Home » Jazz Musicians » Dino Betti van der Noot

Dino Betti van der Noot

Dino Betti van der Noot (born 1936) is an Italian jazz composer.

Van der Noot was born in Rapallo. His mother and cousin were classical pianists. He studied at Scuola Musicale of Pavia, 1946–51; in 1959 studied privately in Milan and in the 1970s at Berklee College of Music In Italy, he led combos from 1957–1960, but was not active in music in the 1960s. He led an amateur big band from 1969–1972 and a professional big band in 1982 and in 1987 in New York City. He is chairman of B Communications, an advertising agency in Milan.

In his bands, he worked with Andrea Dulbecco, Ares Tavolazzi, Bill Evans, Bob Cunningham, Danny Gottlieb, David Friedman, Donald Harrison, Hugo Heredia, Famoudou Don Moye, Franco Ambrosetti, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Gianluigi Trovesi, John Taylor, Jonathan Scully, Joyce Yuille, Luis Agudo, Paul Bley, Paul Motian, Sandro Cerino, Steve Swallow, Tiziano Tononi, and Vincenzo Zitello.

"His compositions are narratives rife with colour, ranging from the boldest hues to the most subtle and revealing a sensitive, inventive melodist and lapidarian master of orchestral skills."

Awards

  • Record of the Year, Musica Jazz Critics' Poll (1987, 1989, 2013, 2015)
  • Record of the Year, Dischi Critics' Poll (1989)
  • Record of the Decade, Musica and Dischi Critics' polls (1989)
  • Jazz Composer of the Year, Musica Jazz Critics' Poll (2007, 2009)
  • Record of the Year, Musica Jazz Critics' Poll, The Stuff Dreams Are Made On (2013)
  • Record of the Year, Musica Jazz Critics' Poll, Notes Are But the Wind (2015)


Tags

3
Liner Notes

Dino Betti van der Noot: Let Us Recount Our Dreams

Read "Dino Betti van der Noot: Let Us Recount Our Dreams" reviewed by Thomas Conrad


The first time I heard the name Dino Betti van der Noot was in the early summer of 2023. My friend Enzo Capua called me and said that Dino was the best jazz composer in Italy and was looking for someone to write liner notes for his new album. I told Enzo I had too many commitments at the moment to take on another. Still, I was curious. Enzo is the Artistic Consultant to the Umbria Jazz Festival, ...

2
Interview

Dino Betti van der Noot: la big band tra suono e racconto

Read "Dino Betti van der Noot: la big band tra suono e racconto" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Nel mondo del jazz, e non solo in quello, Dino Betti van der Noot è una personalità decisamente unica: formalmente un dilettante, ha però pubblicato quindici album, molti dei quali pluripremiati; scrive per big band, una cosa oggi ormai rarissima, dando inoltre vita a opere che si discostano dalla tradizione della formazione; dotato di una cultura enciclopedica, non solo musicalmente, la condivide con una passione, una simpatia e un'eleganza straordinarie; nato nel 1936, porta i suoi oltre ottantasette anni con ...

3
Album Review

Dino Betti van der Noot: Let Us Recount Our Dreams

Read "Let Us Recount Our Dreams" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Non finisce di meravigliare Dino Betti Van Der Noot che ormai da vent'anni con cadenza biennale sforna album rari per tipologia --big band, qualcosa che ormai è quasi impossibile far suonare, specie in Italia--e unici per modalità compositive e ricchezza di suoni. Così, a due anni da The Silence of the Broken Lute , ecco adesso questo Let Us Recount Our Dreams, con una formazione quasi invariata e sempre di ben ventidue elementi, ancora una volta con composizioni nuove, costantemente ...

1
Liner Notes

Dino Betti van der Noot: They Cannot Know

Read "Dino Betti van der Noot: They Cannot Know" reviewed by AAJ Staff


The last Soul Note album of Dino betti van der Noot (rhymes with note), Here Comes Springtime (SN1149), contained six of his compositions, two of which, the title track and “October's Dream," had seasonal connotations. This time he gives us “Midwinter Sunshine" and “A Midwinter Night's Dream" in a seasonal shift. Whatever the climate of Betti van der Noot's compositions, they are narratives rife with color, ranging from the boldest hues to the most subtle. This is consistent with his ...

1
Liner Notes

Dino Betti van der Noot: Here Comes Springtime

Read "Dino Betti van der Noot: Here Comes Springtime" reviewed by AAJ Staff


There are some musicians whose instrument is the orchestra. They hear multiple voices, textures, harmonic designs. And if they are jazz composers, they hear the sweet and pungent tension between the orchestra and the improvising soloist. If, moreover, they are composers interested in more than self-gratification, they hear, as they write, particular players so that the ultimate scores reflect a range of individual personalities, each of them telling their own stories as well as that of the composer.

3
Liner Notes

Dino Betti van der Noot: A Chance For A Dance

Read "Dino Betti van der Noot: A Chance For A Dance" reviewed by Neil Tesser


"I love the rhythm—one of the reasons I love jazz is the rhythm—but I have spent some years to free myself from the rhythm." Dino Betti van der Noot sits over breakfast rolls at the Rosetta Hotel in Perugia, Italy. “I experimented with different time signatures and finally found out that the simplest ones are perfect, as long as you make use of them as, oh, railways, rail tracks." In other words, the time-feel must be a guide, a phisical, ...

1
Album Review

Dino Betti Van Der Noot: The Silence of the Broken Lute

Read "The Silence of the Broken Lute" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Il gradito e atteso appuntamento, all'incirca biennale, con una nuova opera di Dino Betti Van der Noot è stato rispettato anche in tempo di pandemia: messe a punto la nuove partiture e richiamata la sua ampia orchestra—ben ventidue elementi—il compositore milanese ha registrato questo The Silence of the Broken Lute, cinque lunghe composizioni, tutte caratterizzate dai percorsi drammaturgici, dalle strutture e dagli impasti che sono il suo marchio di fabbrica. La pandemia è anche in parte ispiratrice del ...

Read more articles

"His compositions are narratives rife with colour, ranging from the boldest hues to the most subtle and revealing a sensitive, inventive melodist and lapidarian master of orchestral skills" —Leonard Feather & Ira Gitler, The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz

"This Italian composer/arranger may well be writing the world's most inventive music for jazz orchestra." —Art Lange, Down Beat

“His work is a sort of hypermodern symphonic poem, a new artistic and vital evidence which strongly imposes itself through the dusk of jazz and its legend and the desert of an arid world that has lost all wellsprings.” —Giorgio Gaslini

Music

Videos

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.