Romano Mussolini, 78; Dictator's Son Was Acclaimed Jazz Pianist - latimes Romano Mussolini, 78; Dictator's Son Was Acclaimed Jazz Pianist February 04, 2006 |From Times Staff and Wire Reports ROME — Romano Mussolini, an accomplished jazz pianist and last living child of Italy's World War II dictator Benito Mussolini, has died. He was 78. The musician and painter had been hospitalized more than two weeks ago for kidney and gall bladder problems and died Friday, according to the website of his daughter's political party. The daughter, Alessandra Mussolini, leads a small right-wing political movement. Romano Mussolini, one of the dictator's three sons and two daughters, was 17 when he last saw his father in April 1945, 11 days before the dictator was killed. Jazz music was censored in Italy during Benito Mussolini's fascist regime, but the ban didn't reach the sheltered lives of his family. Romano developed a love for jazz as a child and became one of Italy's early connoisseurs, writing reviews in magazines and teaching himself to play the piano.

Benito Mussolini didn't share his son's passion for jazz, preferring classical music. In recent interviews, Romano recalled with fondness the times when he played classical pieces with his father, an amateur violinist. Immediately after the war, however, Romano Mussolini and his mother and a sister were exiled to the island of Ischia. For more than a decade he was afraid to appear in public because the family name aroused too many mixed emotions. He worked odd jobs in the lumber and construction businesses until an editor of Musica Jazz magazine talked him into participating in a jazz festival in San Remo in 1956. His appearance led to a recording contract that year with Italian RCA. Gradually, he developed a reputation as a confident musician who performed in the style of Oscar Peterson. His 1963 "Jazz Allo Studio 7" record was acclaimed by critics, and international tours brought him in contact with Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. He was "a personality that has contributed, in far away and difficult years, to spread and popularize in Italy the extraordinary artistic strength of jazz," Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said.

Mussolini refrained from discussing his father's legacy until 2004, when he published a book titled "My Father Il Duce," depicting him as a caring father who loved music and cried at the wedding of his first-born daughter. The book sparked new debate in Italy about the true legacy of the infamous leader. Romano Mussolini is survived by his wife, Carla Maria Puccini, and three daughters: Alessandra, Elisabetta and Rachele. The first two are the daughters of his first wife, Anna Maria Scicolone, the sister of actress Sophia Loren. MORE: biographies Benito Mussolini family Benito Mussolini: Families Figure 1.--Here we have a photo showing Vittorio and Bruno Mussolini. The two older sons of Benito Mussolini are playing with a ball on the beach. The photograph was taken on eastern coast near Rimini. The Mussolini family originated in this region. Vittorio was born in 1916 and Bruno in 1918, so the picture was taken in the mid-1920s. The boys are wearing a sort of beach long trousers that I never seen before.

Mussolini was by all accounts one of the worst fathers of all the World War II leaders. Mussolini had a secret family before he became prominent. One reports suggests that Mussolini commited his first wife Ida Dalser to a lunatic asylum (1917). Mussolini denounced her as "dangerous, unbalanced, and criminal". He labeled her an "enemy alien". She lived for 10 years before dieing in the asylum (1927). As he never married Dasler, the family was an embsarassment when he became prominent. Italy's Fascist Government suppressed any information about it and few Italians knew anything about his first family until after World War II and even today accounts were sketchy. Benito Albino (1915-?) was illegitimate and he grew up under the supervision of guardians because his mothervhad been institutionalized. Accounts of his deah vary. Some say he was also istitutionalized and died there. Others say he died in a World War II naval battle. Mussolini married Donna Rachele. They had four children. Edda (1910- ) was by all accounts his favorite and looks most like her father.

