SELF PORTRAIT

I was born in Rome on 1 April 1984 and have always listened to jazz, because my father Antonio is a great jazz fan, critic and record collector, as well as being a dab amateur hand on the drums. I remember already being attracted to his drums – a black Premier “Kenny Clarke” – when I was in nappies and there are still photos around somewhere that show me with the drumsticks in my hands.

I started studying the instrument at about eight with Emiliano Martino, Bruno’s son. I owe it all to my dad and Emiliano. Not a day passes without spending hours and hours on my instrument, even though I am still attending highschool. Unlike many of today’s drummers, I love using the brushes and also have a special preference for the Zildjian cymbals (especially K and Avedis) and the traditional drum-sets that wrote the history of jazz: Leedy, Gretsch, Premier, Ludwig and Slingerland.

My favourite drummers are Buddy Rich, Shelly Manne and Louis Bellson, although I have also learned a lot from Connie Kay, Chuck Flores, Joe Morello, Frank Isola, Denzil Best, Tiny Kahn, Nick Stabulas, Ed Thigpen, Mel Lewis, Stan Levey, Larry Bunker, Chico Hamilton, Sonny Payne, Rufus Jones, Don Lamond, Gus and Osie Johnson, Jack Hanna, Shadow Wilson, Ed Shaughnessy Grady Tate, Oliver Jackson, Bobby Durham and Carl Burnett. Among the boppers, I have a special preference for Kenny Clarke, but I also like Philly Joe Jones, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Art Taylor, Roy Haynes, Louis Hayes, Charlie Persip and Billy Higgins, while my favourite avant-garde drummers are Han Bennink and Rob Verdurmen. I also get great vibes from the great men of swing (Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Papa Jo Jones, Sidney Catlett, Cozy Cole and Ray McKinley) and traditional jazz, both black (Baby Dodds, Zutty Singleton and Sonny Greer) and white (Dave Tough, Ray Bauduc and George Wettling).

Of all the modern drummers, I admire Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Gadd and Dennis Chambers, although I definitely do not approve of their frequent sorties into the field of fusion and jazz-rock, both commercial styles that I really hate. It sounds as though today’s jazz musicians are ashamed of playing with swing, which is the basic component of jazz: you get to hear something of everything in concerts: disparate times, Latin rhythms, funky and bossa novas. Everything except swing. I think that Duke Ellington hit the nail on the head when he called his famous piece It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Young as I am, I have already been lucky enough to play with such great musicians as Gianni Basso, Dino and Franco Piana, Franco Cerri, Bruno De Filippi, Marcello Rosa, Antonello Vannucchi, Andrea Pozza, Massimo Faraò, Aldo Zunino, Giorgio and Dario Rosciglione, Beverly Lewis and to become the regular drummer with the Lanfranco Malaguti trio with Piero Leveratto. Already at the tender age of eleven, I once played for one evening with the Roman New Orleans Jazz Band, sitting in for Paolo Rossi.

I’m afraid I don’t see eye to eye with younger musicians nearly as much: they are usually totally ignorant about jazz history. For them, it all started with Coltrane and they just go with the latest flow. I am light years away from Jarrett, Corea, Hancock, Shorter, Garbarek, Brecker, Metheny and Frisell. I hate modal jazz, which I find boring and repetitive, and also ethnic jazz, because jazz is music from the States that can be played very well by musicians from anywhere, as long as they abide by the rule of American jazz. If you are a true jazz musician, then playing a solo does not mean indulging in a muscular struggle with interminable, predictable scales but, as Lester Young said, telling a story. I agree with Gianni Basso when he says that jazz is the music «of the three Bs: Bop, Ballads and Blues».

One other thing that everyone takes for granted and I can’t stand is this widespread belief that authentic jazz has to be black, African and gutsy, which means that whites only play a “minor” sort of jazz: very often, it’s the exact opposite. Nor is it right to belittle artists for being impressionistic, educated and refined. The truth is that you need to know a great deal about where jazz comes from if you want to play the music well: I enjoy listening to traditional jazz just as much as to swing, bop, progressive, cool and early hard bop. The musicians I feel closest to are Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Bud Powell, Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh, Paul Desmond, John La Porta, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Tony Scott, Lars Gullin, Clifford Brown, Bennie Golson, Art Farmer, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown and Stan Kenton, who really gets me going. Nor do I dislike a certain brand of avant-garde (Dolphy, Ayler, Dixon, Lacy, Breuker and the Vienna Art Orchestra).

But the style I really go for is Californian, because its the most refined form of jazz, educated, calibrated and never casual, but very arranged and monitored, based on elements with noble antecedents, such as the fugue and the counterpoint, and always rich with an extraordinarily marked swing: ideal for a drummer who doesn’t have the metrically free, “percussionist” mindset of a Motian, so fashionable today, but, like me, draws his inspiration from the great names of accompaniment and unsurpassable soloists, such as Rich, Manne and Bellson.

My world is the world of Shorty Rogers and Frank Rosolino, Jack Sheldon and Conte Candoli, Maynard Ferguson and John Graas, Art Pepper and Bud Shank, Lennie Niehaus and Gabe Baltazar, Herb Geller and Joe Maini, Jimmy Giuffre and Bob Cooper, Jack Montrose and Bob Enevoldsen, Bill Perkins and Richie Kamuca, Bill Holman and Dave Pell, Bob Gordon and Buddy Collette, Barney Kessel and Russ Freeman, Hampton Hawes and Claude Williamson, Howard Rumsey and Harry Babasin, Leroy Vinnegar and Courtis Counce, Terry Gibbs and Gene Roland, Marty Paich and Bill Russo, Duane Tatro and many, many other artists whose class is simply unapproachable.

I wanted this album to include many of my favourite compositions by some of the greatest masters of this school of jazz, to whose revitalisation I sincerely hope to contribute, because it is so wrong that it has been forgotten. I would like to thank Lanfranco and Piero, exceptional musicians who have made such an incomparable contribution to this project of mine.

I want to dedicate this album to the memory of my grandfather Peppino, the gentle, unforgettable playmate of my infancy.

Gianmarco Lanza

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