Endgame

Keyboardist Lou Di Falco grew up in a musical family. His father and three uncles were professional musicians in New Jersey and his mother played classical piano. Lou started piano at around age seven. While growing up in the 1960s, Lou was exposed to lots of different types of music. It would not have been unusual for Lou to be listening to his sister’s Beatles albums one minute and then his father’s Oscar Peterson records the next. 

At around age 13, Lou discovered bands like Santana, Chicago, and Blood Sweat and Tears. He loved the concept of these bands blending jazz, horns, and Afro/Latin rhythms into rock, creating a whole new genre of music that became known as jazz/rock fusion. 

In high school during the early seventies, Lou continued to grow at the keyboard and was fortunate to study jazz piano, theory, and harmony with one of his uncles, an accomplished jazz pianist from Newark New Jersey. Lou began to play in small rock combos as well as the high school jazz ensemble which led him to be chosen to play with the 1974 North Jersey High School Jazz Ensemble.  It was during high school that Lou decided he wanted to go to college for music. He enrolled and was accepted to Berklee College of Music in Boston where he would eventually graduate with a degree in Music Composition. 

At Berklee, Lou studied with many renowned pianists, arrangers, and composers. Lou wrote for big band, small jazz and fusion combos, and full classical orchestra while attending school. He also recalls fondly of playing piano in one of Berklee’s recording bands. Upon graduation, Lou returned to New Jersey where he played keyboards professionally in many different venues including jazz, rock, and commercial engagements. It was with one of these bands that Lou met Tom Mitchell who would eventually be his connection to Endgame. 

Through the 1980s, Lou began writing music for radio commercials as well as working as a studio sideman for many local artists while continuing to work many gigs. During the 90s, Lou wrote underscore for the CBS television daytime drama Guiding Light. It was at that time that recording TV cues moved from conducting a standard orchestra of live musicians to recording in the home studio using a combination of keyboards, digital tape recorders, and computers. Over the years, into the new century, the experience of producing TV quality music while staying current of new music technology enabled Lou to become a competent engineer/producer. He continues to compose music cues for many different television programs all from his state of the art studio. 

In 2016, long time friend and drummer Tom Mitchell contacted Lou and inquired if he would be interested in playing in a band with the goal of recording original music. Seeing this as a new challenge and that playing in a new band was something that Lou desired to return to, the timing was perfect. Lou rehearsed with the band that would eventually become Endgame for the first time in August of that year. Playing a few tunes written by Mike Carlone and Hank Kaneshige, the group jelled right away making Lou realize he wanted to be a permanent part of the band moving forward. 

Since then Lou has played keyboards and helped to arrange and produce many of Endgame’s tunes including their entire second album titled Endgame II: Locked In and Endgame III: Take Me Home. Most of Endgame’s songs have been written by Hank Kaneshige and Mike Carlone but Lou has also composed a few of the band’s tunes as well. 

What Lou loves most about the band is their ability to write and play tunes of many different styles.  Lou's hope for Endgame is to continue to create, record, and someday soon, perform their music in public.