The two oldest boys were Vittorio (1916) and Bruno (1918). They were born very close together and grew up very close. A third son Romano (1927- ) was born later. Mussolini also had mistresses. The most famous was Clara Petacci. She and his wife had a notable confrontation during the Salo Republic era. Mussolini apparently wisely stayed in his office during the confrontation. At the end of the War, Mussolini tried to escape Italy in a German military column. They were given up by the Germans to Italian partians who shot them and strung up in at an Esso gas station in the Piazzale Loreto in Milan. Ida Dalser Mussolini had a family before he became prominent. One reports suggests that Mussolini commited his first wife Ida Dalser to a lunatic asylum (1917). Mussolini denounced her as "dangerous, unbalanced, and criminal". He labeled her an "enemy alien". She lived for 10 years before dieing in the asylum (1927). As he never married Dasler, the family was an embsarassment when he became prominent.

Italy's Fascist Government suppressed any information about it and few Italians knew anything about his first family until after World War II and even today accounts were sketchy. Benito Albino (1915-?) was illegitimate and he grew up under the supervision of guardians because his mothervhad been institutionalized. Acoounts of his deah vary. Some say he was also istitutionalized and died there. Others say he died in a World War II naval battle. Rachele Guidi Mussolini married married Rachele Guidi (1890-1979) in 1915 (civil weddings) and in 1925 (Roman Catholic weddings). She was commonly referred to as Donna Rachele is a deference form, something like Lady Rachele. They had five children. Edda (1910- ) was by all accounts his favorite and looked most like her father. The two oldest boys were Vittorio (1916) and Bruno (1918). They were born very close together and grew up very close.

A third son Romano (1927- ) and second daugter Anna Maria (1929- ) were born later. He was not an engaged father. Raising the children was left to his wife and Mussolini himself was away much of the time. He seems to have taken little real interest in his children. Edda (1910-95) Edda was the oldest child. She was borm before her parents were married. Edda by all accounts his favorite and looked a good deal like him. Some say ever her persinality was similar. As a teenager she became increasinglky obstinate and willing to defy her parents. She liked the high life becoming what one might be a swinger. Mussolini arranged a marriage to Count Galeazzo Ciano. Ciano became prominent in the Fascist hierarchy, serving as Foreign Minister. His diary is an important source of information on Axis World War II diplomacy. Some presumed that Ciano would suceed Mussolini rather than ond of his sons. Ciano voted with the Fascist Grand Council to remove Mussolini from office after the Allies seized Sicily (July 1944).

After the NAZIs occupied Italy, they arrested Ciano and he was shot. Edda managed to reach Switzerland with her three children. She may have been his favorite, but she did not reciprocate his affection. She remarked, "There are only two solutions that will rehabilitate him in my eyes, to run away or to kill himself." Vittorio (1916-97) Vittorio became an enthusiastic Fascist. He became a volunteer pilot at age 19. He apparently ebjoyed the excitement of the War. Some say he ghad a cruel nature. Vittorio went to Germany when his father was arrested (July 1943). He was with Hitler when after being rescued by Scorzini, his father was flow to meet the F�hrer (September 1943). Vittorio at the end of the War helped negotiate the surrender of the remaining Fascist hierarchy in northern Italy (April 1945). He then went into hiding. Bruno (1918-41) Bruno loved flying. He was an air force captain during World War II. He was killed while testing a new bomber.

Romano (1927-2006) Romano was born almost 10 years after his older brothers. He had even less to do with his father than his siblings. By this time Mussolini was spending very little time at home. He is said to have adored his father, albeit from afar. Unlike his brothers, he was too young for the War. He was, however, arrested, and briefly imprisoned with his mother and sister, Anna Maria. As an adult he became a jazz pianist. Anna Maria (1929-68) Clara Petacci Mussolini also had mistresses. The most famous was Clara Petacci. She and his wife had a notable confrontation during the Salo Republic era. Mussolini apparently wisely stayed in his office during the confrontation. At the end of the War, Mussolini tried to escape Italy in a German military column. They were given up by the Germans to Italian partians who shot them and strung up in at an Esso gas station in the Piazzale Loreto in Milan.

