The work of this '20s and '30s Italian bandleader, who doubled on saxophones and violin, is unfortunately documented sparsely on recordings. He represents one of the earliest of jazz fusion experimenters in that his music combined aspects of both dance band and classic jazz music, from an Italian perspective, naturally. Like many great bandleaders, John Abriani was known for his knack at nabbing naturally exciting soloists and devising frameworks for featuring them, in his case a bit of a matter of necessity since he was not much of a soloist. Abriani was brought up on the other side of the mountains in Switzerland, which is where his career in music began. With his brother, Felice Abriani, a banjoist as well as violinist, he formed an orchestra that played in cafes. Between 1925-1932, the Abriani brothers performed regular gigs in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. This is the period where most the recordings of these groups originate from, as the Homocord outfit cut several sides in 1927 and 1928. The repetitive "Just Once Again" and melodically aromatic "Say It With a Red Rose" were popular records in Europe, yet many details about them remain as hazy as an Alpine fog, including the possible participation of trumpeter Arthur Briggs, supposedly the first black jazz musician to perform on the continent. Speaking of pioneering efforts in the genre, John Abriani himself had the courage to take an Italian jazz band to Calcutta, where he held down a steady gig between 1932-1934. There were also recordings done during this stint, part of a HMV Twin catalog of both jazz and old-timey music distributed in India in the '30s and the subject of many a record collectors' sweaty nightmares. John Abriani returned from India in 1934 and was an active performer in Europe throughout the decade, with further sides cut from 1937 on. All told, however, discographer Tom Lord finds only a total of eight recording credits for Abriani in the '20s and '30s combined. In the '40s he settled in his native Italy, where he remained with much less of a presence on the music scene over the next several decades. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi