In the TV image Bruno Canfora is the whiskered gentleman standing behind Mina. This is the black and white portrait that hundreds of hours of television archives have restored to us of the famous composer, arranger and conductor. Fascinating, refined images that are of such significance to music but which have only come down to us 10 to 15 years after Canfora’s success on radio, so that they are probably the truest we have. In terms of harmony, form and treatment of instruments Bruce Canfora’s predilection for the world of Duke Ellington could be defined as absolute. Every time that the Maestro from Milan tackled the Duke’s repertoire, whether for tone-colour or sound, the orchestral interpretations took on unusual colours, giving a special mark to each episode. Canfora never presented Ellington arbitrarily, but a swing interpretation picturesquely defined in the vernacular, harmonising the shades, blending and mixing to give life to combinations that had never been heard before. Like many musicians from a classical background who come to lose their heads over jazz, Bruno Canfora too loves interpolations and that particular tone-colour inspiration that such a repertoire necessarily implies. Just listen to his version of Mood Indigo – originally with muted brass instruments with no vibrato and clarinets in a low register – or the immortal Caravan, recorded by the Duke in 1937. Gunther Schuller wrote: Few famous /tunes have had to put up with such hammering vulgarisation at the hands of whoever-it-is, from the burlesque orchestra pits (it was a favourite for strippers’ line-ups) to the dance bands of seedy hotels. All the more fascinating then to contemplate the almost primitive purity of the version here. On particular the track, composed by the orchestra’s trombonist, Juan Tizol, shows the Ellington mania for the Latin-American and Caribbean currents of black music. Canfora appears to be well aware that Caravan is to jazz what the Arab Dance in Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite is to Euro-culture. The same is true of Prelude To A Kiss – one of Ellington’s most significant pre-war ballads – even though the swinging melody and chromatic harmonies of the theme were too sophisticated to find approval with the general public. Echoes of Harlem and Satin doll, equally famous themes, emphasise the mixtures dear to every true selfrespecting admirer of Ellington, starting with Canfora himself, who had had the chance to listen to the Duke live in Milan during his first Italian tour. To be noted among the soloists are the trumpet-players Cicci Santucci and Nino Culasso, the trombonist Marcello Rosa, the soprano sax Baldo Maestri, the tenor sax Beppe Carrieri. Bruno Canfora was born in Milan in 1924, studied piano and got his diploma from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in oboe. It was the war that helped me, Canfora used to say hoarsely with his unmistakeable Milan accent in his first professional performances. And it was in fact in Trieste, during the period immediately following the liberation of Italy that Canfora had the opportunity by accompanying the Allied parades alternating in the city with his band. After moving to Turin in 1948 he won the second edition of the “Bacchetta d’oro”. From then he was the permanent conductor of the “Castellino Danze” orchestra, a position that helped him reach that unmistakeable professional mastery and sharpening of style. From 1950 he was the permanent director of the “Ice Follies” in Garmisch, Bavaria, at the same time becoming musical director at Fonit for all recordings of jazz and light music. His orchestral-radio dream was always to set up an orchestra in the Ray Anthony style, with soloists who could sight-read but at the same time have one eye on the spectacular aspects of the music. From 1955 he directed various radio orchestras, such as the twice-weekly appointment with orchestral concerts of rhythm and songs on the Second Programme or as part of other transmissions and musical events, among which, in 1957, Recentissime, a programme that presented 54 songs from those that had not been selected at the Festival of Sanremo. His relationship with the cinema was interesting as well, especially from the qualitative point of view, thirty odd films in all, notably: Un angelo è sceso a Brooklyn (1957) di L. Vajda; Lupi nell’abisso (1959) di S. Amadio; Nel giorno del Signore (1970) di B. Corbucci, as well as the music for films directed by Lina Wertmüller with Rita Pavone. Canfora’s great fame dates from the sixties, due to shows like Canzonissima, Eva contro Eva, Sabato sera, Felicita Colombo, Addio giovinezza, Carnevale and, mainly, Studio Uno, the orchestral recognition of a way of conduct-ing and arranging. These were the years of his whimsical compositions and his long association with Mina (Due note, Vorrei che fosse amore, Brava, Conversazione, Un bacio è troppo poco, Sabato notte, Sono come tu mi vuoi) but also Canfora as television personality, whiskers lightened by the make-up department, not to mention the aggressions of Paolo Panelli (… Canforaaaaa!!!). Both from television and music came recognition. But beyond the established relationship with a great singer such as Mina, the Maestro was successful in selling millions of records as a composer: Il ballo del mattone, Il geghegè, Fortissimo for Rita Pavone, Tutta la gente del mondo for Ornella Vanoni, Da-da-um-pa for Alice and Ellen Kessler, Zum, zum, zum for Sylvie Vartan, La vita (Shirley Bassey), Stasera mi butto (Rocky Roberts). His list of successful musical comedies is as interesting, almost all of them in house with Garinei and Giovannini, including La voce dei padroni, Viola, violino, viola d’amore, Angeli in bandiera, Amori miei. This sophisticated return to Ellington by Bruno Canfora suggests the thought: what does Duke Ellington mean to today’s jazz? Certainly not a call for nostalgia for music that now seems projected towards something different, for which one would have to find another name instead of jazz. It’s rather the up-dating of a river that has a thousand streams to renew it and infinite improvised openings.