A giant of European avant jazz piano, Giorgio Gaslini died on 29 July aged 84. Gaslini led a jazz quartet in the 1950s and 60s and later wrote for the opera and for film, including the score for Antonioni’s languorous evocation of bourgeois malaise, La Notte. Gaslini appeared with Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, and many other avant gardists in the Italy of the 1970s and would write jazz textbooks as well as compose for the leading Italian avant garde orchestra of international reputation, Instabile.

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Most of Gaslini's best album work can be found on the Soul Note label, including 1980s album Plays Monk, and the later Ayler's Wings.