Italian Americans and Music

Neapolitan Song Tradition
The Neapolitan Song was one of the first global pop music phenomenons, and it wouldn't have been possible without immigrants in New York and Buenos Aires who composed, performed, recorded, and purchased the music. (more soon).

• comic theather actor Eduardo "Farfariello" Migliaccio
• signer Gilda Mignonette
• composer Francesco Pennino (1880-), composer of "Senza Mamma" (and Francis Ford Coppola's maternal grandfather)
• the singer Jimmy Roselli

Jazz

• guitarist Eddie Lang aka Salvatore Massaro
• violinist Joe Venuti
• New Orleans trumpeter & singer Louis Prima
• cool pianist Lenny Tristano

Do-Wop

• the Crests who recorded "16 Candles"
• Dion and the Belmonts
• Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
• all the corner boys who harmonized back in the day!
• "Italian Americans and Early Rock and Roll" symposium, May 10, 2003

Salsa

• saxophonist Bobby Porcelli
• all those hot Italians who danced the mambo & cha-cha in New York's Palladium Ballroom in the 1950s & 1960s

Rock

• Laura Nyro
• Frank Zappa

Hip Hop

• And also the Italian flava in Hip Hop
• Diaspora Event
• Diaspora Article
• My thoughts on Italian Americans and Hip Hop

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