Giovanni Tommaso

He began his study of music by attending the Bologna Conservatory in the 1950s, and later to play jazz by moving with his double bass to Bologna to participate in jam sessions that saw the Emilian city as one of the references for this genre of music in Italy.

In 1957 he formed the Lucca Quintet, together with his brother Vito as pianist, his brother-in-law Gaetano Mariani on guitar, Giampiero Giusti as drummer and Antonello Vannucchi on vibraphone, with whom in 1958 he released an EP with four songs and won La Coppa del jazz, a radio tournament organized by RAI.

At the age of 18 he began working as a musician in cruise ship orchestras, which allowed him to frequent New York jazz clubs between 1959 and 1960, where he got to meet double bass players such as Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, and Charles Mingus. He then formed a trio with Amedeo Tommasi on piano and Gegè Munari on drums and-while still attending the Conservatory in Bologna-played with Chet Baker (after the trumpeter’s detention in Lucca for drug problems), Amedeo Tommasi on piano and Franco Mondini on drums.

He moved to Rome in 1967 to work at RCA Italiana as an instrumentalist, arranger and producer, participating in numerous recordings such as Riccardo Cocciante’s albums A mano a mano and Cervo a primavera, Mina’s Finalmente ho conosciuto il Conte Dracula, Gianni Morandi’s Morandi, Rino Gaetano’s E io ci sto, Ivan Graziani’s Viaggi e intemperie, Anna Oxa’s Controllo totale, Perigeo Special’s Alice, Sammy Davis Jr.’s European Tour.

At RAI he played with Sonny Rollins for an episode of Studio Uno. Together with Pepito Pignatelli he opened the Music Inn, which became one of the reference jazz venues in Rome and in which he accompanied artists of the level of Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Art Farmer or Kenny Drew. During these years he also frequented Steve Lacy, a New York saxophonist settled in Rome and a reference for the jazz avant-garde of the time.

In 1971 with Claudio Fasoli on saxophone, Tony Sidney on guitar, Franco D’Andrea on keyboards and Bruno Biriaco on drums he formed the Perigee jazz rock quintet, also following the evolution of other musicians such as Miles Davis or Weather Report; the group remained in activity until 1977 with the recording of eight albums.

Thirty years after the end of Perigeo, in 2007 he started a new group, called Apogeo, with Daniele Scannapieco on sax, Bebo Ferra on guitar, Claudio Filippini on piano and Anthony Pinciotti on drums.
Giovanni Tommaso also holds the chair of jazz music at the Conservatory of Perugia and has directed the Umbria Jazz Clinics since 1986.