Born in Milan in 1946, Guido Mazzon started in music studying the clarinet, then picking up trumpet in a brass band and in the Music School of the town of Milan. In 1964, he began to play jazz in a traditionalist students' band, and from 1967 on he studied composition privately, while discovering the freest forms of jazz. In 1970, he founded the Gruppo Contemporaneo, which attracted the younger and more adventurous players of the Milan area: tenor Daniele Cavallanti, bassists Attilio Zanchi and Roberto Del Piano, pianist Gaetano Liguori, and drummer Filippo Monico. Their music was inspired by free jazz, but its theatrical and ironic qualities were close to the Dutch style of European improvisation. In 1975, he played in a trio with bassist Roberto Bellatalla and drummer Toni Rusconi, then the group extended into a quartet with Edoardo Ricci or Renato Geremia. In the brass quartet, His Precarious Orchestra was one of the few Italian groups to play the Moers New Jazz Festival in Germany, the most prestigious showcase for cutting-edge jazz of the '70s. The group was also an obvious forerunner, even in name, of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, of which he's a founding member, contributing several pieces to the repertoire. Mazzon has long-standing collaborations with percussionist Andrea Centazzo and Mario Schiano. While many of his recordings are not yet available on CD, with Instabile colleague Alberto Mandarini on trumpet he recorded Trumpet Buzz Duo (Splasc(h)), where his biting but rich timbre and fast phrasing are spotlighted. With pianist Umberto Petrin and drummer Tiziano Tononi, also Instabile members, he used singing and reciting voices for Profumo della Libertà and Other Line (also on Splasc(h)), where his trumpet etches well-defined lines in the background created by piano, voice, and tuba. ~ Francesco Martinelli