profile text "Italian bassist born in 1992"; name variations "A. Grossi" / "Grossi"). His two bands carry their own separate Discogs entities: Andrea Grossi Blend 3 (artist 7357543) and Andrea Grossi Blend Orchestra (artist 15444333).
A note on one release title: Discogs' own database renders the title of the 2019 debut as "Lобok," using the Cyrillic character U+0446 (Cyrillic small letter tse) in place of the Latin "u" - confirmed at the byte level, not a display artifact. Every other source checked (the We Insist! Records Bandcamp and shop pages, the band's own official site, Amazon, and Tower Records) spells it "Lubok" with a plain Latin "u," which is the spelling used throughout this profile and this file; the Discogs anomaly is flagged here rather than silently corrected in Discogs itself.
Spotify/Listen: web search was used to confirm the Blend 3 Spotify artist page. No individual album-level Spotify links could be independently confirmed, so album rows use the verified We Insist! Records Bandcamp link instead, where "not found" is not written unless no link of any kind was confirmed.
Buy: Cells give a plain Amazon link, We Insist! Records shop link, or Bandcamp link where available, and a Discogs release link otherwise.
| Album | Year | Label | Personnel | Notes | Listen | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lubok | 2019 | We Insist! Records | Andrea Grossi (double bass, composition), Manuel Caliumi (alto saxophone), Michele Bonifati (electric guitar) | Blend 3's debut, recorded September 24-25, 2018; liner notes by photographer/artist Roberto Masotti; band photography by Annamaria Ferro. Discogs renders the title "Lобok" (Cyrillic tse in place of "u" - see note above); this file uses the correct Latin spelling used everywhere else. | Bandcamp | We Insist! shop / Amazon |
| Four Winds | 2020 | We Insist! Records | Credited to Andrea Grossi Blend Orchestra: Andrea Grossi (double bass, composition), Manuel Caliumi (alto sax), Michele Bonifati (electric guitar), Giancarlo Locatelli (bass/contrabass clarinet), Rebecca Roda (English horn, oboe), Caterina Biagiarelli (flute, piccolo), Gabriele Fava (soprano/tenor sax, flute), Massimiliano Milesi (tenor/soprano sax), Andrea Baronchelli (trombone, bass tuba), Paolo Malacarne (trumpet, flugelhorn), Simone Quatrana (piano), Filippo Sala (drums) | Twelve-piece expansion of Blend 3, a suite on the four Greek winds; liner notes by Bruno Tommaso and Roberto Bonati. Reviewed by The New Noise and Jazzitalia (2021). | Bandcamp | Discogs |
| Songs and Poems | 2022 | We Insist! Records | Andrea Grossi (double bass, composition), Manuel Caliumi (alto saxophone), Michele Bonifati (electric guitar), Beatrice Arrigoni (voice), Gledis Gjuzi (toy piano, 2 tracks) | Sets poems by Emily Dickinson and e.e. cummings; recorded in the Monza area, July-December 2021. Not indexed on Discogs; sourced from the We Insist! Records Bandcamp and shop pages. | Bandcamp | We Insist! shop |
| Axes | 2024 | We Insist! Records | Andrea Grossi (double bass, Bb clarinet, electric bass, Albanian lahuta, composition), Manuel Caliumi (alto saxophone, bass clarinet), Michele Bonifati (electric guitar), Jim Black (drums, percussion) | Blend 3's first album with a drummer. Ranked among Musica Jazz's best albums of the year (Discogs lists a 2025 TrackAppearance credit on the magazine's "Top Jazz 2024" compilation release); reviewed by All About Jazz, Jazz Journal and Jazzword. | Bandcamp | Amazon / Discogs |
Every remaining "Appearance" credit on Grossi's own Discogs artist entity (6076997) as of build time, beyond the four Blend 3/Blend Orchestra albums already listed above as Leader/Co-Leader (those same four titles also show up as "Appearance" entries under his individual artist ID, since the release's main billing credit belongs to the band entity, not the individual - not repeated here).
