Vantaggiato, for reasons which remain unclear to this day, planted a bomb outside a school in the southern Italian city of Brindisi. The bomb went off killing a 16 year old girl and injuring nine others.

After being captured, owing largely to footage from a local closed circuit TV camera , Vantaggiato led police to another three bombs he had supposedly constructed.

The most curious aspect of Vantaggiato’s school bombing is that nobody understands just why he did it.

The school was named after murdered anti-mafia investigator Giovanni Falcone, so some wonder whether the bombing was ordered by organised crime. Others have speculated that Vantaggiato planted the bomb as revenge for a business deal which went wrong, but why bomb a school and attempt to kill innocent kids? Who knows. Not evenVantaggiato himself has been able to explain just why he did what he did.

Question marks will hang over the Brindisi school bombing for many years. In the meantime, Vantaggiato has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

For even considering planting a bomb in front of a school and for killing one and injuring other school children, evil Giovanni Vantaggiato not only qualifies as Italy Chronicles Italian Rogue of the Week, but probably the rogue of the year, at the very least. Let’s hope he rots away in prison.

Related posts:

• Italian Rogue of the Week: Pierangelo Daccò
• Italian Rogue of the Week: Silvio Berlusconi
• Italian Rogue of the Week – Vittorio Sgarbi
• Italian Rogue of the Week: Pier Luigi Bersani
• Italian Rogue of the Week – Marcello Dell’Utri

Italy has jazz in its blood, and there are no shortage of jazz festivals in Italy for jazz fans either, as you will discover from this list of what’s coming up, or on now, plus what to keep an eye out for next year.

There are jazz festivals pretty much all year round in Italy, although it is in the months June, July and August when Italy’s jazz festival season is in full swing.

You’ll find Italy’s warm summer evenings ideal for catching acts outdoors, though indoor shows could be on the hot and sweaty side.

Book accommodation in good time or else there may not be much accommodation left to book. While you are here, don’t forget to sample Italian cuisine, wine and Italian beer too.

If you play an instrument, you might like to bring it along as some of the events include workshops.

The Jazz Italia website also has lots of details of jazz events in Italy.

A list of Jazz Festivals all over Italy

Click on the name of the festival to go to the festival website.

If there’s a jazz festival which is not on this list and you think it should be, let us know via a comment and supply a link too.

June/July

• Festival Adda & Martesana Dates: May 24 – June 22, 2013 Location: Bergamo, Italy
• Iseo Jazz Festival Dates: May 25 – July 20, 2013 Location: Iseo, Italy
• Fasano Jazz Dates: June 1–12, 2013 Location: Fasano, Italy
• Alba Jazz Festival Dates: June 6–9, 2013 Location: Alba, Italy
• Jazz in’It Dates: June 7–9, 2013 Location: Vignola, Italy
• Vittoria Jazz Festival Dates: June 8–23, 2013 Location: Vittoria, Italy
• Montagnola Music Club Dates: June 12 – August 3, 2013 Location: Bologna, Italy
• Jazz al Popolo Dates: June 14 – July 12, 2013 Location: Rome, Italy
• Concerti in Abbazia Dates: June 14–28, 2013 Location: Monastier di Treviso, Italy
• PercFest Laigueglia Jazz Festival Dates: June 18–23, 2013 Location: Laigueglia, Italy
• Treviso Jazz Festival Dates: June 18–22, 2013 Location: Treviso, Italy
• Salotto del Jazz Dates: June 19 – August 10, 2013 Location: Bologna, Italy
• Clusone Jazz Festival Dates: June 20 – July 27, 2013 Location: Clusone, Italy
• Udin&Jazz Dates: June 21 – July 2, 2013 Location: Udine, Italy
• Massarosa Jazz Fest Dates: June 21 – July 12, 2013 Location: Massarosa, Italy
• Multiculturita Summer Jazz Festival Dates: June 22 – July 13, 2013 Location: Capurso (near Bari), Italy
• Verona Jazz Dates: June 22–25, 2013 Location: Verona, Italy
• Artusi Jazz Festival Dates: June 25–29, 2013 Location: Forlimpopoli, Italy
• Il Ritmo delle Città Dates: June 25 – July 25, 2013 Location: Milan, Italy
• Garda Jazz Festival Dates: June 26 – July 14, 2013 Location: Arco, Drena, Nago, Torbole sul Garda, Riva del Garda, Tenno, Italy
• Bari in Jazz Dates: June 26–28, 2013 Location: Bari, Italy
• The Nightfly Jazz Festival on the Beach Dates: June 27–29, 2013 Location: Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy
• Südtirol Jazz Festival Dates: June 28 – July 7, 2013 Location: Alto Adige, Italy
• Casa del Jazz Festival Dates: June 28 – August 4, 2013 Location: Rome, Italy
• Jazz by the Pool Dates: June 28 – September 6, 2013 Location: Montegrotto Terme, Italy
• Vivere Jazz Festival Dates: June 29 – July 19, 2013 Location: Fiesole, Italy

