Italian jazz guitarist Guido Di Leone was born in Bari, Sardinia, on January 24, 1964, and died in the same town on November 11, 2025. A guitar teacher, in 1985 he founded the Il Pentagramma school and the Duke Jazz Club, to which he invited international musicians, as well as to the festivals he organized in his native region. Now a well-known figure in jazz guitar teaching, between 2004 and 2014 he teaches at the Niccolo Piccini Conservatory in Bari. Meanwhile, Guido Di Leone is developing his own career as a musician, both as a soloist and as an accompanist. He has taken part in some 100 recording sessions for the labels YVP Music, Philology Abeat Records and Fo(u)r, which he co-founded, and has collaborated with artists such as Mark Murphy, Paolo Fresu, Fabrizio Bosso, Gianluigi Trovesi, Claudio Fasoli, Jim Rotondi, Tiziana Ghiglioni, Franco Cerri, Mal Waldron, Larry Franco, Paola Amesano, Francesca Leone and Gianni Basso. With Vito Di Modugno (electric organ) and Mimmo Campanale (drums), he founded the Con Alma Trio, which has recorded several albums including Con Alma (2000) and accompanied American saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi on the album Meets Jerry Bergonzi (2016). The guitarist has also created the Pocket Orchestra, the Guido Di Leone Trio, Quartet, Quintet and 7tet, and played with groups such as the Berardi Jazz Connection, the Renato Chicco Organ Trio and the Vibeguitar Quartet. A fan of bossa nova, he has included several titles from the genre on his own albums, and formed the Quarteto Tudo Bem for a homonymous album released in 2020. With Peter Bernstein, he also formed a quartet with Dario Deidda and Andy Watson to pay tribute to one of their great influences on the album Tribute to Jim Hall (2020). His leader albums include Hearing a Rhapsody (1995), Isole (2004), Standards on Guitar (2010), Broadway (2011), Two Sleepy People (Standards on Guitar) (2018) and In Duo: Live at Duke Jazz Club (2023).
