Raffaele Celeste "Nini" Rosso (19 September 1926 – 5 October 1994) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

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 ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

er and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

Biography

Born in

San Michele Mondovì San Michele Mondovì is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about south of Turin and about east of Cuneo. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,064 and an area of .All demographi ...

, Italy, Rosso's parents had attempted to send him to

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, but at 19 he chose the trumpet over academia, and left home. He was a partisan during the Liberation of

Nazist Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

and Fascist

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and operated in

Valle Maira Maira Valley (in Italian ''Val Maira'' or ''Valle Macra'') is a valley in south-west of Piedmont in the Province of Cuneo, Italy. Etymology The valley takes its name from the river Maira, a right-hand tributary of the Po which flows through the ...

, with Giorgio Bocca, and Detto Dalmastro, partisan commander of anti-fascist brigade

Giustizia e Libertà Giustizia e Libertà (; en, Justice and Freedom) was an Italian anti-fascist resistance movement, active from 1929 to 1945.James D. Wilkinson (1981). ''The Intellectual Resistance Movement in Europe''. Harvard University Press. p. 224. The mov ...

Partito d'Azione The Action Party ( it, Partito d'Azione, PdA) was a liberal-socialist political party in Italy. The party was anti-fascist and republican. Its prominent leaders were Carlo Rosselli, Ferruccio Parri, Emilio Lussu and Ugo La Malfa. Other promin ...

of north Italy. After his employment in a

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

was terminated by the police, he returned home, but soon after departed again to relaunch his career. He soon became one of the best-known jazz trumpeters in Italy, reaching the crest of his popularity in the 1960s. He became known in the UK in 1962 when his

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

of "Concerto Disperato" was

covered Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of co ...

Ken Thorne Kenneth Thorne (26 January 1924 – 9 July 2014) was a British television and film score composer. Early life Thorne was born in Dereham, a town in the English county of Norfolk. Thorne began his musical career as a pianist with the big bands ...

and his Orchestra and became a

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...

under the title "The Theme from ' The Legion's Last Patrol'". Rosso's original was quickly released on the

Durium Durium is a highly durable synthetic resin developed in 1929. It was used in phonograph records, as well as in the casting process for metallic type and in the aeronautics industry. Origin It is a resorcinol-formaldehyde resin, the result of ...

label and also made the

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tab ...

, but was less successful than the cover. His 1965 worldwide hit " Il Silenzio" went to number 1 in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and sold over five million copies by the end of 1967. In the US it peaked in November 1965 on position 32 of the Billboard Chart. It was awarded a

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

. He also

acted Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development, commonly known as ACTED, is a French humanitarian non-governmental organisation. It is a non-governmental, non-political and non-profit organisatio. ACTED works in 37 countries responding to eme ...

in the 1960s. Rosso died of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

in 1994, at the age of 68.

References

1926 births 1994 deaths Musicians from Turin Italian jazz trumpeters Male trumpeters Smash Records artists Italian jazz musicians 20th-century trumpeters 20th-century Italian male musicians Male jazz musicians Deaths from lung cancer in Lazio Burials at the Cimitero Flaminio People from San Michele Mondovì {{jazz-trumpeter-stub