MEETING LANFRANCO AND PIERO

I have known Lanfranco since I was five. He had met my father after he had sent him his record Tip of the hat! produced for Splasc(h) Records in 1986. My father liked immediately Lanfranco’s very singular sound, typically cool and his very refined and introspective phrasing: for this reason he voted for him in the «Musica jazz» referendum. In 1988 he organized a concert at the Rome “Music Inn”; here Lanfranco played with his new trio made up by Enzo Pietropaoli and Fabrizio Sferra. The Sferras, with Fausto leading – the “general drummer” – and his wife Anna, have always been our very good friends; my father has even been the best man for his son Aldo, a very fine guitar player and accomplished informal painter, and his brother Fabrizio – the well known drummer – has often given me good advise.

In the summer of 1989 I finally met Lanfranco. As we do every year, after the period spent at the seaside, we go to Cortina. Lanfranco has a nice villa nearby, at Auronzo; since then we started to see each other regularly every summer. We went to each other’s place; after a while Lanfranco used to pick up a guitar and started to improvise with incredible creativity: we were all ecstatic. I breathe jazz since I was born and I never tire of listening to it.

In those days I was already banging on my father’s drums and he wasn’t really taking me seriously; in fact, when at the age of eight I said to him that I wanted to take up seriously the drums, he took me to a nearby school of music and wanted to convince me to take up the saxophone. He talked with the school director and told him exactly this. But he had not taken into consideration my vocation for the percussion instruments. I happened to notice a set of drums in a corner; I got to it, took the sticks and asked the teacher: «May I play?». He was Emiliano Pratesi, Bruno Martino’s adopted son. «Come on, boy, show me what you can do!». I started to play with swing. After a few seconds the school director stopped talking with my father and came up to me, while Emiliano and the music teacher were visibly amazed. The director went up to my father: «You must be joking! No saxophone! This is a natural talent for a percussion instrument; believe me: he is a born drummer! Never heard anything like this from someone of his age. How could you not notice it?». Emiliano added: «If he is serious about it, he could become another Buddy Rich». Dad – an amateur with an unbelievable swing and a great drive, but without technique since he had no time because of his research in Italian Medieval and Renaisssance philology, and, therefore, never studied the drums – had always had the idea of setting up a group playing California style jazz: for this reason he was dreaming to find a sax player who was prepared not to follow the ruling style à la Coltrane but would play à la Bob Cooper, à la Jack Montrose, à la Bill Perkins, à la Richie Kamuca, à la Dave Pell, à la Mike Cuozzo (his most favourite tenor). The last thing to cross his mind was that he would find hinself with a second drum player in the house.

Now one can understand his satisfaction; every day he spends hours on end with me, monitoring my progress. And the famous group which he was dreaming about, the Lighthouse Giants, I have set finally up thanks to the decisive help of Antonello Vannucchi and soon the first record will be published.

But I also gave another great satisfaction to my father. He discovered jazz in 1962. Before that date he had never listened to one note of jazz in his life, he did not even know who Louis Armstrong was, since at home he would only listen to classical music. In that memorable 1962, in the course of an episode of the TV variety show “Alta fedeltà” (“High Fidelity”) he heard the sextet Basso-Valdambrini-Piana, which played a counterpoint version, in the typical West Coast style, of the popular Piedmontese song Ciau Turin (“Farewell Turin”). My father remained glued to his chair and the following day he went to buy his first jazz record; you wouldn’t believe it: it was the famous Verve MGV 20009 played by the quintet Basso-Valdambrini with Sellani, Azzolini and Cazzola. Thirty-eight years later, in the spring of 2000, I gave him the pleasure of playing with Gianni Basso and Dino Piana; unfortunately, I did not make it to play with Valdambrini, who had died a few years earlier.

Studying with Emiliano, a student of Chuck Flores in Los Angeles (here is a further circumstance which has brought me closer to West Coast Jazz; moreover, in my house one breathes that attractive and refined atmosphere from day to night), represents one of my greatest satisfactions. Emiliano comes to our house three times a week, where I have set up in the romper room three great set of drums, all dating back to the sixties: a Gretsch, a Ludwig and my father’s Premier, equipped with a really noteworthy set of cymbals, for which I have a particular passion: I use a great variety of them in order to add colour to the execution; I hate, on the other hand, the double tom on the big drum (the rock players use even three of them at the time), which has the only result of distancing the ride cymbal, while, as with Rich and Bellson, I love using two timpani. We take up our position on two set of drums and start a series of exercises of ever increasing difficulty. I don’t think that there is in Italy a teacher greater than Emiliano. I adore studying the drums and I do not feel well if, for one reason or another, I have to play ten minutes less than the programmed time; I can state that from 1991 to today there has not been one single day in which I haven’t practiced seriously, even in summer, even at the beach with the practice pad. This year I have been particularly stretched because of my final High School exams (I had very good marks) and often I studied the drums at five o’clock in the morning.

After having played with many famous jazz players, I manifested to Lanfranco – who had never heard me play – the wish to play with him. My father organized a concert for the trio at Anzio in the summer of 2000. Lanfranco was enthusiastic of what he called «the carpet of sound created by Gianmarco, who fills all the gaps with a left hand previously unheard». In fact, I am left handed but I play as if I were right handed: the latter on the cymbal and the left hand on the snare drum. In reality, I am perfectly ambidexter and am equally articulate with my hands and feet. Lanfranco asked me if I wanted to join a new trio of his and added that I had renewed in him the desire to play. I begged him to help me realize my greatest dream: to prepare an all Californian repertoire. Hence I recorded a cassette with some wonderful, almost all forgotten, pieces and a month later, at Cortina, I was so happily surprised to discover that he had transcribed all the pieces.

With mum and dad we went on hikes with Lanfranco, his wife Margherita and son Adriano, exploring extensively the Dolomites, the Cadore and Pusteria regions. But the best – most magic – trip took place in that memorable summer of 2000 when, against the majestic background of the Lavaredo mountain, Lanfranco played for the first time, and in a fantastic way, those beautiful pieces which I love so much while I accompanied him with the brushes on a card box.

Both Lanfranco and I wanted Piero Leveratto to play double-bass. We got in touch with him and he accepted with great enthusiasm. Our first concert took place in Milan. I met Piero only two hours before the start of the concert, organized on Monday February 26 by the Municipality of Bollate and by the prestigious school “Musica Oggi” directed by Franco Cerri, Enrico Intra and Maurizio Franco, who also acted as the brilliant M.C. and commentator of the evening. We only tried out the sounds and one piece in its entirety, just to see how things went. Lanfranco had prepared a standard repertoire which, obviously, both Piero and I knew by heart.

The concert drew an incredible success: at the end, the applause lasted almost three minutes; and the audience was made up by critics, musicians, expert music lovers. Afterwards we all went to Giordano’s and Vicki Minora’s house, where there were several of us and they all toasted to my musical career. This record is evidence of that memorable evening. Sure, a few years have gone by; at the time I was only sixteen and a half and today I play much better.

I must confess that Piero is the bass player with whom I get on most; his way of playing stimulates me to no end. My only grievance is that we play together too little: only for a few concerts because Lanfranco lives in the Treviso province, Piero in Genoa and I live between my house in Rome and the one in the Chianti region. I hope that there will more and more chances to play with this trio.

I dedicate this record to my mother.

Gianmarco Lanza

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