Lots of Jazz in Italy

July/August

• Baronissi Jazz Dates: July 1–7, 2013 Location: Baronissi, Italy
• Ambria Jazz Dates: July 4 – August 4, 2013 Location: Valtellina, Italy
• Umbria Jazz Dates: July 5–14, 2013 Location: Perugia, Italy
• Valsugana Jazz Tour Dates: July 5–19, 2013 Location: Pergine Valsugana, Tenna, Calceranica al Lago, Grigno, Italy
• Blues in Villa Blues & Jazz Festival Dates: July 5–12, 2013 Location: Brugnera, Italy
• Pescara Jazz Festival Dates: July 8–28, 2013 Location: Pescara, Italy
• Merano Jazz Festival Dates: July 8–13, 2013 Location: Merano, Italy
• Ortaccio Jazz Festival Dates: July 11–14, 2013 Location: Vasanello, Italy
• Jazz On Alps Dates: July 11–15, 2013 Location: Alpette, Italy
• Venezia Jazz Festival Dates: July 16–31, 2013 Location: Venice, Italy
• Albinea Jazz Festival Dates: July 16–19, 2013 Location: Albinea, Italy
• Gezmataz Festival & Workshop Dates: July 17–25, 2013 Location: Genova, Italy
• Piazza Jazz Dates: July 17–21, 2013 Location: Piazza Armerina, Italy
• Bassano Jazz Festival Dates: July 17–20, 2013 Location: Bassano del Grappa, Italy
• Fano Jazz by the Sea Dates: July 22–28, 2013 Location: Fano, Italy
• Siena Jazz Summer Festival Dates: July 24 – August 7, 2013 Location: Siena, Italy
• Atina Jazz Festival Dates: July 24–28, 2013 Location: Valcomino, Italy
• Cala Gonone Jazz Festival Dates: July 24–30, 2013 Location: Cala Gonone, Italy
• Eddie Lang Jazz Festival Dates: July 29 – August 4, 2013 Location: Monteroduni, Italy
• Taormina Jazz Festival Dates: August 2–6, 2013 Location: Taormina, Sicily, Italy
• Jazz in Laurino Dates: August 4–8, 2013 Location: Laurino, Italy
• Jazz al Castello Dates: August 7–9, 2013 Location: Gaeta, Italy
• Time in Jazz Dates: August 13–15, 2013 Location: Berchidda, Italy
• Jazz a Nuoro Dates: August 21–31, 2013 Location: Nuoro, Italy
• Ai Confini tra Sardegna e Jazz Dates: August 26 – September 1, 2013 Location: Sant’Anna Arresi, Italy

Related posts:

• The battle
• Listen to the best Jazz Musician in Italy: Mauro Ottolini
• Smoking Those Ivories – Italian Jazz Pianist Stefano Bollani
• Swinging in Italy – the Perugia BigBand
• Slight panic

Ottolini, born in 1972, is a classically trained trombonist who was formerly with the Verona arena orchestra. He gave up the classical scene to pursue a career in jazz. Ottolini has trained under the guidance of Bill Booth in Los Angeles and has worked with with the likes of Grace Jones, Gino Vannelli, Emy Stewart, and Joe Bowie, and many others.

Vocalist Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke, who you’ll hear shortly, has an impressive voice. Despite her non Italian sounding surname, Yorke is Italian born. She’ll get an article dedicated to her vocal skills another time. If you listen to her, I think you’ll understand why.

Jazz is very popular in Italy, even if you could be forgiven for thinking Italians chatting about jazz are into aircraft seeing as ‘jazz’ in Italian is ofttimes pronounced ‘jets’.

Aside from the legendary and very popular Umbria Jazz, Rome has its own jazz festival as do many other regions, towns and cities around Italy. For those who can’t make it to Umbria Jazz summer and winter editions, there’s always the Turin Jazz festival which is held in April and May – or just hunt around for other jazz events in Italy. There is no shortage of jazz in Italy.

Right. Music time.

Here’s Ottolini doing his jazz trombone stuff at Umbria Jazz Winter 2012/2013 show. Oh, look out for the madman playing rubber toys!

BUSTER KEATON BLUES – Mauro Ottolini Sousaphonix with Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now there’s this fun jazz animation for which Ottolini composed the music.

Mauro Ottolini & SOUSAPHONIX “Working Man Blues”

Click here to view the embedded video.

There, I hope you enjoyed all that jazz. Keep an eye out for Ottolini’s name when checking out those jazz fests in Italy.

