Renato Sellani

Italian Jazz Pianist and Composer

Renato Sellani (born 8 January 1926, Senigallia, Ancona, Italy - died October 31, 2014, Milan, Italy) was an Italian jazz pianist and composer. In 1958, he left Ancona to live in Milan, where he had the opportunity to join Franco Cerri, Gil Cuppini and joined the Quintetto Basso-Valdambrini. Soon he started collaborating with great artists as Chet Baker, Lee Konitz and later Gerry Mulligan, Helen Merrill, Stéphane Grappelli, Buddy Collette, Herb Geller, Phil Woods and many others. His particular musical feeling let him to play with famous singers like Sarah Vaughan, Ginger Rogers, Lilian Terry, Shirley Bunnie Foy and Mina (3). He has also recorded a lot as a side man and as a soloist. He has been referred to as the "Hank Jones of Italy". The two share eternal youth and innate sweetness, both personal and musical. Another comparison is Tommy Flanagan because Sellani's taste is unerring and he has always been in high demand as an accompanist for singers. Sellani did not read music. His history is unusual (especially for an Italian jazz musician) because he started late. He was born in Senigallia, in the Marche region. He went to Rome to study political science at the University. His mother had been an opera soprano but he had never played music until he got hooked on jazz in the nightclubs of Rome. He says that he "went to listen every night" and began teaching himself piano at the home of a friend who owned an instrument. It was a few years after the end of World War II. Italy was emerging from the fascist era and even though there were not nearly so many good Italian jazz musicians as now, in one respect the scene was more vital: jazz and night life were more connected. There were many more places for musicians to play. Sellani must have been a natural, because soon he was playing in those nightclubs himself and by 1958 he was good enough to be Chet Baker's first pianist in Italy. The fact that Sellani is one of the most complete, most romantically seductive interpreters of standards in all of jazz is criminally underappreciated outside Italy. The good news is that he recorded prolifically for Paolo Piangiarelli's Italian label Philology, titles available in the United States. Sellani recorded over 40 albums for Philology, in solo and trio settings and also in small ensembles with a large cross-section of Italy's most important jazz instrumentalists and singers. Much of the Great American Songbook is memorably covered, as well as Italian popular songs and Sellani originals.