Piero Piccioni

Piero Piccioni was born in Turin (Italy) on the 6th December 1921.

Having written nearly 300 soundtracks and pieces for radio, television, ballets and orchestra he was deeply influenced by 20th century classical composers and by American cinematography. Amongst his favourites were Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Ford and Alex North, who had greatly influenced him in his use of jazz. Piero Piccioni had come in contact with the world of movies during the fifties when he was practicing as a lawyer in Rome and sealing movie rights for Italian Italian distributors as Titanus and De Laurentiis. During that time, Michelangelo Antonioni had called him to create music for a documentary for one of his apprentices, Luigi Polidoro.

He had played on the radio with his historic Big Band "013" in 1938, to then return, after the liberation of Italy in 1944. His was the first Italian jazz band to be aired in Italy. Piero Piccioni had listened to jazz since he was a child and had learned to play the piano without having been to the Conservatory. As a self-taught musician, his father used to accompany him to visit the E. I. A. R. in Florence, to listen to orchestral recitals. As he began to write some songs of his own he was able to get some published by Carisch.

He was one of the suspects of the infamous 1953 Wilma Montesi murder case. Montesi was a normal Italian woman from a proper family. Her dead body was found on a beach near Rome. Piero Piccioni was later acquitted of murder but his father's political career was ruined. The Wilma Montesi murder remains unsolved. This case inspired Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita as the investigation exposed the drugs and sex orgies of Roman society at the time.

Son of a pure Turinese mother (her maiden name was Marengo), and from here the pseudonym Piero Morgan, which he adopted until 1957.