Nunzio Rotondo was an Italian jazz trumpeter and composer born on December 11, 1924, in Palestrina. He received piano lessons at age six and switched to the trumpet at nine. Rotondo studied at the Conservatory of Rome after 1945. In 1949, he co-founded the Hot Club Rome Sextet, which performed with Louis Armstrong. Rotondo was an early practitioner of bebop in Italy. He performed at the Salon du Jazz in 1952 and toured with the Lionel Hampton orchestra in the late 1950s. Rotondo was named best jazz musician in Italy at the Rome Jazz Festival in 1958. During the 1960s, he worked as a studio musician for RAI and hosted the radio program Appuntamento con Nunzio Rotondo. In 1965, he performed with Albert Mangelsdorff and Martial Solal. Rotondo performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1969. He died on September 15, 2009, in Rome.
