[Monday Notes no. 163]Nicola Arigliano was a great lover of jazz and contributed to its diffusion in Italy, already his first recordings from the 1950s have a clear jazz flavour in their arrangements and in his way of singing. Below we listen to and analyse one of his latest hits, presented at the Sanremo festival…
Tag: italian music
[Monday Notes no. 162] Franco Califano was a singer-songwriter and poet and wrote dozens of songs, often for other singers. Among those interpreted by him personally, we analyse Un tempo piccolo, a song very refined both in its lyrics and music.
[Monday Notes no. 160] Samba della rosa is a song by Toquinho and Vinicius De Moraes, performed by Ornella Vanoni on her album La voglia la pazzia l’incoscienza l’allegria. The recording is one of the most successful encounters between Italian music and bossanova.
[Monday Notes no. 158] Deborah’s Theme is the main piece written by Ennio Morricone for the soundtrack of Once Upon a Time in America, one of Sergio Leone’s most important films. I have tried to analyse this masterpiece in film music.
[Monday Notes no. 155] Bruno Lauzi was inspired by great Italian songwriting, but also by jazz and bossa nova, genres that he played and sang with ease. In 1976, he recorded an entire album for children from which is taken Il leprotto Zip (The hare Zip), a very witty song in samba – bossa nova…
[Monday Note No. 154] The Quartetto Cetra was a fantastic vocal group active for about half a century, from the 1940s to the 1990s. The group was inspired by American vocal ensembles, mixing jazz with more typically Italian vocalism. Let us analyse I ricordi della sera.
[Monday Notes no. 153] For the soundtrack of the film I soliti ignoti Mario Monicelli chose a young Florentine musician named Piero Umiliani. Monicelli wanted a soundtrack that was completely jazzy, a very unusual choice for the time. Let us analyse the track entitled Gassmann Blues.
[Monday Notes no. 151] Piero Piccioni was a great film music composer, he wrote dozens of soundtracks working both with Francesco Rosi in the more demanding cinema and with Alberto Sordi in the great Italian comedy. We analyse his Samba Fortuna from the film Il Prof. Dr Guido Tersilli primario della clinica Villa Celeste convenzionato…
[Monday’s Notes no. 149] Mi piace is a song that Lelio Luttazzi wrote in 1962, tailor-made for the singer Jula de Palma, whom he discovered and launched to international success. The song is very refined and is clearly inspired by the American repertoire. I have tried to analyse it, to reveal the secret of its…
[Monday Note no. 147] Vecchio Frack is a song recorded by Domenico Modugno in 1955. The song tells of the last night walk of a man in frack, who in the morning will be found dead in the river. Modugno said he was inspired by a news story, the suicide of a well-known high society…