| Year | Title | Artist / Billing | Label | Notes | Listen | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Angeli Vs. Demoni | Stefano Fonzi | Rai Trade | Earliest credit found for this artist ID. | not found | Discogs |
| 2011 | Conseguenza Logica | Matia Bazar | (unlabeled) | Guest credit on a release by the well-known Italian pop group; outside the jazz scope but included here for a complete credit list. | not found | Discogs |
| 2016 | Il Suono Improvviso | Roberto Bonati, Chironomic Orchestra | (self-released) | Grossi's conservatory teacher's large ensemble; first of several credited appearances 2016-2024. | not found | Discogs |
| 2018 | The Big Earth | Francesco Chiapperini Extemporary Vision Ensemble | Rudi Records | Bass, one of twelve credited musicians; recorded live in Milan. | not found | Discogs |
| 2018 | Innerscape | Beatrice Arrigoni 4et | Emme Record Label | Grossi as sideman on Arrigoni's own quartet album, four years before Songs and Poems. | not found | Discogs |
| 2018 | Prayer | Pipeline 8 | We Insist! Records | Live Steve Lacy tribute recorded at Pisa Jazz in November 2016; eight players including Cristiano Calcagnile (drums), Alberto Braida (piano) and Gabriele Mitelli (pocket trumpet). | Spotify | Discogs |
| 2019 | Whirling Leaves | Roberto Bonati - Chironomic Orchestra | ParmaFrontiere | not found | Discogs | |
| 2020 | Kakuan Suite | Trio Pipeline | We Insist! Records | Recurring "Pipeline" project, one of three related billings (Pipeline 8, Trio Pipeline, Pipeline (21)) Grossi has recorded with. | Bandcamp | Discogs |
| 2021 | Tombé de la Voûte | Korr | We Insist! Records | not found | Discogs | |
| 2021 | Approximately Grids With a Plan | Luca Perciballi Organic Gestures | Aut Records | not found | Discogs | |
| 2023 | La Fòla De L'oca/Overtime | Roberto Bonati ParmaFrontiere Orchestra | ParmaFrontiere | not found | Discogs | |
| 2023 | The Dreamtime | Daniele Cavallanti & The Songlines Band | Felmay | Bass; Cavallanti plays tenor saxophone and is credited as composer. | not found | Discogs |
| 2023 | Cursed Location | Biagio Coppa & Intrepid Trio | AMP Music & Records | not found | Discogs | |
| 2023 | For Beauty Is Nothing But the Beginning of Terror | HIIT | Clean Feed Records | not found | Discogs | |
| 2023 | Terrestre | Beatrice Arrigoni | Barly Records | not found | Discogs | |
| 2024 | Other Interactions ...On July 5th | Tiziano Tononi, Emanuele Parrini | Felmay | not found | Discogs | |
| 2024 | La Persistance Du Rêve | Mario Mariotti | Abeat Records | not found | Discogs | |
| 2024 | Nexus Plays Dolphy | Nexus | Red Records | not found | Discogs | |
| 2024 | Si Erano Vestiti Dalla Festa | Roberto Bonati ParmaFrontiere Orchestra | ParmaFrontiere | not found | Discogs | |
| 2024 | The Gesture Of Sound The Gesture Of Colour | Roberto Bonati, Chironomic Orchestra | ParmaFrontiere | not found | Discogs | |
| 2025 | Fisse | Andrea Ciceri Esatomic | Aut Records | With Francesco Chiapperini (bass clarinet, flute). | not found | Discogs |
| 2025 | Ahead of July | Pipeline (21) | We Insist! Records | Live recording from Cernusco sul Naviglio, May 19, 2024; third of the three "Pipeline" billings Grossi has recorded under, with Cristiano Calcagnile (drums), Alberto Braida (piano) and Gabriele Mitelli (piccolo trumpet). | not found | Discogs |
| 2025 | Portraits | Luca Gusella, featuring Andrea Grossi and Alessandro Rossi | Caligola | not found | Discogs | |
| 2026 | Italian Mottetto | Francesco Chiapperini | Caligola | Double bass in a quartet with voice and violin, reworking Giulio Caccini. | not found | Discogs |
| 2026 | A Decent Run | Tom Raworth, Giancarlo "Nino" Locatelli | We Insist! Records | Locatelli is a co-founder of We Insist! Records, Grossi's home label. | not found | Discogs |
Full, unfiltered credit list (29 relationship entries as of build time across all roles - a small number reflect the same underlying release credited under two different artist relationships) at Discogs: Andrea Grossi.
