[Dixielandjazz] The Italian Connection in Early Jazz (besides owning the clubs)

[Steve Barbone]

Hi Dan:

Nuncio (Charlie) Scaglione also played with the Friars Band with Mares,
Hardy, Brunies, Roppolo, Martin and Pollack

Perhaps the next historical jazz book subject might be: "Italian
Contributions to the Origins of Jazz?"

Sudhalter suggests this on page 68 of "Lost Chords":

"Reference to Roppolo, Scaglione and Cordilla inevitably brings up the role,
still undocumented, played in the development of jazz by musicians from this
city's (New Orleans) populous Italian, largely Sicilian, working class."

and on page 69:

"The sheer quantity of Sicilian names in the ranks of early New Orleans
jazzmen - LaRocca, Roppolo, Veca, Almerico, Giardino, Bonano, Barocco,
Caprano, Prima, Lala, Coltraro, Davilla, Loyocano, Manone, Gallodoro,
Federico, Cordilla, Guarino (HEY RUSS, RELATIVE?) Scaglione, Pinero, Schiro,
Parenti, Mangiapane, Loberto, Franzella, Papalia, Mello, Palmisano, Pecora,
Provenzano, Sbarbaro - attests to the role Italo-Americans played in the
music's first years. it is a field ripe for further research."

Regarding the "Sicilian Clarinet method", Sudhalter says this on page 41
when talking about how different the Ropollo sound was from others in the
early 1920s:

"Various scholars, among them Bruce Boyd Raeburn, have pointed to an
'Italian Connection,' a tie to traditional Sicilian clarinet methods. Other
Italian-American New Orleans reed men, among them Nuncio Scaglione and
Charlie Cordilla, also hint in this direction."

"The English critic and scholar Max Harrison has called Roppolo's Affekt
spectral, indeed there is something of phantasm, something wraithlike, in
the very sound Ropollo produces . . . 'Sometimes', clarinetist Kenny Davern
has said, 'he just seems not of this world'."

"Much of it has to do with vibrato" . . . etc.

Most of the Italians in those early jazz years are virtual unknowns among
today's Dixieland fans. Perhaps because there was neither a Sicilian school
of washboard, except to wash clothes, nor an appreciation for Louis Prima's
talent as a fine New Orleans Jazz trumpeter before he decided to form a Las
Vegas Show Band and make some money. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


on 8/5/07 3:04 AM, D and R Hardie at darnhard at ozemail.com.au wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> I¹m not a full bottle on clarinettist Nuncio Scaglione but
> Brian Wood lists him in ŒThe Song for Me¹ as born 1890 and died 1935
> having played in Jack Laine bands and recording with the Johnny
> Bayersdorffer band.
> Perhaps even more influential was violinist and Milneberg dairy
> farmer John (Giovanni?) Spariccio who owned a bar on Decatur Street and
> is believed to have taught many early Dixielanders to play jazz -
> including clarinetist Alcide Nunez the original clarinet player with
> the ODJB.
> 
> regards
> Dan Hardie
> Check out website
> http://members.ozemail.com.au/~darnhard/EarlyJazzHistory.html