Nini Rosso Radio

b. Celeste Rosso, 19 September 1926, Italy, d. 1994. As a teenager, Rosso ran away from home through parental pressure to pursue an academic career. After he was found playing trumpet in a Nice night spot, his parents relented, and he formed a small orchestra that garnered a work schedule beyond Italy to include, on one occasion, a tour of India. After a residency on Radio Turin, Rosso relocated to Rome where he became recognized as a formidable mainstream jazz player. Nevertheless, his fortune would be made in pop after he was contracted by Durium late in 1962. His debut single, ‘La Ballenta Della Tromba’, sold well nationally but 1963’s ‘Concerto Disperato’ - also self-composed - entered charts as far afield as Japan. Rosso’s biggest commercial moment, however, was with ‘Il Silenzio’ - theme tune to 1965’s The Legion’s Last Patrol starring Stewart Granger - which, co-written with Guglielmo Brazzo, was a variation on ‘The Last Post’. Despite a UK cover by Eddie Calvert and another in the USA by Al Hirt, the Rosso original was an international smash for which he received the first Common Market Gold Disc award in Hamburg.

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