Umbria Jazz festival pays tribute to three greats

(ANSA) - Perugia, May 30 - This year's Umbria Jazz festival on July 7-16 will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the births of jazz greats Thelonius Monk, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie.
    Tributes to the three jazz icons will include performances by Simona Molinari, pianists Kenny Barron, Cyrus Chestnut, Benny Green, Dado Moroni and Eric Reed, the Lydian Sound Orchestra directed by Riccardo Brazzale and trumpet player Fabrizio Bosso.
    Neapolitan singer and song-writer Simona Molinari will pay homage to Fitzgerald, the most celebrated jazz singer, with a performance - 'Lovin' Ella' - during which she will sing songs and recount stories about the life of the artist who has most inspired her work.
    Barron, Chestnut, Green, Moroni and Reed will perform music by pianist and composer Thelonius Monk at the Morlacchi Theater in Perugia.
    The Lydian Sound Orchestra will also pay tribute to Monk, once described as "one of the true greats of all time" and "a real musical thinker" by another jazz great, saxophonist and composer John Coltrane.
    Gillespie, the trumpet player whose role as a founding father of modern jazz made him a major figure in 20th-century American music, will be celebrated by trumpet player Fabrizio Bosso along with pianist and composer Paolo Silvestri at the Arena Santa Giuliana.
    Italian and Polish trumpet players Enrico Rava and Tomasz Stanko will also perform.
    photo: Simona Molinari and Mauro Ottolini