Angelo Palumbo (died 1960) was an Italian musician, composer and music teacher, mainly active in London.
As a musician and teacher
editPalumbo was a specialist of various fretted instruments, and his advertisements in the trade journal B.M.G. shows that he taught guitar as well as banjo, mandolin and violin playing.[1] He himself also played several of these instruments as a member of "Troise and his Mandoliers", a band led by fellow Italian immigrant Pasquale Troise (1895–1957). This band recorded frequently and also made regular radio appearances.[2]
British-American banjoist John A. Sloan (born 1923) was one of Palumbo's pupils as a youngster and has witnessed that Palumbo was an excellent but also very temperamental musician.
As composer
editDuring his career Palumbo composed several numbers. His 6/8 March It's Up To You (lyrics: Arthur Beale) from 1940[3] became familiar to Swedish audiences by being used in the soundtracks for two of the popular films about private eye Hillman in 1958 and 1959.[4] In more recent years his Petite Bolero for Mandolin & Guitar has appeared on the CD Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the Latin Trilogy – Music from the Novels of Louis de Bernières.[5]
In addition to the numbers listed above John A. Sloane has also mentioned a composition called Hillderino, and the British Library lists the following additional works by Palumbo:[6]
- Take It Easy (1939)
- Segoviana (1939)
- Penelope (1965)
- Marcietta Espagnol (1965)
- Party Waltz (1966)
- Lazy Moments (1967)
- Carminetta (1967)
The five titles from the 1960s are all listed as "plectrum guitar solos".
Life and death
editAccording to John A. Sloan, Palumbo had a physical disability, one of his legs being several centimeters shorter than the other. Sloan's recollection was also that Palumbo was in his mid-fifties in the middle of the 1930s, that he had a wife and a daughter and that he was a cousin of Pasqual Troise. His lessons were given in Navarino Road in Hackney.
According to B.M.G. Angy Palumbo died in October 1960.[7]
Main sources
editReferences
edit- ^ See for example B.M.G. May 1958, page 212.
- ^ Pasqual Troise on the Masters of Melody website. Angy Palumbo can be seen in the third photo on the page, sitting to the extreme right in the front row.
- ^ Library of Congress: Catalog of copyright entries, Volume 35, Part 2.
- ^ Angy Palumbo in Svensk filmdatabas (Swedish movie database) Archived 8 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Track information from Chandos Records for Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the Latin Trilogy – Music from the Novels of Louis de Bernières (Chandos CHAN9780)
- ^ Angy Palumbo in the catalogue of the British Library
- ^ B.M.G. January 1961, page 133.
