Album entitled1945-1990 Franco Cerri Di Jazz In Jazz by guitarist Franco Cerri. The album is recorded at Studio Fontana in Corso Venezia 7 in Milan and released by the Dire label in 1990
The record is released to mark forty-five years of activity of Franco Cerri, among the most important guitarists on the Italian and international jazz scene, as well as host of television programs devoted to jazz and music teacher
Among the first guitarists in Italy to take up the profession of “full-time” jazz guitarist – in the 1950s and 1960s the majority of jazzmen were semi-professional musicians for whom jazz activity represented a second job – Franco Cerri has collaborated over the years with world-renowned artists: Chet Baker, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, Barney Kessel, Lee Konitz, Billie Holiday
The recording work Di Jazz In Jazz, produced by Tito Fontana, owner of the Dire label, includes rare recordings made in the 1950s and 1960s by the Milanese guitarist along with jazz musicians Gianni Cazzola, Flavio Ambrosetti, Nicola Arigliano, Giorgio Azzolini and the orchestra conducted by Enrico Simonetti
In the early part of his career Franco Cerri also played double bass, so much so that he was in demand much more often in this role than as a guitarist. The reason is also to be found in the difficulty in those years for the leaders of the various jazz ensembles to find double bassists, given their small number in Italy
At the suggestion of Giancarlo Testoni, (founder together with Arrigo Polillo of the magazine Musica Jazz) Franco Cerri recorded tracks in the late 1950s in which, joined by drummer Gianni Cazzola, he played both guitar and double bass
In November 1958 in Milan, as double bass player, Franco Cerri, together with pianist Mal Waldron and Gene Victory on drums, accompanied “Lady Day,” Billie Holiday, on the stage of the Teatro Gerolamo, a “restorative” concert organized by publicist and jazz enthusiast Mario Fattori together with Pino Maffei a few days after the disastrous concert, complete with the interruption of the same due to audience protest, at the Cinema Smeraldo
Contribution shared by Enrico Pieranunzi
