As a leading star of the Italian jazz scene in the 1990s, Paolo Fresu is renowned as an elegant, experimental master of the trumpet, who manages to infuse Miles Davis's cool jazz period with Mediterranean romance and old country folk traditions. Born in Berchidda in the north eastern countryside of Sardinia, Fresu followed in his brother's footsteps and began playing trumpet in his town's marching band at the age of eleven, learning a cyclical breathing technique from elders who played an ancient clarinet-like pipe unique to the region called the Launeddas. Having discovered bebop through Miles Davis and John Coltrane's 1956 album 'Round Midnight', he later studied in Siena with saxophonist Claudio Fascoli and trumpeter Enrico Rava, and after graduating from the Music Conservatory in Cagliari he turned professional in 1982.
He cut his teeth playing with bassist Bruno Tommaso before leading a post-bebop quintet and sextet on early albums 'Ostinato' and 'Inner Voices' featuring flautist Dave Liebman. He was also awarded the Bobby Jaspar Prize by the Academie du Jazz in 1996 and won the Django d'Or for European Jazz Musician of the Year in 2000, and his eclectic career included tributes to Chet Baker, interpretations of classical pieces by Richard Strauss and electro-jazz fusions with his Devil Quartet. He collaborated with a variety of artists such as accordion player Antonello Salis, Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and experimental Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le, while back in Sardinia he founded the annual Time in Jazz Festival which has been bringing some of the world's most innovative artists to perform in the idyllic churches and piazzas of Berchidda since 1988. Among his hundreds of recordings, stand-outs include his breakthrough 'Live in Montpellier' in 1990, his collaboration with classical guitarist Ralph Towner on 'Chiaroscuro' in 2008 and his exploration of his Italian heritage on 'Mistico Mediterraneo' in 2011. He later worked with contemporary composers such as Michael Nyman and Giancarlo Schiaffini on film scores, theatre productions and multi-media projects. He also teaches regularly at the University of Siena and holds seminars across the world, performing in India with percussionist Tirok Gurtu and collaborating with French accordionist Richard Galliano and Swedish pianist Jan Ludgren for the third time on futuristic jazz-classical crossover album 'Mare Nostrum III' in 2019.