Gildo De Stefano

Italian music writer

Ermenegildo De Stefano (born 1953 in Naples, Italy) is an Italian journalist, music critic and musicologist. He specializes in African-American music. He is a music journalist, sociologist, and critic for the Italian daily Roma and art director of the Italian Festival of Ragtime.

Early life

He earned a degree in sociology of communications.

Career

He began collaborating with RAI Radio in the 1980s, for which he conducted jazz programs and regularly published essays on Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana [it] published by RAI.

He organizes courses of Afro-American music and Creative Writing workshops in various Italian universities and music conservatories including San Pietro a Majella.

He is the author of the only ragtime history in Italian language, published by Marsilio Editori (Venice) in two editions, in 1984 and in 1991. In the mid-1990s, he won a national prize for journalism of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport to coincide with the arrival among finalists of literary Prize Calvin [it], and in the 2018 the Campania Felix International Journalism Award.

He collaborates with the Foundation for the Encyclopedia Italiana Treccani for African-American voices and other international journals as the Canadian CODA magazine.^[1]

He is a member of the National Union of Writers and Artists.^[2]

Works

AfroAmerican Songs, Gammalibri Editions, Milan 1982.
History of Ragtime: origins, evolution, technique, 1880–1980, Marsilio Editions, Venice 1984 ISBN 8831749846
Three hundred years of Jazz: 1619–1919 – The origins of Afro-American music between sociology and anthropology, SugarCo Editions, Milan 1986.
Modern Jazz: 1940–1960 – Chronicle of creative two decades , Kaos Editions, Milan 1990.
Frank Sinatra (biography), Marsilio Editions, Venice 1991.
Vinicio Capossela (biography), Lombardi Editions, Milan 1993.
Francesco Guccini (biography), Lombardi Editions, Milan 1993.
Louis Armstrong (biography), Préface by Renzo Arbore, Italian Scientific Editions, Naples 1997.
Vesuwiev Jazz, Italian Scientific Editions, Préface by Renzo Arbore, Naples 1999.
Easy street story, L'Isola dei ragazzi Editions, Naples 2007 ISBN 8887292965
The people of samba: the story and the characters of Brazilian popular music, RAI Editions, Rome 2005.
Around Ragtime and Jazz, Préface by Amiri Baraka, Introduction by Gianni Minà, Sugarco Editions, Milan 2007 ISBN 887198532X
The Voice. Life and Italian roots of Frank Sinatra, Préface by Renzo Arbore, Coniglio Editions, Rome 2011
A social history of jazz, Préface by Zygmunt Bauman, Mimesis Editions, Milan 2014 ISBN 9788857520018
Naples stories, Amazon.it, Naples 2015, ASIN: B00XMZ1HOI
Saudade Bossa Nova: music, contamination and rhythms of Brazil, Preface by Chico Buarque, Introduction di Gianni Minà, Logisma Editions, Firenze 2017, ISBN 978-88-97530-88-6
Frank Sinatra, l’italoamericano, Preface by Renzo Arbore, LoGisma Editore, Florence 2021, ISBN 978-88-94926-42-2
Ballata breve di un gatto da strada - La vita e la morte di Malcolm X, Preface by Claudio Gorlier, Postface by Walter Mauro, NUA Editions Brescia 2021, ISBN 978-88-31399-49-4
Diario di un suonatore guercio, inFuga Edizioni, Aversa 2023 ISBN 9791280624352

References

(in Italian) This article is partially or totally taken from the Italian Wikipedia's article Gildo De Stefano.

Notes

^ "Welcome to CODA – Jazz Understood™ – About CODA".
^ The union of writers founded immediately after the war, by some famous italian writers including Corrado Alvaro.