Michelle Lacerenza
was born in Taranto, Puglia, Italy on January 7, 1922. Born into a family of musicians: his father is
the maestro Giacomo Lacerenza, while his two older brothers are Amleto
Lacerenza, known as Grypin and Rosario Lacerenza.
For years he was
a trumpet teacher at the Conservatory of Foggia, after which he moved to Rome,
where he taught at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia, where he had also
graduated in 1943; in that school he met and made friends with composer Ennio
Morricone.
After World War
II, he became a conductor, musician (he accompanies among others Carlo Dapporto
and Wanda Osiris) and composer of music for musical comedies, soundtracks and
songs: he writes for example, in collaboration with Elvio Monti, the music of
Fontane d'Italia, based on Ottavio De Stefano's text, which was brought with success
by Claudio Villa in 1962.
With Morricone he
finds himself in the world of cinema, where Lacerenza performed as a trumpet
player in some soundtracks: in fact when the Roman musician prepares the music
for the first film of the Sergio Leone trilogy, needing a trumpet player for
one of the two main themes, he thinks immediately of his friend, Sergio Leone
wanted Nini Rosso, a famous Italian trumpeter, to play the trumpet for the film
score, and Michele knew it well. So he played that solo in such a breathtaking
manner that he himself was driven to tears. And in the end Sergio too was moved
by that heartbreaking sound”. Vinicio Capossela, a renowned Italian singer,
admits: “That trumpet breaks Leone’s long, silent sequences like a cry rising
from the desert stones. The The Lord’s trumpet calls the souls to the day of
judgment, Lacerenza’s calls them to the final showdown”. In 1964, after the
success of “For a Fistful of Dollars”, Lacerenza’s trumpet became a fetish for
an endless number of spaghetti-western movies. Lacerenza’s trumpet immediately
evokes the gritty and grimy West of Sergio Leone and of his countless
imitators. A West closer to Southern Italy than to John Ford’s films. Michele
Lacerenza was not simply a performer, his interpretation of the final solo of
“For a Fistful of Dollars”, according to Morricone himself, was his own
interpretation of the score. A musical attitude which had its roots in
Lacerenza’s origin: he had grown musically in the local citizens band, thus
acquiring the peculiar passionate style of those popular ensembles.
In 1966 Lacerenza
began teaching as a teacher at the Umberto Giordano Conservatory in Foggia; in
the meantime he continued for the following years to be the author of
soundtracks. He was the first trumpet soloist in the Orchestra della Rai of
Rome, playing with maestro Enrico Simonetti; in 2006 the Rai published, in the
series Via Asiago 10, a CD called Big Band Concerto, containing some recordings
of 1972 by Enrico Simonetti in which Lacerenza plays the trumpet, with a
woodwind section composed among others by saxophonists Gianni Oddi and Sal
Genovese, with Maurizio Majorana on bass and the Brazilian Mandrake on
percussion.
Lacarenza was
married and had three children: Teresa, Giacomo and Michele Giuseppe. Among his
best known pupils was Gino Comisso.
LACERENZA, Michele (aka Mike Macerenza) [1/7/1922, Taranto,
Puglia, Italy – 11/17/1989, Rome, Lazio, Italy] – composer, arranger, musician
(trumpet, trombone), son of musician Giacomo Lacerenza [1885-1952], married to
? father of Teresa Lacerenza, cameraman
Giacomo Lacerenza, cameraman Michele Giuseppe Lacerenza.
A Fistful of
Dollars* – 1964 [trumpet]
Blood at Sundown*
– 1965 [trumpet]
For a Few Dollars
More* – 1965 [trumpet]
A Pistol for
Ringo* – 1965 [trumpet]
The Return of
Ringo* – 1965 [trumpet]
Blood at Sundown*
– 1966
Song: “Necklace of Pearls” sung by Peter
Boom
Deguello – 1966
[trumpet]
The Good, the Bad
and the Ugly* - 1966 [trumpet]
$7.00 on the Red*
– 1966 [trombone]
The Long Day of
the Massacre* – 1968
Pray to God and
Dig Your Grave – 1968 [trumpet]
The Wrath of God*
- 1968 [also trumpet]
$20,000 for Seven*
– 1969
Breathless: The
Story of the Trumpeter of a Fistful of Dollars – 2007 (co) [archive music]
Erika Blanc nei
western italiani – 2014
*scores available
on CD
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