James Reese Europe's military concerts in France in World War I in 1919 are claimed to have introduced Europeans to a new, "syncopated" music from America.
Yet, Italians had an even earlier taste of a new music from across the Atlantic when a group of "Creole" singers and dancers, billed as the "creators of the cakewalk" performed at the Eden Theater in Milan in 1904.
The most gifted exponents of jazz music in this period (from the 1940s to 1960s) are musicians like Gorni Kramer, Giorgio Gaslini, Lelio Luttazzi and Franco Cerri, the composer Bruno Martino and great singers like Natalino Otto, Jula de Palma, Nicola Arigliano and Johnny Dorelli.
A photographic book with all the Italian musicians from the origins, “L’Italia del Jazz” have been published by Mastruzzi Editore, Rone (www.slms.it).
Notable contemporary Italian jazz Musicians include Franco Cerri, Pino Rucher, Dino Betti van der Noot, Enrico Rava, Antonello Salis, Massimo Urbani, Paolo Fresu, Enrico Intra, Stefano Bollani, Antonio Farao, Roberto Ottaviano, Dado Moroni, Aldo Romano, Stefano di Battista, Pino Presti, Tullio De Piscopo, Fabrizio Bosso, Luigi Grasso, bassists Giorgio Rosciglione, Riccardo Del Fra, Pippo Matino, Mauro Gargano, Giovanni Tommaso and Rosario Bonaccorso; Giovanni Falzone, Guido Manusardi,[2] Giovanni Mirabassi, Enrico Pieranunzi, Mario Schiano,[3] Gianluigi Trovesi, Pippo Lombardo, Daniele Scannapieco, Gianfranco Campagnoli, and other members and collaborators of the Italian Instabile Orchestra.