Francesco Pinetti is a vibraphonist, percussionist and composer born in 1976 in Gazzaniga, in the Val Seriana north of Bergamo. He began on piano at the age of seven at the Accademia di Musica "S. Cecilia" and later studied at the Conservatorio "Giuseppe Verdi" in Milan, where he earned diplomas in percussion and in jazz and followed four years of traditional composition. His conservatory teachers, per his own biography, included F. Campioni, Andrea Dulbecco, P. Tonolo and T. Tracanna. In 2001 he attended the Corsi Senesi di Musica Jazz seminars in Siena, where the faculty included Franco D'Andrea and Stefano Battaglia, and he has taken masterclasses with David Searcy, David Friedman, Bobby Durham, Marco Minnemann and Dave Weckl. He placed third at the International Competition for Percussion Instruments and Drums in Fermo, and in 1999 he was selected as vibraphonist and percussionist of the National Grand Orchestra of the Italian jazz musicians' association A.M.J.

An early ensemble was the Pingar Duo with the pianist Luca Garro, which won first prize at both the Jazz Dimensione Giovani competition at the Blue Note in Milan and the Jazz on Live competition in Brescia. The duo recorded Jazz Dimensione Giovani (Dischi della Quercia) and Over the Frantic (Abeat Records, 2007). Under his own name he then built two working groups. The FP Ensemble, a fusion band that mixes complex rhythms with keyboard percussion and draws on rock, funk, Afro and Latin ideas, made Suono Selvatico (Velut Luna, 2004), Suono di Fusione (Music Center, 2008), Ayexit (Sonitus, 2014) and Understanding (2019). The FPQ quartet, with the double bassist Yuri Goloubev, the drummer Marco Zanoli, the guitarist Alberto Capelli and Max Pizio on saxophones, recorded FPQ (Music Center, 2008).

Ayexit is the record that reaches furthest outside his home circle. Discogs credits him on vibraphone, marimba and keyboards and as composer, producer and cover designer, with Ada Rovatti on tenor saxophone, the drummer Marco Minnemann, Carlo Nicita on flute, Mauro Brunini and Sergio Orlandi on trumpets, Wally Allifranchini on tenor and soprano saxophones, Filippo Bertipaglia on guitar and Lele Garro on electric bass. The album is on Sonitus Edizioni Musicali e Discografiche (SON 151/14).

Away from his own bands he has worked as a sideman. He played vibraphone and marimba on the trumpeter Giovanni Falzone's Music for Five (Splasc(h), 2002), Suite for Bird (Soul Note, 2005) and R-Evolution Suite (Soul Note, 2007), the last with Cristiano Calcagnile on drums. He is credited on vibraphone and percussion on Franco D'Andrea's live Iseo Jazz Festival 2002 (Philology, 2004), and on vibraphone on the Seven Steps Quintet's Elements (Caligola, 2013), which also credits Francesco Bearzatti on tenor saxophone and clarinet. Other sideman dates include Gerardo Frisina's The Latin Kick (Schema, 2005), Beppe Aliprandi's Natura Morta con Flauto (Ultra Sound, 2010), Marco Gamba's Secret World (TRJ, 2011) and, from Canada, Jason Raso's The Red Arrow (Summit, 2011), on which his vibraphone replaces the organ on two tracks. His Discogs biography adds that he has played with Billy Cobham and Gianluigi Trovesi; those are statements from his own biographies rather than itemized recording credits.

A second identity runs alongside the jazz work. Pinetti is the vibraphonist of Syndone, a Turin progressive-rock group founded by the keyboardist Nik Comoglio, and appears on La Bella e' la Bestia (2012), Melapesante and Odysséas (2014), where he plays vibraphone, marimba, timpani and glockenspiel and is credited with a composition on Odysséas. He has toured in Norway, Ukraine, China, Austria, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and he is a member of Gruppo Q, with the drummer Ferdinando Faraò, the trombonist Michele Benvenuti and the bassist Niccolò Faraci, which recorded Untitled 06 (Music Center, 2006, with Falzone as guest trumpeter) and the live Live in China (Radio SNJ, 2010).

He also teaches and writes. He teaches percussion in music-specialty primary schools, and in 2020 he self-published Method for Jazz Vibraphone, a 282-page manual (also issued in Italian as Metodo per vibrafono jazz and in Spanish as Método para vibráfono jazz), and he has published the unaccompanied-solo collections Music for Vibraphone Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. His most recent recording is the Linked Vibes EP (2021).

Pinetti describes music without labels as his preferred field of research, and his own writing follows that: well-defined compositions that leave the performer room to improvise, scored for groups from duo to octet. On record that translates into a vibraphone-led jazz fusion with electric bass, keyboards and drums, where Discogs files his releases under Fusion, Contemporary Jazz and Jazz-Rock.

His training is a hybrid of percussion and jazz, and his Discogs biography notes an interest in chamber and classical music. His jazz education combined the Milan Conservatory jazz course with the Siena seminars under D'Andrea and Battaglia. In Syndone he adds timpani, glockenspiel and tubular bells to the vibraphone and marimba; that band is progressive rock rather than jazz, and its records sit beside the jazz catalog rather than inside it.