Romano Mussolini - Telegraph Obituaries Romano Mussolini Romano Mussolini, who died yesterday aged 78, made a career for himself as a jazz pianist after the lynching of his father Benito Mussolini in 1945. 12:01AM GMT 04 Feb 2006 A luxurious upbringing touched by the inherent violence of Fascism could have clouded the lives of many dictators' children. But the youngest of Mussolini's sons, who was 17 when his father was killed, survived with dignity to become an equable, kindly, laid-back and admired musician who earned the respect of leading Italian and American performers. Refusing to criticise his father, Romano lovingly recalled how Il Duce would place his fists on his hips, "half-serious, half playful", while recalling his own childhood - standing just as he had when he harangued crowds from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia in Rome. Photographs of him in this pose, complete with jutting jaw, are often used to deride the dictator, but they enabled Romano to look back on an affectionate and tight-knit family life.

His father's last words to Romano, 11 days before he was assassinated, were spoken when he was sitting at the piano: "Keep playing." Guilio Romano Mussolini was born on September 26 1927, when there had already been several assassination attempts on his father; and as a boy he was aware there could be others. One night when the family was viewing a Western in their cinema salon, Romano was angry because his father insisted he go to bed at 10, although the film was not finished. Later Benito sent one of his older sons to check if Romano was really in bed. The boy was found, instead, on a balcony above the salon holding a wooden gun. He explained that he wanted to assassinate his father. The family lived in a magnificent villa in Rome with a jaguar, a pair of lions, two gazelles, a monkey, parrots, two ponies and two tortoises; it is now to house a Holocaust memorial.

Romano's introduction to jazz came at the age of four when his older brother Vittorio (one of the first critics of the music in Italy) played him some records, although the official Fascist line was that the music was decadent. After taking up the accordion, Romano later taught himself the piano. Although jazz was banned from the Mussolini household between 1941 and 1943, Romano found a musician in the German army who taught him some Duke Ellington numbers. He recalled how his father had ordered the execution of his elder sister's husband, Galeazzo Ciano, as a traitor. He also remembered seeing, through a half-open door, his father trying to regain the respect of his wife Rachele. She had attempted to poison herself because of her husband's affair with the young actress Clara Petacci. Soon afterwards Benito and Clara being strung up in a Milanese petrol station, while the crowd vented its hate on them. With his mother, brothers and sister Romano was confined in various parts of Italy until they benefited from an amnesty in 1947; but it was 12 years before Benito's body was restored to them.

In 1966 the family had an unannounced visit from an American government official who brought the remains of Mussolini's brain, which had been examined by the Walter Reed Institute of Washington to see if it revealed criminal traits. The result was negative. Soon after the amnesty, Romano became a member of a jazz quartet which performed in Ischia night clubs and restaurants. He initially demonstrated a style similiar to that of the blind English pianist George Shearing, though André Previn later became an influence. He then qualified as an accountant, and began an Economics course at university, but abandoned it because of lung problems. Romano, who had a chin and forehead reminiscent of his father, enjoyed the jazzman's bohemian lifestyle while remaining attached to the countryside and values of his native Romagna. For a time he raised pigs and chickens there, and became a commercial traveller and graphic artist. Later he invested all his money in a film which flopped, but recovered financially by selling his paintings; he had been encouraged to paint by a clown in a circus where he had given a jazz concert. Young Mussolini's breakthrough as a jazz musician came at the first San Remo jazz festival in 1956.

Previously he had been loath to use his surname, and issued his first recording under the pseudonym "Romano Full", but gradually he found that it was an advantage, and that people were always interested in him as a curiosity. He once found a photographer under his bed, and when the modernist American trumpet player Chet Baker first met him he is said to have blurted out: "Sorry to hear about your dad." While working at Italy's most famous nightclub of the time, the Bussola of Viareggio, Mussolini played with such singers as Ella Fitzgerald and the Platters. When he travelled to the United States, he jammed with Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Lionel Hampton. The critic Leonard Feather once told him that he regretted that he had no training, but said that Mussolini nevertheless had the necessary talent. In 1963 Mussolini won the Italian critics' award for the year's best record. With the Romano Mussolini All Stars quintet he toured not only the United States but also Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Australia, South Korea, Kenya, Germany and Russia.

