Italian writer, educator and general provocateur...
I was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1954 and began organizing event in 1975 (Frank Lowe - Don Cherry Quartet). From 1976 to 1982 co-organized the Pisa International Jazz Festival where Evan Parker's Improvisors Symposium was recorded and Anthony Braxton's Composition for two pianos was premiered. Translated then Derek Bailey's book about improvisation and Leo Smith's Notes About Music. Organized concerts and festival during the 80s and 90s (Steve Lacy, Sonny Rollins, AMM, Company, La Nuova Onda New Italian Jazz Festival) from 1997 to 2006 the Italian Instabile Orchestra Festival in Pisa. Director of the Archive at Siena Jazz, regular contributor to the Italian monthly Musica Jazz. Wrote also on: Avant, Improjazz, The Wire, Signal To Noise as well as liner notes for Splasc(h), Leo, FMP, Cuneiform, Emanem, Chronoscope among others.
Discographies published: Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, Mario Schiano, Joelle Leandre.
Translator of the Italian edition of “The Making of Kind of Blue”; started a series of translations for Siena Jazz/EDT that so far includes John Szwed's Jazz 101, Carl Woideck's Charlie Parker, Andy Hamilton's conversations with Lee Konitz, Michael Dregni's Django and Coltrane on Coltrane curated by Chris De Vito. Pisan publisher ETS published my revised edition of Improvisation by Derek Bailey in 201o, 30 years after the first translation.
Guest lecturer for New York University and William Paterson College; faculty member of Istanbul's Bilgi University 2004/2008, guest lecturer at Istanbul Conservatory at ITU and Atilim University in Ankara.
Currently teaching History of Jazz at the Siena Jazz Foundation different courses as well as at the Mascagni Musical Institute in Livorno.
Non jazz music interest: contemporary avant garde, ethnic music of the Mediterranean and Near East, Jewish music.