Tiziano Tononi (drums, percussion) - credited together on Other Interactions ...On July 5th (2024); Discogs-confirmed.
Manuel Caliumi (alto saxophone, bass clarinet) - founding member of Blend 3 since 2017, on all four of the group's albums.
Michele Bonifati (electric guitar) - founding member of Blend 3 since 2017, on all four of the group's albums.
Jim Black (drums, percussion) - added to Blend 3 for Axes (2024, We Insist! Records), the trio's first album with a drummer.
Beatrice Arrigoni (voice) - featured on Songs and Poems (2022); Grossi has also recorded as a sideman on her own quartet releases (Innerscape, 2018; Terrestre, 2023).
Roberto Bonati (bass, composition) - Grossi's conservatory teacher in Parma; Grossi has recorded as a sideman in Bonati's Chironomic Orchestra and Roberto Bonati ParmaFrontiere Orchestra across multiple releases from 2016 to 2024.
Bruno Tommaso (double bass, composition) - one of the artists whose masterclasses Grossi attended during his conservatory training; not a recorded or performing credit.
Franco D'Andrea (piano) - one of the artists whose masterclasses Grossi attended during his conservatory training; not a recorded or performing credit.
Marcus Miller (bass) - another masterclass instructor named in Grossi's training; not a recorded or performing credit.
Uri Caine and Gerry Hemingway, both already profiled on this site (Uri Caine, Gerry Hemingway) - named as collaborators in Grossi's own official biography, but no specific recorded or credited session with either could be independently confirmed via the Discogs API.
Emanuele Parrini (violin) - fellow guest on Other Interactions ...On July 5th (2024, Felmay), the Tiziano Tononi/Parrini duo-series album, Discogs-confirmed.
Francesco Chiapperini (clarinets, bass clarinet, saxophones) - bandleader on two Grossi albums, The Big Earth (2018, Extemporary Vision Ensemble) and Italian Mottetto (2026, a Caccini quartet with voice and violin); the two also share Andrea Ciceri Esatomic's Fisse (2025). Discogs-confirmed.
Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone, composer) - bandleader of The Songlines Band on The Dreamtime (2023, Felmay), on which Grossi is credited on bass; Discogs-confirmed.
Cristiano Calcagnile (drums, percussion) and Alberto Braida (piano) - fellow members of the Pipeline band on Prayer (2018, billed Pipeline 8) and Ahead Of July (2025), both We Insist! Records; Discogs-verified.
Gabriele Mitelli (pocket trumpet, piccolo trumpet) - fellow member of the Pipeline band on Prayer (2018, billed Pipeline 8) and Ahead Of July (2025); Discogs-verified.
Luca Tilli (cello) - fellow member of the Pipeline band on Prayer (2018, billed Pipeline 8) and Ahead Of July (2025), and again on A Decent Run (2026, Tom Raworth / Giancarlo "Nino" Locatelli); Discogs-verified.
Giancarlo Schiaffini (trombone, tuba, euphonium) - credited together on La Persistance Du Rêve (2024). Discogs-confirmed.
Luca Gusella (vibraphone) - fellow Nexus member on Nexus Plays Dolphy (2024), and the leader Grossi backs on double bass on Portraits (2025, Caligola Records), Gusella's own leader debut, which includes a track dedicated to Grossi; both confirmed at the Discogs credit level.