When he appeared at the Pizza in the Park in London in 1991, he proved himself a highly accomplished soloist, with an infectious style that contained elements of bebop as well as Dixieland and swing. He could switch with ease from funky blues to a rolling climax. In 2004 Mussolini published Il Duce Mio Padre (My Father the Duce) which was followed last year by Ultimo Atto (Last Act). In both he recounted his father's last days, though many of the details remained unclear. Romano claimed to have destroyed important documents and to know something of their contents. He also claimed to provide other inside information. But historians have not given much importance to his testimony. In 1962 it was announced that Mussolini was engaged to Maria Sciccolone, the film star Sophia Loren's younger sister, who had sung with his band. The match caused some tensions; his mother was said to have higher hopes for her son, and Sophia Loren declared that it was time Il Duce's widow became acquainted with democracy. The engagement was then terminated by mutual agreement, Maria declaring that he was "too much in love with his piano".

But the marriage nevertheless went ahead, and produced two children, Elisabetta and Alessandra, an MEP who is leader of the small far-Right political party Azione Sociale. Breaking his rule of avoiding politics, Romano composed the music for the party's anthem. After divorcing, Romano Mussolini married the actress Carla Puccini, with whom he had a daughter. Both wives survive him with their children. Published February 4 2006 When dad is a ruthless dictator | New York Post When dad is a ruthless dictator Modal Trigger Mao Zedong poses with his daughter Li Min in 1953. ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images In the late 1960s, Haiti’s ruling Duvalier family was torn apart by a nasty rift between two men who had married into the family. Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, the family patriarch and the country’s vicious leader, arrested 19 friends of one of his sons-in-law. He then ordered that son-in-law, Max Dominique, husband to his daughter Marie-Denise, to join him and the other 19 on a long drive. Marie-Denise was certain her husband was about to be killed.

She followed the convoy in her own car, and vowed that if her husband was killed, she would “blow her father to smithereens with the machine gun she had slipped under the front seat.” (The husband survived, though he was forced to participate in the killing of his friends). Jay Nordlinger’s new book, “ Children of Monsters ,” examines the lives of the children of 20 brutal dictators, revealing that while some followed in their father’s footsteps, others were torn between normal lives and outsized privilege. Nicolae Ceasescu, Romania (1965-1989) Son Valentin became a respected physicist; daughter Zoia, a mathematician. If not living completely innocent lives — both were later jailed for “ ‘undermining the national economy,’ i.e., corruption,” and Zoia was also a “nymphomaniac” who “drank like a fish” — they maintained distance from their father’s horrific violence. Ceausescu’s youngest son, Nicu, did not. Nicolae CeausescuGetty Images “From his mid-teens, Nicu was an out-of-control drunk and a rapist,” writes Nordlinger.

“He raped at will, and his will was ferocious and unopposable. He had complete license. He was the kind who could run red lights and kill people in the process — with total impunity. He was a picture of almost comic-book evil.” Nicu rose through his father’s ranks quickly. He represented Romania in meetings with North Korea and China, and, inexplicably, was named head of the UN’s International Youth Year in 1985. When the senior Ceausescu fell in 1989 — he and his wife were killed by a firing squad — Zoia and Valentin were arrested but released after 10 months. Nicu, who had spent all those years “rap[ing] his way through Romania,” was sentenced to 20 years but served only three and died of cirrhosis of the liver at 45. Mao Zedong, China (1945-1976) Mao officially had 10 children.

