Paolo Radoni, born in 1949 in Cairo Montenotte, Italy, was a Belgian jazz guitarist, composer, and arranger. He learned to play the guitar by himself at age 12, after being exposed to jazz through his family's 78 RPM records of artists such as Louis Armstrong, Erroll Garner, Lena Horne, and George Gershwin. Around age 15, he began experimenting with the electric guitar, performing both jazz and songs by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Shadows. During his early career, he performed rock and blues with bands that include Kleptomania and Here and Now, before transitioning to jazz full-time in 1975. As a composer and instrumentalist, he toured globally and collaborated with famous artists including Johnny Dyani, Lee Konitz, Joe Lee Wilson, Francis Varis, and Joe Lovano. In June 1983, he performed at a jazz festival in Quebec at the Spectrum, while Miles Davis was scheduled to perform at the Théâtre Saint-Denis. His discography as a leader or co-leader includes the albums Vento (1978), Funny Ways (1981), Hotel Love (1982), and Storie Vere (1988), which was released on Igloo Records. He also wrote arrangements for various orchestras and for the theatre, and taught jazz at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles. He died on December 21, 2007, in Brussels, Belgium, while listening to the song “Luiza” by Antônio Carlos Jobim.
