 | ||||||||
| Music of Italy | ||||||||
| General topics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genres | ||||||||
| Specific forms | ||||||||
| Gregorian chant | ||||||||
| Media and performance | ||||||||
| ||||||||
| Nationalistic and patriotic songs | ||||||||
| ||||||||
| Regional music | ||||||||
| ||||||||
Italian jazz refers to jazz music that is played by Italian musicians, or to jazz music that is in some way connected to Italy.
James Reese Europe's military concerts in France in World War I in 1919 are claimed to have introduced Europeans to a new, "syncopated" music from America. Yet, Italians had an even earlier taste of a new music from across the Atlantic when a group of "Creole" singers and dancers, billed as the "creators of the cakewalk" performed at the Eden Theater in Milan in 1904. The first real Italian jazz orchestras and ensembles, however, were formed during the 1930s by musicians such as Arturo Agazzi with his Syncopated Orchestra and Carlo Andreis with his Quartetto Andreis (CETRA, 1937-1941), enjoying immediate success. [1] In spite of the anti-American cultural policies of the Fascist regime during the 1930s, American jazz remained popular. (Even Romano Mussolini, Benito's son, was a great jazz fan and then prominent jazz pianist.) Also, in 1935, American jazz great Louis Armstrong toured Italy with great success. [1]
In the immediate post-war years jazz took off in Italy. All American post-war jazz styles, from be-bop to Free Jazz and Fusion have their equivalents in Italy. The most gifted exponents of jazz music in this period (from the 1940s to 1960s) are musicians like Gorni Kramer, Giorgio Gaslini, Lelio Luttazzi and Franco Cerri, the composer Bruno Martino and great singers like Natalino Otto, Jula de Palma, Nicola Arigliano and Johnny Dorelli. The universality of Italian culture ensured that jazz clubs would spring up throughout the peninsula, that all radio and then television studios would have jazz-based "house-bands," that Italian musicians would then start nurturing a "home grown" kind of jazz, based on European song forms, classical composition techniques and folk music (for example, in Sicily, where Enzo Rao and his group Shamal have added native Sicilian and Arab influences to American jazz).
The jazz recorded in Italy from 1912 to 1950 is practically unknown, though in those years a remarkable number of recordings were made by both Italians and foreign musicians in Italy. The records, all of them 78 rpm, are rarities for collectors, as their original matrixes were destroyed either in the devastating bombings of World War II (most of the record companies were located in Milan and Turin, two towns severely damaged by the war) or due to the foolishness of the many record company directors who sent to the rettery the remaining recordings of the period. Notwithstanding, thanks to few collectors, the best jazz recorded in Italy from 1912 to 1955 has been re-edited (by Riviera Jazz Records - www.rivierajazz.it). The story of Italian jazz, from the beginning, has been written by Adriano Mazzoletti : "Il Jazz in Italia. Dalle origini alle grandi Orchestre" and "Il Jazz in Italia. Dallo swing agli anni Sessanta", published by E.D.T., Turin. (www.edt.it). A photographic book with all the Italian musicians from the origins, “L’Italia del Jazz” have been published by Mastruzzi Editore, Rone (www.slms.it).
Currently, several Italian music conservatories have jazz departments, there are dozens of jazz festivals each year in Italy, the best-known of which is the Umbria Jazz Festival, and there are prominent publications such as the journal, Musica Jazz. In Italy, today, it is virtually impossible to find a medium-sized city without a jazz club.
Notable contemporary Italian jazz Musicians include Franco Cerri, Pino Rucher, Dino Betti van der Noot, Enrico Rava, Antonello Salis, Massimo Urbani, Paolo Fresu, Enrico Intra, Stefano Bollani, Antonio Farao, Roberto Ottaviano, Dado Moroni, Aldo Romano, Stefano di Battista, Pino Presti, Tullio De Piscopo, Fabrizio Bosso, Luigi Grasso, bassists Giorgio Rosciglione, Riccardo Del Fra, Pippo Matino, Mauro Gargano, Giovanni Tommaso and Rosario Bonaccorso; Giovanni Falzone, Guido Manusardi, [2] Giovanni Mirabassi, Enrico Pieranunzi, Mario Schiano, [3] Gianluigi Trovesi, Pippo Lombardo, Daniele Scannapieco, Gianfranco Campagnoli, and other members and collaborators of the Italian Instabile Orchestra.
Gianluca Petrella is internationally considered one of the best young jazz trombonists. [4] Italy has many young and promising jazz musicians including Rosario Giuliani, Claudio Quartarone, Claudio Ottaviano, Marcello Giuliani, Mauro Gargano, Francesco Bearzatti, Michel Rosciglione, Massimo Biolcati and Flavio Boltro.
Piano, solo (2007) is a biographical movie by Riccardo Milani based upon the life of Luca Flores, an Italian jazz piano player.
Michel Petrucciani, André Ceccarelli or Alfio Origlio are notable French musicians whose families come from Italy.
Quartetto Cetra was an Italian jazz vocal quartet established during the early 1940s and active until 1988.
Franco Cerri was an Italian guitarist and double bassist.
Francesco Kramer Gorni, known as Gorni Kramer, was an Italian songwriter, musician and band leader.
Stefano Bollani is an Italian composer, pianist and singer, also active as a writer and a television presenter.
Giuseppe "Pippo" Barzizza was an Italian composer, arranger, conductor and music director.
Giorgio Gaslini was an Italian jazz pianist, composer and conductor.
Marco Lazzara is an Italian countertenor who sings a wide-ranging repertoire from baroque composers to those of the 20th century and has performed in a number of notable premieres and revivals of rarely performed operas. He has recorded widely on the Bongiovanni, Ricordi, Nuova Era, Forlane, Opera Rara and Dynamic labels.
The Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) is an eighteen piece experimental big band that performs orchestral jazz and avant-garde jazz. Its members include Alberto Mandarini, Bruno Tommaso, Carlo Actis Dato, Daniele Cavallanti, Eugenio Colombo, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Gianluigi Trovesi, Giorgio Gaslini, Giovanni Maier, Guido Mazzon, Mario Schiano, Martin Mayes, Paolo Damiani, Pino Minafra, Sebi Tramontana, Tiziano Tononi, Umberto Petrin, and Vincenzo Mazzone.
Bruno Tommaso is an Italian jazz double-bass player and composer, the cousin of fellow double-bass player Giovanni Tommaso. The first president of the Italian Association of Jazz Musicians and a founding member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, Tommaso has performed with such musicians as Enrico Rava, Mario Schiano, Franco d'Andrea, Eugenio Colombo and Enrico Pieranunzi, among others.
Mirko Fait is an Italian jazz saxophonist and composer.
Gianluca Petrella is an Italian jazz trombonist. In 2001 he won Italy's Django d'Or Award as well as Musica Jazz's annual critics poll as Best Young Talent. In 2006 and 2007 he was featured in Down Beat magazine, winning their award for "Best Emerging Artist" in the category for Best Trombonist.
Claudio Fasoli is an Italian jazz - saxophonist and composer of modern jazz.
Red Records is an Italian jazz record company and label founded in 1976 by Sergio Veschi and Alberto Alberti. C. M. Bailey called it the Blue Note of Europe.
Giuseppe Prestipino Giarritta, professionally known by his pseudonym Pino Presti, is an Italian conductor, arranger, bassist, composer and record producer from Milan. He is a 5th-dan black belt in Shotokan Karate.
Dario Chiazzolino is a guitarist, composer, arranger, producer, and award-winning artist based in New York City. He has played with Bob Mintzer, Billy Cobham, and the Yellowjackets.
Shirley Bunnie Foy, also known as Bunny Foy, was an American jazz singer, songwriter, and percussionist.
Yuri Goloubev is a jazz musician, composer and double bass player. He switched to jazz in 2004 after over a dozen years as a bass player in classical orchestras, and has achieved success in jazz also as a performer with "perfect pitch, flawless execution and an improviser's imagination". He is also praised for his arco playing. Ian Patterson, writing in All About Jazz wrote "There are few better exponents of arco, and his tone has the warm resonance of a cello."
Giuseppe "Pippo" Rinaldi, known as Kaballà, is an Italian musician and singer/songwriter.
Bruno Romani is an Italian saxophonist, flutist and composer.
Adriano Emilio Mazzoletti was an Italian musicologist, radio writer, and presenter.
| General topics | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genres |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Musicians | |||||||||||||||||
| Musicians by genre | |||||||||||||||||
| Standards | |||||||||||||||||
| Discographies | |||||||||||||||||
| Festivals | |||||||||||||||||
| Culture | |||||||||||||||||
| Regional scenes |
| ||||||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||||||
| Related | |||||||||||||||||
| Media | |||||||||||||||||
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
