"Jazz Oggi" supplement, edited by the journalist and music critic Arrigo Chicken, of the weekly magazine “Panorama” (edition of August 22, 1978).
On the first page, Arrigo Polillo outlines the aims of the editorial initiative dedicated to jazz. The well-known critic writes to the readers – “this supplement intends to take stock, in some way, of the situation of jazz music in the world. There is a great need for information and clarity”.
On the second and third pages of the article “Jazz in Italy – alive and divided”, Arrigo Polillo analyzes the situation of the Italian jazz scene at the end of the 1970s starting from a precise and in-depth historical excursus: from the appearance of jazz in Italy with the orchestras of musicians arriving from overseas up to the fifties and sixties in which a large group of young musicians appeared in the limelight, in Rome and Milan (in Rome there are for example the trumpeter Nunzio Rotondo, the pianist Armando Trovajoli and the boys of the "Roman New Orleans Jazz Band", in Milan the "Milan College Jazz Society" and the "Original Lambro Jazz Band").
At the end of the seventies the jazz scene, despite being divided into opposing factions (situation involving critics, industry experts, musicians and jazz lovers), if it presents numerous (in 1978 Italy is one of the countries in Europe with the most jazz musicians and enthusiasts). In fact, while in the previous decades high-quality jazz musicians represented a small number, in those years the situation was subject to considerable change both in quantity and quality, favoring a comparison on an equal footing with the international jazz scene. Nutrito is the group of new talents who get the attention of the public and critics, such as the saxophonist Massimo Urbani and the pianist Patrizia Scascitelli, and the local jazz musicians who establish themselves internationally: Enrico Pieranunzi, Enrico Rava, Giorgio Gaslini, Franco D' Andrea and the orchestral formation "Saxes Machine“, conducted by drummer Bruno Biriaco, just to name a few.
by double bass player Bruno Tommaso
