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Hello dear visitor, this is a special site about the late drummer Franco Manzecchi who passed away much too soon with only 47 years in 1979- being surely one reason for the fact that nowadays Jazz fans won’t know him anymore. Another reason could be that most of his recordings aren’t released on CD. Nevertheless most of those listeners who had the chance to hear him perform always confirm that they were highly impressed by his musicality and swing. Despite of that he just was one of the first european bop drummers! Being influenced first by Gene Krupa as a adolescent he later was guided musically by drum artists like Kenny “Klook” Clarke, Max Roach and Art Blakey (who gave him his Hihat as a respectful present) since he discovered Bebop in 1949. Last but not least Philly Joe Jones and Elvin Jones who became close friends were his idols at the end of his career. Franco himself would often be compared to Billy Higgins by the critics. Of course he developed his own musical language which led him to be a highly esteemed sideman over the years. Originally from Italy and completely selftaught Franco
made the decision in 1957 to work as a professional musician in Paris
– simply because the capital of France also was the “capital of Jazz”
in those days. Some hardcore jazz fans might still remember that many
american musicians managed to live and perform in whole Europe – from
Stockholm to Copenhagen to London to Rome to Munich and Berlin. Paris
indeed was the very first adress for a long time since people like Charlie
“Bird” Parker, Miles Davis and
Kenny Clarke loved the immense reception they had got from the audience
for their advanced music since the first time they had played there at
“Paris Jazz festival” in 1949. Of course we know that Bird and Miles returned to America. The inventor of bop drumming Kenny “Klook” Clarke however stayed...and became (if wasn’t already) the main influence for upcoming jazz drummers in whole europe. Great drummers like Daniel Humair, Pierre Favre, Charlie Antolini, Peter Schmidlin and Alex Bally from Switzerland, Klaus Weiss and Joe Nay from Germany, Aldo Romano and Franco Manzecchi from Italy came to Paris at one or the other time and sure idolized Klook - whilst on the other side some americans followed their colleague Klook to “La capitale du jazz en europe” Paris: For example the drummers Art Taylor, Al Levitt, Kansas Fields, Billy Brooks but also Bud Powell, Donald Byrd, Benny Waters, Peanuts Holland, Bill Coleman, Quincy Jones, Lou Bennett, Jimmy Gourley, Art Simmons, Nathan Davis to name a few but the greatest. Some to study music with the legendary Madame Nadia Boulanger and return back to America, some to work regularly while Jazz was suffering hard commercially in their american homebase, others to stay their whole life. Jazz as extravagant art form suffers since ever from
ignorant prejudices. How great nevertheless must have been the scene in
Paris in the fifties and sixties! The european pros learned from their
idols and the idols themselves had steady work and run their own groups.
This was for sure the main reason for Franco Manzecchi to try his chance
as an upcoming talent from Italy. Drum legends like Klook,
Art Blakey, Max Roach, Philly Joe
Jones, Elvin Jones and Shelly
Manne are said to have adored Franco as did the masters Don Byas, Dexter Gordon, Bud Powell, Johnny Griffin, Lou Bennett, Memphis
Slim and sure more. We want to thank Andreas
Fischer for his patient work for putting together these chronological
credits of the almost forgotten but still memorable drummer Franco Manzecchi
to whom this site is respectfully dedicated.
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