Eric Legnini

Born in Huy, Belgium in 1970, Éric Legnini has established himself over the years as a jazz pianist and composer at the crossroads of acoustic piano, the Fender Rhodes, soul and grooves drawn from funk. Trained in Belgium and then spent time in the United States at the end of the 1980s, Legnini first develops his career on the European jazz scene, notably playing with Jacques Pelzer, Flavio Boltro, Stefano Di Battista, Aldo Romano and the Belmondo brothers, while teaching at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. His discography as a leader goes back to the early 1990s with Essentiels and Natural Balance, before a more marked turn toward soul-inflected jazz on Miss Soul in 2005, then Big Boogaloo in 2007. With Trippin’ in 2009, The Vox in 2011 and Sing Twice! in 2013, Legnini broadens his writing further toward more sung formats and Afro-jazz-inspired rhythms, without abandoning improvisation or the language of jazz. Waxx Up in 2017 and Six Strings Under in 2019 extend this open approach, between electric keyboards, direct melodies and dialogue with the song. In 2023, The Day You Came Along shows him in a more stripped-down solo piano format, while PianoForte, published in 2024 with Bojan Z, Pierre de Bethmann and Baptiste Trotignon, places him in an exchange between pianists on the Francophone jazz scene.