Imported Music Styles in Italy

During the Belle Epoque, the French style of performing renowned music at the café-chantant spread all over the Europe, the tradition had much in common with cabaret, and there is overlap between the café-chantant, café-concert, cabaret, music hall, vaudeville and other similar styles, but at least in its Italian appearance, the culture remained largely apolitical, focusing on lighter music, often rique, but not bawdy. The first café-chantant is Italy was the Salone Margherita, which opened in 1890 on the premises of the new Galleria Umberto in Naples, elsewhere in Italy, the Gran salon Eden in Milan and the music hall Olympia in Rom opened shortly thereafter. Café-chantant was alternately called the Italianized caffe-concerto. The main musician, usually a woman that is known as chanteuse in French; the Italian term, sciantosa, is a direct coinage from the French. The songs themselves, were not French, but were light hearted sentimental songs composed in Italian.

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The influence of United States pop forms has been rigid since the end of the World War II, Lavish Broadway-show numbers, big bands, rock and roll, and hip pop continues to be famous. Latin music, especially Brazilian bossa nova, is also well-known and the Puerto Rican genre of reggaeton is speedily becoming a normal form of dance music. This is now not uncommon for the present Italian pop musicians such as Laura Pausini, Zucchero Andrea Bocelli, Romina Arena and Eros Ramazzotti to produce new songs in English or Spanish in addition. Thus, musical revues which are standard fare on present Italian television can easily go, in a single evening from a big-band number with dancers to an Elvis impersonator to a present pop singer doing a version of a Puccini aria.

Jazz found its way into Europe during the World War I through the presence of American artists in military ensemble playing syncopated music. Yet, even before that, Italy received a hint of original music from across the Atlantic in the form of Creole singers and dancer who performed at the Elden Theater in Milan in the year 1904; they billed themselves as the creators of the cakewalk. The first jazz groups in Italy, though, were formed during the 1920s by bandleaders such as Arturo Agazzi and enjoyed immediate success. In spite of the anti-American tradition policies of the Fascist administration during the 1930s, American jazz remained famous.

After the post-war eras, jazz took off in Italy, all American post-war jazz patterns; from bebop to free jazz and combination have their equivalents in Italy. The universality of the Italian tradition ensured that jazz clubs would spring up all over the peninsula, that all radio and then television studio would have jazz-based house ensembles, that Italian artists would then begin nurturing a home grown type of jazz, based on European songs forms, classical composition methods and folk music. Currently, all the Italian music conservatories have jazz departments, and there are jazz festivals in each year in Italy, the best known of which is the Umbria jazz festival and there are prominent publications like the journal, musica jazz.

Italian pop rock has produced major musicians such as Zucchero, and has resulted in many top hits, the industry media especially the television are significant vehicles for such music, the television show Sabatp Sera is characteristic. Italy was at the forefront of the progressive rock trend of the 1970s, a pattern that mainly established in Europe but also gained spectators elsewhere in the world. This is sometimes measured a separated genre, Italian progressive rock, Italian bands such as the trip, Area, Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM), Arti e Mestoeri, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, New Trolls, Osama, Saint Just, Goblin, and Le Orme incorporated a combination of symphonic rock and Italian folk music and were famous all over Europe and the United States as well, other progressive ensembles such as Perigeo, Balletto di Bronzo, Rovescio della Medaglia, Alphataurus, Biglietetto, and Museo Rosenbach remained little known, but their songs are now considered classics by collectors. A few avant-garde rock ensembles or musicians (Area, Opus Avantra, Stromy Six, Picchio dal Pozzo, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and Saint Just) gained notoriety for their inventive sound. Progressive rock shows in Italy tended to have a strong political undertone and an energetic condition.

The Italian hip hop scene started in the early 1990s with Articolo 31 from Milan, whose pattern was primarily influenced by east coast rap. Other early hip pop crews were typical politically oriented like 99 Posse who later became more influenced by the British trip hop. More present teams include the gangster rappers such as Sardina’s La Fossa. Other current imported patterns include trance, electronica and techno performed by musicians include Eiffel 65, Gigi D’Agostino and Gabry Ponte. Hip pop is especially distinctive of the southern Italy, a fact which some witnesses have contributed to the view of the southern culture as more African than European as well as the southern show of rispettu (respect, honor), a form of verbal competing, both facts have helped identify southern Italian music which is considered by a combination of traditional music, reggae, rock, punk and political lyrics. Modena city Ramblers are one of the more famous ensembles known for their combination of Italian, reggae, Irish and many other forms of music.

Italy has also become a home for a series of Mediterranean combination projects, these include Al Darawish, a multicultural ensemble based in Sicily and led by Palentinian Nabi ben Salameh. The Luigi Cinque Tarantula Hypertext group is another instance, as is the TaraGnawa project by Phaleg and Nour Eddine. The Neapolitan famous singer like Massimo Ranieri has also produced a CD, Oggi o dimmane of traditional canzone Napoletana with African rhythms and instruments.