Several died young, and his personal physician later wrote, “I never saw him express any emotion over those losses.” Mao had three sons with his second wife, Yang Kaihui, who was murdered in the streets at 29 for failing to renounce him. The boys “were moved to Shanghai, where they lived with the Communist underground and simply on the streets.” The youngest died of dysentery at age 4, and the others sold newspapers to survive. They wound up in the Soviet Union, where Stalin used them as leverage against Mao for 10 years. The eldest, Anying, reunited with his father when he was 23. Mao sent him to a labor camp, in order to make him “a better proletariate man.” Often on the move due to rivalries and wars, Mao fell into a horrible pattern with his third wife, He Zizhen, of forcing her to have babies and then abandon them. From 1929 to 1935, she gave birth four times. One child died, the rest were abandoned. In time, Mao took another wife without bothering to tell her.

Mao had two daughters, Li Na and Li Min, who showed how different a dictator’s children can be. Li Na was her father’s daughter through and through, as she “turned on anyone deemed insufficiently obedient.” During the Cultural Revolution, Nordlinger notes that a friend of Li Na’s wound up in a torture camp after a minor disagreement. Li Na herself was sent by her father to a “rectification institution,” where “hard agricultural labor was combined with ideological study.” Li Min, on the other hand, tried to live the most normal life possible under the circumstances. She was humbler, gentler, married quietly and had two children. She also tried to develop a relationship with her father, to no avail. “Li Min went to the gates of her father’s compound several times, [but] he refused to let her in. She had a nervous breakdown and was in and out of depression for years.” Benito Mussolini, Italy (1922-1943) Benito Mussolini officially had five children.

Such was Mussolini’s love for eldest child Edda that when she married Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini “followed her in his car as the newlyweds drove to their honeymoon.” She finally stopped and “demanded that he turn back.” He did, with “tears in his eyes.” From left: Benito Mussolini, Edda Mussolini, and Galeazzo CianoGetty Images Toward the end of the war, when Axis defeat seemed inevitable, Ciano, then a member of the Fascist Grand Council, joined a vote to strip Mussolini of his power. Later, when Hitler restored the ruler, the men who voted against him, including Ciano, were sentenced to death. Edda “fought tooth and nail” for her husband, begging her father to spare him, but Mussolini took a hands-off approach to Ciano’s case, and Ciano was killed on Jan. 11, 1944. The bond between father and daughter was broken, with Edda writing, “You are no longer my father for me. I renounce the name Mussolini.” The Italian leader reportedly took it hard, and “some people contend that he never recovered” from the incident.

But then, sometimes the children of dictators live normal lives. Mussolini’s son Romano became a jazz pianist. He married Sophia Loren’s sister, and toured the world with the Romano Mussolini All Stars, playing with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie. Share this: Same name, different fame - Obituaries - smh.com.au Same name, different fame Fame of his own Romano Mussolini playing piano for his sister, Anna Maria, in 1962. Photo: AP March 18, 2006 Romano Mussolini, Jazz pianist and son of Benito Mussolini, 1927-2006 ROMANO MUSSOLINI, who has died aged 78, established himself as a jazz pianist after the execution of his father, Benito Mussolini, in 1945. A luxurious upbringing touched by the inherent violence of Fascism could have clouded the lives of many dictators' children.

But the youngest of Mussolini's sons, who was 17 when his father was killed, survived with dignity to become an equable, kindly, laid-back and admired musician who earned the respect of leading Italian and American performers. Refusing to criticise his father, the son lovingly recalled how Il Duce would place his fists on his hips, "half-serious, half-playful", while recalling his own childhood - standing just as he had when he harangued crowds from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia in Rome. Photographs of him in this pose, complete with jutting jaw, are often used to deride the dictator, but they enabled Mussolini jnr to look back on an affectionate and tight-knit family life. The father's last words to his son, 11 days before he was assassinated, were spoken when he was sitting at the piano: "Keep playing." There had already been several assassination attempts on his father by the time Guilio Romano Mussolini was born; as a boy he was aware there could be others.

