Marcel Zanini (real name Zannini; 9 September 1923 – 18 January 2023) was a Turkish-born French
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
musician..
Zanini was born on 9 September 1923 in
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
, Turkey. His family arrived in
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
in 1930 and settled there. His father was Neapolitan and his mother was Greek. He began learning the clarinet in 1942 and joined the orchestra of Leo Missir in 1946. He founded his first band in the early 1950s. He left for the United States in 1954 and has lived in New York for four years. He was the correspondent for the French magazine ''
Jazz Hot
''Jazz Hot'' is a French quarterly jazz magazine published in Marseille. It was founded in March 1935 in Paris.
Early years
''Jazz Hot'' is acclaimed for having innovated scholarly jazz criticism before and after World War II — jazz criti ...
''. He returned to Marseille in 1958 and set up a new formation.
Zanini went to Paris and in 1969 Leo Missir, then artistic director of the Barclay label, suggested he do a French adaptation of the Brazilian song by
Wilson Simonal
Wilson Simonal de Castro, was a Brazilian singer, born in Rio de Janeiro on February 23, 1938. He died in São Paulo on June 25, 2000. He was a singer with great success in the 1960s and in the first half of the 1970s. He was married two times a ...
, "''Nem vem que não tem''" under the French name "''Tu veux ou tu veux pas''" (You want to or you don't). It was a huge success and Zanini became famous for his little mustache,
bucket hat
A bucket hat (variations of which include the fisherman's hat, Irish country hat and session hat) is a hat with a narrow, downward-sloping brim. Typically, the hat is made from heavy-duty cotton fabric such as denim or canvas, or heavy wool s ...
and glasses.
Zanini continued to play in jazz clubs and festivals in Paris with his sextet. He has played with many musicians, French and American, including
Georges Arvanitas
Georges Arvanitas (June 13, 1931 – September 25, 2005) was a French jazz pianist and organist.
Life and career
He was born in Marseille, a child of Greek immigrants from Constantinople. At the age of four he began studying piano and initially ...
and
Eddy Louiss
Eddy Louiss (2 May 1941 – 30 June 2015) was a French jazz musician.
Eddy started playing in his father Pierre's orchestra in the 1950s. Pierre changed the family name from Louise to Louiss. As a vocalist, he was a member of Les Double Six of ...
.
Zanini was the father of the author
Marc-Édouard Nabe
Marc-Édouard Nabe (born Alain Marc Édouard Zannini; 27 December 1958) is a French writer, painter and jazz guitarist.
After drawing cartoons for several publications including Hara-Kiri, Nabe published his first book ''Au régal des vermines'' ...
who sometimes accompanied him on guitar. He lived in