Ermenegildo De Stefano (born in Naples Italy) is an Italian journalist, music critic and musicologist. He specializes in African-American music. He is a music journalist, sociologist, and critic for the Italian daily Roma and art director of the Italian Festival of Ragtime.

Early life

He earned a degree in Sociology of Communications.

Career

He began collaborating with RAI Radio in the 1980s, for which he conducted jazz programs and regularly published essays on Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana [it] published by RAI.

He organizes courses of Afro-American music and Creative Writing workshops in various Italian universities and music conservatories including San Pietro a Majella.

He is the author of the only ragtime history in Italian language, published by Marsilio Editori (Venice) in two editions, in 1984 and in 1991. In the mid-1990s, he won a national prize for journalism of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport to coincide with the arrival among finalists of literary Prize Calvin [it], and in the 2018 the Campania Felix International Journalism Award.

He collaborates with the Foundation for the Encyclopedia Italiana Treccani for African-American voices and other international journals as the Canadian CODA magazine.^[1]

He is a member of the National Union of Writers and Artists.^[2]

Works

• AfroAmerican Songs, Gammalibri Editions, Milan 1982.
• History of Ragtime: origins, evolution, technique, 1880–1980, Marsilio Editions, Venice 1984 ISBN 8831749846
• Three hundred years of Jazz: 1619–1919 – The origins of Afro-American music between sociology and anthropology, SugarCo Editions, Milan 1986.
• Modern Jazz: 1940–1960 – Chronicle of creative two decades , Kaos Editions, Milan 1990.
• Frank Sinatra (biography), Marsilio Editions, Venice 1991.
• Vinicio Capossela (biography), Lombardi Editions, Milan 1993.
• Francesco Guccini (biography), Lombardi Editions, Milan 1993.
• Louis Armstrong (biography), Préface by Renzo Arbore, Italian Scientific Editions, Naples 1997.
• Vesuwiev Jazz, Italian Scientific Editions, Préface by Renzo Arbore, Naples 1999.
• Easy street story, L'Isola dei ragazzi Editions, Naples 2007 ISBN 8887292965
• The people of samba: the story and the characters of Brazilian popular music, RAI Editions, Rome 2005.
• Around Ragtime and Jazz, Préface by Amiri Baraka, Introduction by Gianni Minà, Sugarco Editions, Milan 2007 ISBN 887198532X
• The Voice. Life and Italian roots of Frank Sinatra, Préface by Renzo Arbore, Coniglio Editions, Rome 2011
• A social history of jazz, Préface by Zygmunt Bauman, Mimesis Editions, Milan 2014 ISBN 9788857520018
• Naples stories, Amazon.it, Naples 2015, ASIN: B00XMZ1HOI
• Saudade Bossa Nova: music, contamination and rhythms of Brazil, Preface by Chico Buarque, Introduction di Gianni Minà, Logisma Editions, Firenze 2017, ISBN 978-88-97530-88-6
• Frank Sinatra, l’italoamericano, Preface by Renzo Arbore, LoGisma Editore, Florence 2021, ISBN 978-88-94926-42-2
• Ballata breve di un gatto da strada - La vita e la morte di Malcolm X, Preface by Claudio Gorlier, Postface by Walter Mauro, NUA Editions Brescia 2021, ISBN 978-88-31399-49-4
• Diario di un suonatore guercio, inFuga Edizioni, Aversa 2023 ISBN 9791280624352