One night when the family was viewing a western in their cinema salon, Romano was angry because his father insisted he go to bed at 10, although the film was not finished. Later Benito sent one of his older sons to check if Romano was in bed. The boy was found, instead, on a balcony above the salon holding a wooden gun. He said that he wanted to assassinate his father. The family lived in a magnificent villa in Rome with a menagerie including a jaguar, a pair of lions, two gazelles, a monkey, parrots, two ponies and two tortoises in the grounds; it is now to house a Holocaust memorial. Romano's introduction to jazz came at the age of four when his older brother Vittorio (one of the first critics of the music in Italy) played him some records, although the official Fascist line was that the music was decadent. After taking up the accordion, Romano later taught himself the piano. Although jazz was banned from the Mussolini household between 1941 and 1943, he found a musician in the German army who taught him some Duke Ellington tunes.

He recalled how his father had ordered the execution of his elder sister's husband, Galeazzo Ciano, as a traitor. He also remembered seeing, through a half-open door, his father trying to regain the respect of his wife, Rachele. She had attempted to poison herself because of her husband's affair with the young actress Clara Petacci. He told , too, of seeing, after their deaths, the bodies of his father and his mistress strung up at a Milanese petrol station while the crowd vented its hate on them. With his mother, brothers and sister Romano was confined in various parts of Italy until they benefited from an amnesty in 1947; but it was 12 years before Mussolini's body was restored to them. In 1966 the family had an unannounced visit from an American government official who brought the remains of Mussolini's brain, which had been examined by the Walter Reed Institute of Washington to see if it revealed criminal traits. The result was negative. Soon after the amnesty, Romano became a member of a jazz quartet which performed in Ischia nightclubs and restaurants.

He initially demonstrated a style similiar to that of the blind English pianist George Shearing, though Andre Previn later became an influence. Romano also qualified as an accountant, and began an economics course at university, but abandoned it because of lung problems. Romano, who had a chin and forehead reminiscent of his father, enjoyed the jazzman's bohemian lifestyle while remaining attached to the countryside and values of his native Romagna. For a time he raised pigs and chickens there, and became a commercial traveller and graphic artist. Later he invested all his money in a film which flopped, but recovered financially by selling his paintings; he had been encouraged to paint by a clown in a circus where he had given a jazz concert. Young Mussolini's breakthrough as a jazz musician came at the first San Remo jazz festival in 1956. Previously he had been loath to use his surname, and issued his first recording under the pseudonym Romano Full, but gradually he found that it was an advantage, and that people were always interested in him as a curiosity.

He once found a photographer under his bed, and when the modernist American trumpet player Chet Baker first met him he is said to have blurted out: "Sorry to hear about your dad." While working at Italy's most famous nightclub of the time, the Bussola of Viareggio, Mussolini played with such singers as Ella Fitzgerald and the Platters. When he travelled to the US, he jammed with Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Lionel Hampton. The critic Leonard Feather once told him that he regretted that he had no training, but said Mussolini nevertheless had the necessary talent. In 1963 Mussolini won the Italian critics' award for the year's best record. With the Romano Mussolini All Stars quintet he also visited Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Australia, South Korea, Kenya, Germany and Russia. Playing at the Pizza in the Park in London in 1991, he proved himself a highly accomplished soloist, with an infectious style that contained elements of bebop as well as Dixieland and swing. He could switch with ease from funky blues to a rolling climax.

In 2004 Mussolini published Il Duce Mio Padre ( My Father the Duce) which was followed last year by Ultimo Atto ( Last Act). In both he recounted his father's last days, though many of the details remained unclear. He claimed to have destroyed important documents but to know something of their contents. He also claimed to provide other inside information. But historians have not given much importance to his testimony. In 1962 it was announced that Mussolini was engaged to Maria Sciccolone, the film star Sophia Loren's younger sister, who had sung with his band. The match caused some tensions; his mother was said to have higher hopes for her son, and Loren declared that it was time Il Duce's widow became acquainted with democracy. The engagement was then terminated by mutual agreement, Sciccolone declaring that he was "too much in love with his piano". But the marriage nevertheless went ahead, and produced two children, Elisabetta and Alessandra, a member of the European Parliament who is leader of the small far-right political party Azione Sociale. Breaking his rule of avoiding politics, Mussolini composed the music for the party's anthem.

