New Jazz Club in Rome where the Mafia (allegedly) once lived

[Lois Gilbert]

A house of jazz in the heart of Rome
By Mike Zwerin Bloomberg News
WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2005


ROME The Casa del Jazz, a compound once owned by Enrico Nicoletti, the alleged Mafia boss of the Magliana Gang, swung open its gates in central Rome for the first time on April 21, the city's 2,758th birthday.

There is a certain postmodern irony here - earlier in the music's history in Chicago and New York, jazz clubs were often owned by Mafia bosses. Fortunately, those days are over.


Shortly after being elected in 2001, Mayor Walter Veltroni pushed through the €5 million, or $6.4 million, budget for the renovation and landscaping of the property - 2,500 square meters, or about 27,000 square feet, on Via di Porta Ardeatina - to make a jazz center in a lush, pine-studded park near the Aurelian Wall.

Veltroni, a former Italian Communist Party (PCI) deputy, minister of culture and vice prime minister, is continuing a tradition from the 1960s and 1970s. Back then PCI-controlled municipalities produced festivals that were some of the most generous supporters of jazz musicians in Europe. Jazz was considered a revolt against the system in those days.

The pianist Keith Jarrett's recording "Koln Concert" hooked Veltroni on the music, he said. He listens mostly to piano trios led by people like Oscar Peterson, Lennie Tristano, Bill Evans, Jason Moran and Brad Mehldau. He likes the way Mehldau plays Lennon and McCartney songs. Or at least he used to listen to them before he became a workaholic mayor, he said.

There was no music playing on a Saturday morning in his office overlooking the Roman Forum. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a conservative, was announcing his new cabinet, which was pretty much the same as his old cabinet, on the television near Veltroni's desk. A father (he has two daughters) and a socially conscious man of 50 with a telegenic smile, steely determination and cool vibes, the leftist mayor watched it despairingly.

Then he went out on his balcony and waved to the tourists below, who were, he pointed out, standing next to the spot where Marc Antony delivered his funeral oration for Julius Caesar. Some tourists waved back. Veltroni is being talked about for bigger jobs, although he insists he will run for re-election next year.


It is tempting to give people who are in positions of power and love jazz the up-front benefit of the doubt. One of the best things about President Bill Clinton was that he liked Stan Getz. In 2003, Mayor Veltroni wrote "Il Disco del Mondo," a biography of the Italian jazz pianist Luca Flores, who played with trumpet player Chet Baker, among others, and committed suicide at 30. (A movie of the book is scheduled to be shot next year.)

Veltroni does not agree with those who consider jazz to be just one more example of American cultural imperialism. "Jazz has become a global language," he said. "It may be American in origin, but it has been absorbing different influences, including Italian. Jazz is probably the freest music around."

The Casa del Jazz includes a 150-seat concert hall, recording and rehearsal studios, a restaurant, sleeping quarters for musicians, administrative offices and a book and record shop. Its three buildings are wired so that concerts and lectures can be recorded. The budget, including a staff of five, comes to about €1.2 million a year. It will be covered by the city and such private sponsors as the Internet-access company FastWeb SpA, the Italian edition of Metro and carmaker Porsche AG.

"Rome is changing," said the Casa's artistic director, Luciano Linzi, who is a record producer and a former managing director of Warner Music Italy. "The mayor wants Rome to become a city of the present as well as the past. He has also founded Casas for film, literature and architecture. This is a historical occasion for the jazz community."

Linzi has a rare combination of musical knowledge and organizational acumen, and the Casa del Jazz has attracted attention. There were stories in the dailies Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Il Messaggero and in other publications. Publicity was running on the sides of Roman busses. Veltroni was set to go to New York the following week to promote the city, and Stefano di Battista, who played his saxophone on the opening night program, was lobbying for the mayor to meet Wynton Marsalis.