Bruno Martino


Bruno Martino was an Italian composer, singer, and pianist.

Career

Martino learned to play the piano at the age of fourteen. A Jazz fan, he spent the early years of his career performing with European radio and night club orchestras. In the mid-1950s he was a member of the RAI orchestra. He later started composing music for popular Italian singers, eventually touring the world with his own orchestra. This resulted in a late-blossoming career as a singer.
Internationally he is best known for his 1960 song "Estate", a standard that has been performed by many jazz musicians and singers since the early 1960s, including João Gilberto, Joe Diorio, Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans, Shirley Horn, Eliane Elias, Michel Petrucciani, Monty Alexander, Mike Stern and Robert Jospé.
Martino's song "Dracula Cha Cha Cha" is featured in the album Italian Graffiti and is performed onscreen in Vincente Minnelli's film Two Weeks in Another Town. It inspired the title of Kim Newman's novel Dracula Cha Cha Cha, which takes place in Rome in 1959.

Discography