Which is your favorite jazz festival in Italy?

For more info, albeit in Italian, on Ottolini, there’s his website: Mauro Ottolini and the obligatory Facebook page: Mauro Ottolini on Facebook.

Related posts:

• A Chinese Musician
• Smoking Those Ivories – Italian Jazz Pianist Stefano Bollani
• The battle
• Swinging in Italy – the Perugia BigBand
• Norway Opportunity for Italian Musicians

Already the Letta government’s decree has been condemned by some as being little more than a fake solution which will do little to address Italy’s underlying problems. In other words, it’s yet another of those pieces of legislation so beloved of Italy’s politicians – a classic example of ‘everything changes so everything stays the same’, its detractors will argue.

Is the decree really that bad? Well, on paper it doesn’t look too bad, even if it can hardly be described as adventurous. Heaven knows what organ transplants have to do with kick starting Italy’s economy either.

Exactly how all these measures will work in practice remains to be seen. Conspicuous by its absence is anything designed t0 cut down corruption. Nor is there anything on slashing Italy’s horrendously high taxes, alas. And a VAT increase is still incoming too.

No mention is made regarding making Italy’s banks more business friendly. Extending credit at low to negligible rated to businesses with outstanding payments so they can pay taxes would make a lot of people’s lives easier, for example. Still, this is Italy, so perfection is not to be expected.

Here’s a summary of the points of interest from what could be called Italy’s to do list.

Fiscal Simplification

For businesses, managing VAT for contractors and sub-contractors should become easier.

If Italians end up in debt, which is often a consequence of not being able to pay taxes in Italy because nobody bothers paying you, Italy’s rapacious tax man will no longer be able to take away your main place of residence, unless your house falls into the luxury category. In this case, presumably, those in debt will have to sell off their massive mansions or castles and move into humbler abodes.

Presently, if you owe the taxman €20,000 or more, he can initiate proceedings to take a house off you. If you only have one house, then that is the house which will be sold off to settle your tax debts.  The debt limit is to be raised to €120,000 before steps can be taken to force the sale of any property you own, with the exception of what is your main place of residence.

As for paying off those back-taxes, soon in Italy you’ll be able to do this over 120 months instead of the current 72 months. And you’ll shortly be able to miss up to 8 – non consecutive – payments before the tax man terminates your ability to pay off your back taxes in installments. Currently, if you miss 2 payments, you lose the right to pay off your back taxes bit by bit.

Education, University and Research

Various measures will be introduced to encourage research, provide funding to bright students, and make Italy’s university funding system simpler.

Italy may see businesses being set up by universities to exploit research findings, as happens in the USA, for example.

Business

To kick start Italy’s flagging manufacturing industry, businesses wanting new plant and equipment will be able to ask for subsidized finance. And those new machines should cost less to run.

Electricity should come down in price and encouraging more competition in Italy’s natural gas and fuels sector may push energy prices even lower.

There’s mention of ‘mixed business’ activities, whatever these may be. Well, they’ll get subsidised finance, provided anyone can understand what type of ‘mixed business’ qualifies.

Italy is to get zero bureaucracy in some zones. Which zones exactly is not detailed in the official press release. It’s not exactly clear what zero read tape is, either.

Making Italian Justice More Civil

Italy’s civil justice system is to be tweaked to make it more efficient.

Italy lies  in 158th place in the world in the time debt recovery takes. It is hoped that improvements in this area may make Italy more appealing to foreign investors.

An attempt is also to be make to clear a huge, and growing, backlog of civil cases.

Digital Economy

Aside from easing access to wifi in Italy to bring it in line with the rest of Europe, which has already been done anyway, the Boot is to get more streamlined governance of digital economy. Just what this will mean in real terms is anyone’s guess. Italy is just about at the bottom of the European class in terms of e-governance.

Infrastructure Interventions

Italy is to throw some €3 billion at its infrastructure, which is no bad thing. However, the projects which will supposedly kick off and should create around 30,ooo jobs seem to focus more on Italy’s centre and north. Italy’s south, as usual, is being largely abandoned.

The rail system in Italy’s deep south does need work, but there’s very little mention of any attempts to modernise it. If you happen to have read Tim Parks latest book Italian Ways, you understand that giving Italy’s deep south a decent rail system would boost tourism in the area. This, alas, does not look as if it will happen. As Mr Parks noted in his recent book, Italy does have a tendecy to spend huge globs of cash irrationally. Politics takes precedent over practicality in Italy, hence the mess the nation is in.

