Dino Saluzzi

Dino Saluzzi
Dino Saluzzi (photo by Sheldon Levy)
Background information
Birth name	Timoteo Saluzzi
Born	(1935-05-20) 20 May 1935 (age 81) Campo Santo, Salta Province, Argentina
Genres	Jazz, avant-garde jazz, Latin music
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, bandleader
Instruments	Bandoneon
Years active	1970s–present
Labels	ECM
Associated acts	Trio Carnival
Website	saluzzimusic.com.ar

Timoteo "Dino" Saluzzi (born May 20, 1935 Campo Santo, Salta Province, Argentina) is a Argentinian bandoneon player. He is the son of Cayetano Saluzzi and the father of guitarist José Maria Saluzzi.

Dino played the bandoneón since his childhood. Other than his father, he was influenced by Salta musicians such as Cuchi Leguizamón, and by the lyrical strain of the tango of Francisco de Caro and Agustin Bardi. Dino described the vividness of his musical sketches as "an imaginary return" to the little towns and villages of his childhood.

For much of his youth, Saluzzi lived in Buenos Aires, playing with the Radio El Mundo orchestra. He would play in orchestras for a living, while touring with smaller, sometimes jazz-oriented ensembles, developing a personal style that made him a leading bandoneonist in Argentine folklore and avant-garde music (especially since Ástor Piazzolla did not participate in projects other than his own). His record career doesn't start until the 70s, along with Gato Barbieri, when he signed a couple of crazy lyricism albums under the name of Gaucho. Over this decade, he worked on many tours in South America and specially in Japan, but always associated to other names, as Mariano Mores or Enrique Mario Franchini.

Through word-of mouth publicity (mostly from expatriate musicians) he was invited to several European music festivals, and landed a contract with the ECM label. Several records have resulted, including Kultrum, 1982. From the beginning of the 1980s onwards, there were collaborations with European and American jazz musicians including Charlie Haden, Tomasz Stanko, Charlie Mariano, Palle Danielsson, and Al Di Meola.

ECM brought Saluzzi together with Charlie Haden, Palle Mikkelborg and Pierre Favre for Once Upon A Time ... Far Away In The South, and subsequently with Enrico Rava for Volver. Rava had worked extensively in Argentina, and Haden's sympathy for Latin American music was well-known; furthermore Palle Mikkelborg and Dino Saluzzi had worked together productively in George Gruntz's band: there was a common ground on which an artistic exchange of ideas could take place. Saluzzi later played with 'Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra', and the 'Rava Saluzzi Quintet' also toured.