Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Gianni Basso, born in Asti, Italy on May 24, 1931 studied music in the busy northern city of Turin, where his childhood friend Oscar Valdambrini was a homeboy. A fascination for American jazz, their meeting was a case of a tenor saxophone and trumpet finding each other. This led to all manner of musical possibilities, most notably the easy-to-maneuver-and-feed small combo.

He started his career shortly after World War II, first as a clarinetist, then switched to the saxophone in the Forties performing in Germany and Belgium in Raoul Falsan’s Big Band. By the beginning of the next decade, he was established as a commercial “GB” or “general business” player in Milan, but one with a steady presence at jazz events, including some of the early Italian attempts at post-fascist festivals.

From about 1954, a collaboration with trumpeter and composer Oscar Valdambrini began that resembled the relationship between Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. The partners’ group was without a doubt the most popular jazz band in Italy in the ’50s, accompanying many touring stars such as Billie Holiday, Lionel Hampton, Gerry Mulligan, Slide Hampton, and Chet Baker. His style became so developed that the Verve label signed him and Sarah Vaughan immediately recruited him for her 1984 album The Mystery of Man.

The late ’70s saw Basso founding the band Saxes Machine and fronting the Gianni Basso Big Band. In his senior years he settled into the comfort of the Rome studio scene, still playing in clubs and enjoying his growing historical stature on the European jazz scene that included free jazz fans.

Tenor saxophonist Gianni Basso, whose playing was influenced by Stan Getz and Sonny Rollins,  passed away on August 17, 2009.

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