After divorcing Maria, Mussolini married the actress Carla Puccini, with whom he had a daughter. Both wives survive him with their children. Telegraph, London The American | In Italia: Ideas: Interviews: Romano Mussolini Romano Mussolini By Kristine Crane As Benito Mussolini slipped into the car that would take him one last time from Gargano, his Salï¿½ republic hideout, his wife Rachele recalls her husband pausing to listen to a wistful trail of music emerging from an upstairs window. It was Mussoliniï¿½s youngest son, 18-year-old Romano, playing the piano. Eleven days later, on April 29, 1945, Benito Mussoliniï¿½s bullet-ridden and mangled body was hung on a meat hook in Milanï¿½s Piazzale Loreto for anti-Fascist partisans to jeer. Beside him was his mistress, Clara Petacci, and 13 other Fascist officials.

The Gargano anecdote appears in Anton Barbonï¿½s ï¿½Aspetti della Privacy di un Dittatore,ï¿½ and jazz pianist Romano Mussolini, 77, confirms its accuracy. The song he was playing when his father departed, he recalls, was Duke Ellingtonï¿½s ï¿½Saddest Tale.ï¿½ It was perhaps the only fitting tribute the youthful Romano, who would become one of Italyï¿½s more popular jazz musicians, knew to pay to his doomed father, a Verdi-loving amateur violinist who had introduced him to music. Years earlier, in New York City, Ellington told Romano the song was written while his mother lay dying, Mussolini recalls. ï¿½I told him that every time that I listened to that song, I was moved to tears, and he said, ï¿½Then Romano, you really do love the blues.ï¿½ï¿½ Yet in the bitter aftermath of World War II, the apolitical Romano, his surname cursed, faced an uphill struggle to succeed as a self-trained musician. The legacy of fascism was reviled.

In 1950s Naples the fledgling pianist, once coddled as the son of dictator, played under an assumed name, making 320 lire a gig. In Rome, he says, he sold chickens to survive. ï¿½At the beginning, he never wanted to use his name,ï¿½ says Cici Santucci, a trumpet player who has appeared with Romano since the war. ï¿½It was we musicians who told him, ï¿½You have nothing to do with politics. You are a musician. Use your own name.ï¿½ï¿½ At Piazza Verbanoï¿½s ï¿½Due Gï¿½ Bar, where his face is familiar to patrons, Mussolini relaxes into the past. In the 1960s, when the ï¿½Romano Mussolini All-Starsï¿½ band was in its prime, he lived in a spacious apartment overlooking Villa Ada with his first wife, Anna Maria Scicolone, Sophia Lorenï¿½s sister. One of their daughters, Alessandra, is now a prominent rightist politician. Musicians flocked to see him.

ï¿½I remember that Ella Fitzgerald ate like a bird, despite being fat. She was on a diet, so we had diet lunches.ï¿½ In 1963, Mussolini, who has no formal jazz training, released the critically-acclaimed ï¿½Jazz a Studio 7,ï¿½ which established him as a major musician on the Italian scene. He received crucial support from his prewar friend Ellington and also played with Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Scott and Chet Baker (who according to jazz legend told Romano, ï¿½Sorry about your Dad,ï¿½ upon meeting him for the first time.) Romano fondly recalls a trip to the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho. ï¿½They [American jazz musicians] showed me affection and esteem,ï¿½ says Mussolini. ï¿½In front of them, I was like a child. They knew that, but they saw that I played with real feeling.ï¿½ Jazz critic Leonard Feather apparently agreed. ï¿½He told me, ï¿½Romano, you have never studied jazz. Had you studied you would have become a padre eterno. But you play with sincerity.

