Gian Franco Reverberi (1934) is a musician and composer of Genoese origin. A member of “I Cavalieri”, he plays a crucial role in introducing the first Genoese “cantautori”, including Luigi Tenco and Gino Paoli, to Dischi Ricordi, where he is employed, as well as in the production of their records. In the interview he tells how Milan was central to his career, the importance of a performative space such as the Santa Tecla, of Ricordi’s first recording studio, as well as the conditions in which the new musical aesthetics of “cantautorato” came to life.
Gaetano Liguori (1950) is a Milanese jazz pianist. The interview focuses on the memories of his father, Pasquale “Lino” Liguori, a jazz drummer of Neapolitan origins, active both in the Milanese night club scene and in the world of the nascent record industry; in fact, in the wake of his father’s professional activity, Gaetano took his first steps in the world of music.
Paolo Tomelleri (1938) is a jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and bandleader. Member of various traditional jazz bands, including the Windy City Stompers, he is part of “I Cavalieri”, the band that played most of the first works published by Dischi Ricordi. In the interview he recalls his experiences in night clubs, describing with precision the performance and professional conditions that characterized them, and how these have formed an entire generation of musicians.
Natale Massara (1942) is a clarinetist, saxophonist, composer and arranger. In 1958 he joined “I Ribelli di Adriano Celentano” and after a few years he met Lucio Battisti, of whom he was to collaborate. During the interview he tells how his studies at the Conservatory led him to move to Milan at a very young age and how the experiences in the new urban context, primarily the audition with Celentano, were central to his career. Furthermore, his memories allow us to reconstruct the phenomenology and the specific performance conditions of the Milanese dance halls, then called “dancing”.
Giacomo Manzoni (1932) is a Milanese composer, translator and music critic. His activity is firmly linked to experimental and contemporary repertoires, both in the compositional field and as a critic for the newspaper “L’Unità”, on which he begins to write right from 1958. His interview explores the central role, at national and international level, covered by the “Studio di Fonologia Musicale”, the first electronic production studio in Italy, as well as the particular status of avant-garde music in the Milanese performative context.
Enrico Intra (1935) is a Milanese jazz pianist, composer and conductor. In addition to his activity as a musician, in 1962 he was founder of the Intra’s Derby Club, later known as Derby, one of the most famous performance spaces in the city, which hosted both jazz performances and, with greater preponderance over the years, cabaret. In the interview he talks about the conditions in which jazz has spread in the spatial and cultural fabric of the city, between cellars and night clubs, as well as the reasons that led him to commit himself to the creation of a space dedicated to it.
Bruno Canino (1935) is a pianist, harpsichordist and composer of Neapolitan origins, particularly active in the field of modern and contemporary music. During his interview, he talks about the exceptional environment of the Conservatorio G. Verdi of Milan, where he completed his studies after his family moved, and the crucial role played by teachers and older students (including Giacomo Manzoni and Luciano Berio) in the diffusion of experimental and contemporary music. His memories help us to contextualize the different performative circuits of classical music in the Milanese urban space.
Lino Patruno (1935) is a banjoist and guitarist involved both in the field of traditional jazz, with formations such as the Milan College Jazz Society or the Riverside Jazz Band, and in the field of cabaret with “I Gufi”, of which he is co-founder. During the interview he recalls how the Santa Tecla was for him not only a sort of home, but also a place of learning and evokes encounters and trajectories through various urban performance spaces, essential for the development of his career.