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| Biography | ||
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My
biography starts in Florence, Italy May 16,1932 where I was born in full
fascist dictatorship. After attending school I dropped out of
engineering University and joined Architecture University. In the
late forties we started organizing the Hot Club Amici del Jazz in
Florence, with my friend Luciano Alfredo Catalani, mostly borrowing
records from the USIS (United States Information Service)or buying them
from the GIs.(Owing to my foreign grandparents I was among the
very few persons fluent in foreign languages at those times) We
had a reunion every week during which we listened to music,
discussed it, and even organized Dixieland group: I tried to play
trumpet with disastrous results. We managed to put Jazz Music for the
first time in so called Classical Music inc Louis
again in 1955 with the All Stars at the Verdi, Lionel Hampton in
1956,and of course Chet at the Conservatorio Cherubini as you know, Lee
Konitz at the Astra with the Lucca friends, in 1958 Meanwhile
I traveled a lot in Europe and the USA, in 1959 we founded (always with
Alfredo Luciano Catalani) a beautiful magazine called "JAZZ DI
IERI E DI OGGI". Meanwhile I had started photograping and
publishing my photographs mostly for Record sleeve covers and
magazines: also writing covering concerts or interviewing musicians
(apart from Chet, I remember interviewing Count Basie, Dave Brubeck,
Paul Desmond Among
the magazines that published my photos Down Beat, Coda, Cadence, Rytmy
(in Finland) Disk In the World of Tokyo, Japan After acting as a consultant for people who made records,
I decided I did not like it, so I started planning my own CECMA
RECORDS label that is still doing fairly well with musicians such as
Anthony Braxton, David Murray, Roscoe Mitchell, Hugh Ragin, and John
Lindberg etc. Late
in 1998 I got a bad case of cancer so I closed my business, retired, and
concentrated in what I liked best, that is photographs, (I made two
photograph shows in 1998 for the tenth anniversary of Chet's
death, and a number of other shows for the 100th anniversary of Duke
Ellington birth, all over Italy) Writing
(mostly Romanesque Italian architecture, XVI Century Tuscany History,)
sail racing, Flying
(actually soaring): and every week I have reunions here at home with my
old friends and we still do what we started with in the late
forties: listen to music, (all music not just jazz music) collect
records, drink (best choice is red Brunello di Montalcino Fattoria Il
Grappolo vintage 1994 wine) talk, smoke (hand made Toscano
Originale cigars) sing, and generally try to enjoy what is left of
life And of course now I also have a great friend in
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada who makes that enjoying even greater
and has gone to all the trouble, expense, effort and worry to make
a page for my photos. Thank
you Harvey, I really have no words to thank you.
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