Kekko Fornarelli is the professional name of Francesco Fornarelli, a pianist, composer and producer from Bari who has built an international career on a sound that sits between the modern piano trio, electronics and film music. He started on the piano at the age of three, first with private teachers and then at the Niccolo Piccinni Conservatory in Bari, and came to jazz at eighteen. He then spent roughly three years in France, a period that fed directly into his second record, a Michel Petrucciani tribute.

His debut, Circular Thought (Wide Sound, 2005), was recorded in Bari in December 2004 and January 2005 with trumpeter Marco Tamburini, tenor saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti, bassist Maurizio Quintavalle and drummer Mimmo Campanale, and mixes originals with "Footprints," "Bluesette" and "For Heaven's Sake." A French Man in New York followed on the same label, dedicated to Petrucciani, with alto and sopranino saxophonist Rosario Giuliani, bassist Yuri Goloubev and drummers Attilio Terlizzi and Manhu Roche. It is dated 2007 by Discogs and 2008 by the artist's own discography. His Wikipedia biography also names trumpeter Flavio Boltro among his collaborators, though no shared Discogs credit was found.

The record that put him in front of an international audience was Room of Mirrors (Auand, 2011), released under the name Kekko Fornarelli Kube with bassist Luca Bulgarelli and drummer Gianlivio Liberti. Recorded in May 2010 at Sorriso Studios in Bari, it is a piano-trio album with Fender Rhodes, synthesizer and electronics, and Fornarelli has described it as a tribute to Esbjörn Svensson. British critics took notice: The Guardian's John Fordham placed the trio alongside The Bad Plus and E.S.T. while noting that it had different stories to tell, Jazzwise gave it three stars and All About Jazz three and a half. Outrush (Abeat Records, 2014) reset the group as the Kekko Fornarelli Trio with bassist Giorgio Vendola and drummer Dario Congedo, with singer Roberto Cherillo guesting on "Don't Hide." Fornarelli produced and composed it, and it was mixed and mastered by Tommy Cavalieri.

In 2014 he also played piano on trumpeter Luca Aquino's Rock 4.0, a Musica Jazz covermount album that put him in a band with saxophonist Javier Girotto, guitarist Antonio Jasevoli and Congedo. The same year saw him appear on the Billie Holiday centenary set Hunger and Love (Dodicilune, 2015), where he plays piano and electronics on "Gloomy Sunday."

From 2018 he recorded for the newly formed Eskape label. Abaton (Eskape, 2018) is a trio record with bassist Federico Pecoraro and Congedo, with string arrangements by Leo Gadaleta on two tracks; the review in Jazz in Europe gave it five stars and called it crossover jazz with a strong dose of poetry and symphonic color. In the same year he and singer Roberto Cherillo released Matter of Time as the duo Shine, a mix of jazz piano, electronics and trip-hop. Anthropocene (Eskape, 2021) is a concept album about human beings and the world around them, made during two years of isolation, with Leo Gadaleta on strings, vocalists Rossella Racanelli and Roberto Cherillo and drum machines by Andrea Fiorito. Naked (Eskape, 2023) strips everything back to solo piano across ten pieces, with cellist Redi Hasa joining on one, and was made under the Puglia Sounds Record programme.

Alongside the albums he has become a film composer. He scored the documentary L'Ospite (2022, with bassist Giuseppe Bassi), contributed to Abel Ferrara's Padre Pio (2022), and is credited with the scores for Pattini e Acciaio and Beppe Cino's Gli Agnelli Possono Pascolare in Pace (both 2024), the latter winning him the Premio Rota. Press materials for Naked count more than 400 concerts in over 60 countries over ten years, including appearances at the Reykjavik Jazz Festival, the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and Pizza Express Jazz Live in Soho.

Fornarelli's piano playing is rooted in classical training and a Romantic sense of melody, filtered through the post-E.S.T. piano-trio language: strong hooks, rhythmic grooves borrowed from electronica and trip-hop, and a Fender Rhodes and synthesizer layer that often carries as much of the texture as the acoustic piano. Reviews of Room of Mirrors consistently tied him to Esbjörn Svensson while noting his own visual, story-driven approach to composition, and a Financial Times review quoted on his Wikipedia page describes a pared-down but catchy style that draws on influences from pop and trip-hop to gospel. His press describes the mix as modern Nordic ideas and neoclassical lyricism seen through a Mediterranean lens.

His early records (Circular Thought, A French Man in New York, Outrush) are firmly in the contemporary jazz piano-trio tradition, with standards and jazz-press reviews to match. His later work leans further toward ambient, cinematic and solo-piano territory: Anthropocene is a concept album with vocals and drum machines, Naked is solo piano, and a growing share of his output is film scoring. That drift is why his profile tags are Crossover Jazz and Nu Jazz rather than a straight-ahead label, but his jazz identity is consistent across the catalogue, from the Wide Sound and Auand records to All About Jazz and Jazzwise coverage and jazz-festival bookings across Europe, Asia and Australia.