A lot of the public works listed appear to be tasks which should have been carried out years ago anyway. It’s no secret that far too many of Italy’s schools are falling apart, but before doing anything, Italy had to wait until it was in deep recession. Still, the school repair works may prevent a few building businesses from going under, if that is, the local authorities paying for the works pay up on time. Italy’s local authorities are some of the slowest payers on the planet. To try and persuade them to pay up more promptly, late payment sanctions are to be levied and fast-track courts are to be set up to sort out the really bad payers. It sounds good, on paper.

Italy’s bridges, tunnels and roads are to receive make overs in a bid to increase road safety.

Building

In simple terms, building should become quicker, or that is the intention behind reducing Italy’s reams of red tape – another aspect of the decree.

Organ Donation

Now, it’s not entirely clear what organ donation has to do with dragging Italy’s economy out of the doldrums, but Italy’s mandarins seem to think making it easier to donate will have some beneficial effect. Organ donation systems are to be sped up. I guess this will get some people back to work faster, if, of course, they have jobs to go back to.

Environment

The management of the extraction of water from underground sources is to be simplified and accelerated.

The amount of red tape concerning excavated soil and stone should be reduced, provided said excavated soil and stone is a byproduct and not refuse.

Setting up campsites should become less complex and this may help boost tourism business in some areas of Italy.

Specific measures to sort out refuse disposal issues in Italy’s Campania region will also form part of the new to do list decree.

Citizenship

It should become easier – read faster – for the children born on Italy to parents who are  foreign nationals to obtain Italian citizenship when they reach 18 years of age. This is a tentative step towards granting those who are born in Italy citizenship automatically. Italy won’t go in this direction just yet because the issue is a political hot potato.

Not Revolutionary

There you have it. Nothing is exactly revolutionary – hence the criticism.

Where’s the money going to come from? A little creative accounting and shuffling cash from the coffers of one government agency into another should do the trick, it is hoped. Just what effect this will have on Italy’s staggerlingly high, and growing, public debt, remains to be seen, but bigwigs in Europe seem to think Italy will be OK.

Most of what is going to be done, if it does indeed end up on Italy’s law books, is what needed to be done ages ago. Why Berlusconi did not bother is anybody’s guess, but poor Silvio did have other things on his mind, such as the odd court case or three.

The organ donation thing is just plain odd, as is the absence of anti-corruption laws, which, in case Italy’s government has not noticed, is also something which puts off foreign investment.

What is intriguing is that Italy has been aware of all its little problems for decades, and has had lots of time to think up solutions. For some reason though, it has left acting to the last possible minute and the measures proposed stink of being cobbled together in record time too. Why Italy’s darling political parties could not have started proposing solutions long before is an unknown. Italy has never been the most forward thinking of nations, though.

Source: The full text of the Save Italy to do list decree is on Italy’s government website, in Italian (it should be in English, at least) here: “Decreto Fare”

Related posts:

• Legislative Decree no. 25000001 of 7 March 2008 – a New Italian law
• Is Berlusconi to Run in the Rome Marathon?
• Little Storms in Italy
• Mani pulite Avoidance Measures?
• A list of Ways Italy Could Save Money

Summer this year in Milan got off to a very slow start, but after a bout of very changeable spring weather, it does appear to have arrived. Temperatures have shot up.

Being from the England where the weather goes from sunny, to cold and rainy, and back again in the space of a few hours, and does this almost daily, Milan’s weather this year made me feel as if I was back in England. In fact, one of reasons why I ended up in Italy was to escape the English climate. Only this year, it was starting to look as if northern Italy’s climate had become the same as England’s. I was worried, until, that is, the start of this week.

Virtually overnight temperatures have doubled. Nighttime blankets have finally been discarded – something which in past years is done in early May. Sleeping at night has become something of a chore and the dreaded little buzzing mosquitoes have started to make their irritating presence felt.

All of a sudden I have to wear shorts the whole day long, or else I’ll pass out. I need a pair of sandals to keep my feet from overheating.

Ice cream sales will suddenly rocket, and my late night dose of icy mint granita will become a necessity. The streets in areas of Milan such as Corso Como, the Naviglio canals and the rest of the in zones will be buzzing with nightlife, much to the irritation of local residents.

The ‘movida’ or nightlife in Milan in the San Lorenzo area

Despite its late arrival, Milan’s population is already moaning about the temperature rise. Many, I’ve been told, have ended up with a strange summer flu. This may be our bodies reacting, badly, to the exponential rise in temperature and humidity. Or it may be the final fling of winter bugs and viruses. I don’t know, sniffles he.

Yes, I will complain about the heat and the lack of sleep, but deep down, I love it when it stays sunny and hot all day long.

It looks as if anyone expecting for great weather for their vacation in Italy should get what they want.

Related posts:

• Is Italy too hot in August?
• The heat has hit
• A quick post
• I’m Not Going to Complain
• Intense heat in Milan