Piero Piccioni (1921 to 2004) was born in Turin, the son of an eminent judge, and followed his father into the law before abandoning it for music. A skilled pianist and organist with a passion for American jazz, he played for friends in the Italian film world, and it was Michelangelo Antonioni who first suggested he write for the screen. Some three hundred scores followed: the comedies of Alberto Sordi, Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano and Le mani sulla città, Il bell'Antonio, Camille 2000, and dozens of films whose music, cool jazz, bossa nova and lounge with a melancholy edge, is now collected on its own.