Jazz Street in Bologna: A New Star Is Here

Bologna, September 13, 2025 – In the constellation A new star shines on Via Orefici today. It's Art Blakey, an American drummer born in Pittsburgh in 1919. Arthur, an orphan raised by his neighbors, as Paolo Alberti, creator of the La Strada del Jazz project, explains, "started out terribly, but that didn't stop him from becoming first a pianist, then a great drummer, and from being remembered as one of the great geniuses of bebop."

Art Blakey played in Bologna at the Teatro Comunale in 1972 with Alberto Alberti and returned to the Palazzo dello Sport that same year. These were the years when Bologna was the "moral capital" of jazz. The city has preserved a memory of his music, and for this reason, the Strada del Jazz wanted to honor him.

And it was Blakey who inspired the great drummer Roberto Gatto, who was a guest yesterday afternoon (before the evening concert with Piero Odorici) on the stage in Via Orefici, and was awarded the La Strada del Jazz plaque by Culture Councilor Daniele Del Pozzo. “Blakey was an essential figure, an important role model. I had the pleasure of meeting him,” Gatto recalls, “and I asked him how he made a famous rhythm he used to play, a shuffle , the blues march , and he played it for me live. He was one of the greatest bandleaders, author of many recordings, and he churned out exceptional musicians from Wayne Shorter and Benny Golson to the Marsalis Brothers,” the drummer concludes.

Jazz music in the center of Bologna (PhotoSchicchi)

The plaques of the fifteenth edition of the Strada del Jazz then went to the Street Dixieland jazz band, to whose music the dancers of the Bologna Swing Dancers, who also received the plaque, danced.

Before continuing on the route that transformed Via Orefici into a New Orleans street for an hour, Alberti wanted to remember the recently deceased writer Stefano Benni , “the inventor of the Luisona, as well as a great lover of jazz and this city”.

Then came the tribute to other friends of the Strada del Jazz who have passed away. In particular, Alberti remembered his "fraternal friend," twice a guest at the festival, Pippo Baudo , the composer of many singers including Gianni Morandi, Claudio Baglioni, and Laura Pausini. "A man who is Sanremo," Alberti called him, or Celso Valli, remembered by his son Paolo and Fio Zanotti.

And Teo Ciavarella , pianist and composer, “a musician adopted by this city, a talented jazz musician and above all a gentle soul of music”.

Then the Street Dixieland jazz band led the crowd of onlookers and enthusiasts through the streets of the Quadrilatero. But the music continues. After today's concert with Roberto Gatto and Piero Odorici, tomorrow at 4 pm it's the turn of Saihs, winners of the first Perugia 'Alberto Alberti Jazz' Award, and at 6 pm Karima, who will revisit songs by Italian music greats, from Lucio Battisti to Lucio Dalla, and reinterpret them with a jazz twist.