Jimmy Giuffre Trio in Italy, 1959

The cornucopia of the Internet seems to be truly boundless. In this occasion, we've sniffed out a complete set by the Jimmy Giuffre Trio with Jim Hall and Buddy Clark in Italy, as part of their 1959 European tour.


It was June 19th, 1959 at Teatro Adriano in Rome, according to the YouTube uploader, when jazz impresario Norman Granz took to the stage and introduced, in a rather decent Italian, the two bands of the night. For what it's worth, this particular Gerry Mulligan Quartet was formed by Art Farmer, Bill Crow and Dave Bailey (you can watch them here).

At the time, Giuffre was leaving behind what could be called a mainstream stage of his career, albeit his very personal take on composition and counterpoint, and his almost pastoral clarinet playing, and he was about to enter a more abstract phase in his music. The album he refers to as about to be released in Italy is 7 Pieces, which he recorded for Granz's label, Verve.

Giuffre and Hall -who played a lot together but didn't really get on- hardly need introducing, but Buddy Clark (1929-1999) is one of those names who may be only vaguely familiar. He worked with Bud Freeman in Chicago early in his career, and then he went on to play with a number of leaders, such as Les Brown, Red Norvo, and Dave Pell, and in the early 1970s he co-founded Supersax with Med Flory. He was also very active as a studio musician.

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