It sounds simple, right? Get an idea and VOILA! you’re in business and success will follow. But it isn’t quite that easy, as Giardullo can attest to. You see, he has been playing music for 45 years, starting as a kid R & B player in clubs around New York and Long Island. Then moving into the jazz scene and being introduced to the once-magesterial Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, where he was influenced by Anthony Braxton and shortly thereafter put “Gravity” together with a bunch of local players like Harvey Sorgen and Betty McDonald. Then there was “the meeting” with renowned Free-Jazz horn player Joe McPhee out in a little club on 9W in West Park…both had brought their sopranos to “sit in.” It was a EUREKA! moment, as the duo spread their wings all through the Hudson Valley (becoming, along with drummer Tani Tabal and bass-player Michael Bisio, the veritable “house band” at the Rosendale Café), with Pauline Oliveros at The Deep Listening Space in Kingston, into the City and the Knitting Factory, the Albert Ayler Festival, recordings, gigs in Europe, and finally, his rep as a great soprano player growing world-wide, Giardullo went off on a few solo tours around the Continent. It was all a revelation.
But inside that was the work, the practice, the tireless playing off his soprano horns. “I went through all of those 35 horns that all played differently and I realize now that I was not only playing to the best of my abilities, but that I was information gathering. I knew each of those horns so well that I knew what sound was possible from each one of them and what each mouthpiece could do or not do. I realized when I started on Soprano Planet that all of that playing not only produced a body of work, but a body of information that was useful…I actually knew something!”
So, it still sounds relatively simple, right? Great horn player takes a sabbatical from playing and using his knowledge of that one specific horn — the soprano sax — starts making mouthpieces for all kinds of players around the world. But that isn’t all there is to Giardullo. Throughout his years “on the road” he has developed an alternative discipline. The man is a whiz at businesses. And like with Soprano Planet, from seemingly out of nowhere. Be it importing granite and marble out of Italy, Portugal and Mexico for home and business uses (countertops, floors, etc.) to his financial consulting work with a couple non-profits, Giardullo knows how to not only get it done on the table, but get it done off it also. The combination of artist/business is a hard one to master, but Giardullo, especially with Soprano Planet, seems to have come as close as anyone else I can think of and has still maintained integrity in both.
“One of the unexpected bonuses of what I’m doing is that I have been exposed to fabulous musicians from all over the globe; great players who have their own ‘thing’, and who have turned me on to music and players that I never would have discovered. It’s been a great blessing and a real inspiration in many ways.”
“And it’s funny,” adds Giardullo, “but my late father (who was a sax player himself) loaned me the $200 to buy my first soprano.”
And as I’m leaving his basement/workshop in Cottekill, Giardullo picks up his newest musical instrument and starts playing the penny whistle. “I love the sound of it…Irish music…I want to get into it, there’s so much there to learn about…The Chieftains, Cherish the Ladies…great traditional music…” he says, smiling. Family situation seemingly resolved, this is one happy fellow. Giardullo has found that space where one is truly appreciated for their creativity.