On the occasion of International Jazz Day, Tuesday evening at the Torrione is scheduled an extraordinary opening dedicated to the history and prospects of jazz in Ferrara, among memories and anecdotes of an almost fifty-year journey, made up of festivals, reviews, prestigious seasons in the Teatro Comunale and 25 years of Torrione. An evening that will see performances by the Roaring Twenties Jazz Band, representing the origins of Estense jazz, by the Wilko Trio, which embodies its relevance, and by the students of the Ferrara Conservatory, protagonists of future developments.
During the evening the Emanuele Rossi ‘Bravò’ scholarship will also be awarded dedicated to the founding member and long-time vice-president of the Jazz Club Ferrara, who for over forty years has been committed to the promotion and diffusion of his great passion: jazz music. Specifically, 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. For information and dinner reservations you can call the number 3314323840active every day from 12 to 22.
The history of jazz in Ferrara
The history of jazz in Ferrara and its diffusion is made up of a few, constant faces. One of them is Alessandro Mistri. Today artistic director of Gruppo dei 10, Mistri has always followed the world of African-American music with great interest and involvement. The Jazz Club Ferrara was born in 1977, under the name of Circolo Amici del Jazz. The Club counts among its founders Alessandro Mistri, who until 2006 contributed to building a small-large musical niche, which had already moved to the Torrione di San Giovanni at the end of the nineties where it is still based.
That first group of enthusiasts included other characters, such as Franco Esposito, Gino Neri, Federico Garberoglio, Pasquale Piganti, Glauco Farinella, Toto Delicato, Franco BilancioniSergio Formignani, Giordano Ronchini, Augusto Mantovani, Franco Mantovani, Emanuele Rossi himself and Giordano Balboni, the true spearhead of the club, for his musical skills, his knowledge and organizational ability.
Not to be forgotten, then, presidents such as Andrea Veronese, Jimmy Villotti and Lola Bonora. In 1978 the Roaring Twenties Jazz Band, who despite the premature death of the leader, still performs today and collects well-deserved successes. The difficulties of the Circolo Amici del Jazz have been many, but the satisfactions have not diminished. Above all, that of bringing it to Italy for the first time Art Pepper, in the 1980 edition of Incontri Jazz Comacchio. In those years, all the great names of world jazz arrived in Ferrara: Dexter Gordon, João Gilberto, George Benson, Wynton Marsalis, Elvin Jones, Miles DavisDizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker and many others.
In 2006, after thirty years of service to the Jazz Club, Mistri decided to leave the baton to the team born around the successful experience of the Torrione. And after four years of rest, he founded it with some friends the Group of 10. Over the course of 14 years of activity, after almost 500 cultural and musical events, keeping the bar straight on jazz, but without forgetting other genres, such as Italian songwriting or South American music, and other cultural forms, such as art, literature and journalism.
