Chicago authors Bill Dal Cerro and David Anthony Witter attempt to spell out the abundant contributions Italian-Americans have made to jazz over its century-long history in a new, self-published book called Bebop, Swing, and Bella Musica: Jazz and the Italian American Experience. As a catalog of Italian-American jazz musicians—some of whom changed their names to sound less ethnic such as Flip Phillips (ne Joseph Filipelli) and Louie Bellson (ne Luigi Balassoni)—the book provides a worthwhile service, a kind of low-key encyclopedia featuring short biographies of important figures. In their preface the authors write, “our goal with this book was to be celebratory, not chauvinistic,” and I don’t have any reason to doubt that claim. But it isn’t quite borne out in the writing.
Today’s playlist:
