Italian jazz refers to jazz music that is played by Italian musicians, or to jazz music that is in some way connected to Italy.
Origins
'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, enjoying immediate success. In spite of the anti-American cultural policies of the Fascist regime during the 1930s, American jazz remained popular. Also, in 1935, American jazz great Louis Armstrong toured Italy with great success. In the immediate post-war years jazz took off in Italy. All Americanpost-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 are musicians like Gorni Kramer, Giorgio Gaslini, Lelio Luttazzi and Franco Cerri, the composer Bruno Martino and great singers like Natalino Otto and Jula de Palma. 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. 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 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. 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. . A photographic book with all the Italian musicians from the origins, “L’Italia del Jazz” have been published by Mastruzzi Editore, Rone.