And so your jazz is good jazz.ï¿½ This was one of the greatest satisfactions of my life.ï¿½ Trumpeter Santucci credits Mussolini for helping usher jazz into postwar Italy. ï¿½Jazz critics have sometimes criticized him for not taking a more intellectual approach. But he has brought jazz to a wider audience.ï¿½ Audiences rarely showed him disrespect, says Santucci, ï¿½because [he] is so passionate about jazz.ï¿½ Music first attracted Mussolini in the early 1930s, before he could read. His recollections are innocent. ï¿½I listened to all kinds of music when I was little. My father liked the 1800s ï¿½ Verdi, Puccini. Everyone in our family loves music. Orchestra directors, musicians came to our house at Villa Torlonia.ï¿½ Romeï¿½s sprawling Villa Torlonia, on Via Nomentana, was Benito Mussoliniï¿½s official residence. There, both father and son played.

Romano remembers his father as ï¿½very attached to those fifteen or twenty minutes of the day when he could relax with his violin.ï¿½ On occasion, despite differences in musical taste, the two played duets. One such moment came in Gargano. ï¿½I was playing the piano. He took out his violin, and we started playing the ï¿½Vedova Allegraï¿½ waltz together, a very difficult piece. He said, ï¿½Romano, itï¿½s not like that,ï¿½ because I played by ear, and this irritated him. He would have wanted me to study at a conservatory.ï¿½ It never happened. Romano picked up his love for jazz from recordings brought to Rome from Britain and the United States by his brother Vittorio and sister Edda (Romano was one of five Mussolini children). ï¿½I liked all kinds of music, but what stayed with me most was jazz, and blues in particular. The first record I had was Ellingtonï¿½s Black Beauty.

I think I still have it.ï¿½ Learning American riffs in the home of a leader whose regime eventually denounced jazz as ï¿½enemy musicï¿½ is an irony Romano dismisses out of hand. ï¿½I was never censored from playing jazz at home. There were really only two years, 1941 to 1943, when American music was prohibited. Contrary to what everyone thinks, even the Germans had their jazz orchestras during the war. I remember that once we went to Germany, and in the barracks there was a wonderful German soldier who played jazz, Duke Ellington and boogie-woogie, which was very difficult. I saw immediately that this was a real musician. I sat down with him, and he taught me some Ellington.ï¿½ His father did not try to impress his love of classical music on Romano, preferring instead to encourage his overall musical interest. Romano made short-lived attempts at taking up the violin and the harmonica. ï¿½In 1941, it entered my head that I had to play the saxophone. I remember that [the saxophone] cost 1,300 lire and they gave me a discount.

Afterward, I could not get the hang of it.ï¿½ At 16, a school classmate who played violin gave him a piano lesson, beginning a love affair with the instrument. ï¿½[He] taught me how to place my hands on the keyboard. This was all the technique I ever learned. After three months, I knew how to play the piano. I would play five, six hours alone, for fun almost. The first thing that I did when I went to my friendsï¿½ houses was sit down and play. For music, you leave everything else, let everything else go ï¿½ friends, girlfriends.ï¿½ The quintet still appears from time to time, with Mussolini on keyboards, his trademark navy blue fishermanï¿½s cap pulled down to his eyes. ï¿½True happiness is doing the job that we like,ï¿½ he muses. ï¿½I like playing. What can I do about it?

As long as I have my health and the will, Iï¿½ll play.ï¿½ ï¿½ Editor's note: Romano Mussolini died in February 2006 © Copyright 2004-2017 The American | In Italia ï¿½ Rome ï¿½ Milan ï¿½ London ï¿½ New York ï¿½ Washington, D.C.

Question: Which WWII leader’s son, Romano, became a noted jazz pianist?
Answer: Benito MUSSOLINI