History is a matter of faces, of course, but also of places. Places are the first witnesses of human, cultural and political events. The Torrione San Giovanni, for example, from a military defense instrument, born at the end of the 15th century, has become a constant witness to the evolution of jazz music in Ferrara. What better location, then, to celebrate the UNESCO International Jazz Day?
An anniversary that falls today and that the main protagonists of Estense jazz will celebrate together. In fact, an extraordinary opening dedicated to the history and prospects of jazz in Ferrara will be held right at the Torrione, among memories and anecdotes of a fifty-year journey, made up of festivals, reviews, prestigious seasons in the Teatro Comunale and 25 years of Torrione. The event is organized by the Jazz Club Ferrara (the hosts), the Gruppo dei 10, the Frescobaldi Conservatory and Endas Emilia-Romagna, it will be held this evening (ticket office opening at 7pm) and will see the Roaring Twenties Jazz Band perform, representing the origins of Estense jazz, the Wilko Trio, which embodies its current relevance, and the students of the Ferrara Conservatory, protagonists of future developments. During the evening, the Emanuele Rossi ‘Bravò’ scholarship dedicated to the founding member and long-time vice-president of the Jazz Club Ferrara will be awarded. Thanks to the contribution of Endas and the Amici Miei Club, the awarding of the scholarship will allow two young musicians from the Ferrara Conservatory to participate in the highly specialized seminars of the prestigious Siena Jazz academy in August. However, as we have now understood, the center of the evening will be the history of jazz in Ferrara, a story of few and constant faces. Among these, that of Alessandro Mistri, current artistic director of the Group of 10, stands out, among the founders of the Jazz Club, together with Franco Esposito, Gino Neri, Federico Garberoglio, Pasquale Piganti, Glauco Farinella, Toto Delicato, Franco Bilancioni, Sergio Formignani, Giordano Ronchini, Augusto Mantovani, Franco Mantovani, Emanuele Rossi himself and Giordano Balboni.
Thus was born in 1977, under the name of Circolo Amici del Jazz, a small-large musical niche, which had already moved at the end of the nineties to the Torrione di San Giovanni, at the entrance to Corso Porta Mare, where it still has its headquarters. In those years the greatest musicians of world jazz arrived in Ferrara: Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon, João Gilberto, George Benson, Wynton Marsalis, Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker etc. In 2006 Mistri left the Jazz Club and in 2010 founded Gruppo dei 10, which since then has offered the public a series of events – especially jazz concerts – entitled Tutti le Direzioni. The association’s statute is clear: they are “ten friends, tired of enduring the progressive and unstoppable barbarization of current socio-cultural models” and who, therefore, decide to “react”.
To date, almost 500 evenings have been organised. For its part, the Jazz Club has continued with its activities: every year the ‘Ferrara in Jazz’ event offers around 100 concerts, jam sessions, masterclasses, exhibitions, benefit events and artistic residencies of the Tower Jazz Composers Orchestra (the permanent big band of the Torrione) presenting more than 500 national and local international musicians (many of whom have won the Grammy award). The Jazz Club Ferrara is also mentioned by the American magazine Down Beat among the “Great Jazz Venues”, it is a multiple winner, as the best Italian jazz club, in the referendums of the readers of the Jazz It magazine and in 2023 it was awarded the best jazz club in the country by the Italian Jazz Federation. For five years the Torrione has also been the venue for lessons, workshops and concerts held by the Jazz Department of the Frescobaldi conservatory in Ferrara.
