TommasoIn the late 1950s, Giovanni decided to accept an engagement in an orchestra tasked with playing on board cruise ships.
This professional experience allowed him to travel between the Caribbean and New York, a city in which he decided to stay for an entire year.
It is 1959, the annus mirabilis of jazz history during which records that are fundamental to the formal and aesthetic definition of jazz in its modern sense are released to widespread public acclaim and sales: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, Sun Ra ‘s Jazz in Silhouette , John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah-Um, Ornette Coleman‘s The Shape of Jazz to Come, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, Shelly Manne’s Live at the Blackhawk.
In addition to this, New York at that time was the center of American jazz ferment characterized by an unprecedented tension toward the “new.” In the American metropolis, the Italian musician has the opportunity to attend concerts by big names in American jazz, such as Miles Davis with his quintet at theApollo Theatre in Harlem, while coming into contact with accomplished double bassists.
The suggestions and explanations given to him directly by them proved indispensable for the enhancement of the technical notions previously learned by the young double bass player at the Florence Conservatory.
The year before his New York sojourn, Giovanni Tommaso had joined the Lucca Quintet formed by his brother Vito on piano, Antonello Vannucchi on vibraphone, Gaetano Mariani on guitar and Giampiero Giusti on drums.
Upon returning to Italy, the double bassist rejoined the lineup in his hometown, bringing with him the wealth of experience gained abroad.
With a mature and differentiated instrumental approach, Giovanni Tommaso succeeds in enriching the expressive fabric of the lineup, derivative of the cool jazz of the American west coast scene, with an inventiveness and solidity uncommon in Italy, both in the accompaniment line and in the solo episodes.
A close listen to the 1963 discographic work Quartetto (without the contribution of Gaetano Mariani) confirms the unquestionable skills of our man, which over the following years would be put to use in applied music, Italian pop music and jazz rock.
Remaining in the 1960s, along with his militancy in the Lucca Quintet, Giovanni Tommaso formed a trio with Bolognese pianist Amedeo Tommasi and Turin drummer Franco Mondini. The three musicians, with guitarist Rene Thomas and saxophonist Bobby Jaspar, accompanied U.S. trumpeter Chet Baker on an Italian and European tour in 1962.
Following a period of nearly four years spent working as a shift worker at RCA in Rome, where he had moved in 1967, John Thomas felt the need for change on a personal and artistic level.
He decided not to continue his professional activity at RCA in order to devote himself to an alternative musical project: after hearing the album Bitches Brew by American trumpeter Miles Davis, he abandoned the acoustic context in favor of sounds obtained from electric instruments within the musical area of jazz-rock.
With the arrival of pianist Franco D’Andrea and drummer Bruno Biriaco, followed by saxophonist Claudio Fasoli and guitarist Tony Sidney, Perigeo was born.
The name of the band was chosen at a meeting of the five musicians in the apartment of Giovanni Tommaso, located on Via Beato Angelico, an alley behind the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.
The name of the alley would become the title of one of the Italian band’s best-known songs, contained on their third album entitled Genealogy, recorded in 1974. The lineup remained active for five years, from 1972 to 1977, recording five albums and giving concerts in Europe, Canada and the United States.
Thirty years after the Perigee jazz-rock project ended, Giovanni Tommaso founded Apogeo in 2007 with Claudio Filippini on piano, Daniele Scannapieco on saxophone, Bebo Ferra on guitar, and Anthony Pinciotti on drums.
It is not only the name that suggests a “departure” from the artistic choices pondered in the past, but especially the musical discourse marked by the updated statement of acoustic sounds and timbres.
Paolo Marra
