The Cats, the Jazz and the Wardrobe
A woman’s wistful riffs resonate on life’s ups and downs, sung at a Renaissance plaza in Milan. After a fall, her life drastically changed yet her vocals today express perseverance and joie de vivre.
“I love life”—Angela Del Torchio
Nobody’s saying she’s Barbra Streisand, but Del Torchio’s jazz strikes a chord with strollers, when lines to classic hits bounce off Milan’s ancient market hall. Busking gives the former language interpreter lust for life. Behind her, potential lovers—back to back and diagonally spaced 30 feet apart—are known to have whispered cheeky charm into interior column recesses at night, creating a crystal-clear echo effect.
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When the 13-year-old Italian girl pulled out a flat object from the deep reaches of a family armoire, she knew she’d found something special, as in a C.S. Lewis story.
Out came an old 78-size vinyl record on jazz diva Ella Fitzgerald.
Like magic.
“(Fitzgerald) was my muse,” says Angela Del Torchino, 64, a retired language interpreter who busks for reasons beyond a few dollars more. “At my home, nobody played jazz. From that moment on, I loved jazz.”
So much so, she attended one of Fitzgerald’s last concerts, given in Milan in 1984, before health problems dogged the “Queen of Jazz,” as the late Virginia native is known.
Lady Ella’s voice came as a revelation for the Milanese teen, who decades later pays tribute through vocals that bounce off a vaulted Renaissance market hall at Piazza Mercanti, as with last Saturday.
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