The first time Paolo Fresu heard jazz he was eleven years old, he played in the Berchidda band and his trumpet weighed more than his arm. Someone had passed him a Miles Davis cassette, “Autumn Leaves.” And he had listened to it until he wore out the tape. Then he looked for another. And yet another. And he never stopped being inspired. Forty years later, that cassette has become over 450 records, collaborations with Nyman, Carla Bley, Peter Gabriel, Ornella Vanoni. The Django d’Or as best European jazz musician, the honorary degree from the Berklee College of Music.
The Fresu sound is recognizable after three notes. Jazz, world music, cinema, theatre, contemporary music: Fresu has gone through it all, without ever stopping in one place. The Paolo Fresu Quintet, founded in the early 1980s, is one of the longest-running formations in European jazz. The Mare Nostrum project with Richard Galliano and Jan Lundgren has poured the whole Mediterranean into the language of chamber jazz. In 2010, he founded Tuk Music, an independent label: an artisanal sound workshop in an era of serial and globalized productions. For years, his trumpet has also sounded where rights need a voice. Testimonial of Amnesty International, supporter of the Francesca Rava Foundation for children in difficulty, UNESCO Youth Ambassador in 2016 and 2017.
For Fresu, the sound of his trumpet has long also been a status, a way to assert a position. On the Palestinian question he was among the clearest voices on the Italian cultural scene. In September 2025, he withdrew his music from Israeli platforms, making it available only to those who spoke out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. On 7 June of the same year, in Piazza San Giovanni in Rome, in front of 300 thousand people, he played “Bella ciao” with the Palestinian flag in his hand. Divisive gestures, which Fresu performed with the same naturalness with which he goes on stage. Last November 24th, in the church of San Marco in Milan, he played «L’avventura» at the funeral of Ornella Vanoni. It was she who asked him, years earlier, during a phone call. And a few days ago also in Rome at the celebrations for the 80th anniversary of the Republic.
