Umbria
—  Region of Italy  —
Flag Logo
Country	Italy
Capital	Perugia
Government
• President	Catiuscia Marini (PD)
Area
• Total	8,456 km2 (3,265 sq mi)
Population (31 January 2011)
• Total	906,940
• Density	110/km2 (280/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
GDP/ Nominal	€ 21.8[1] billion (2008)
GDP per capita	€ 24,400[2] (2008)
NUTS Region	ITE
Website	"Regione Umbria: sito istituzionale" (in Italian). http://www.regione.umbria.it/.

Umbria^[3] is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked. Its capital is Perugia. Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Benedict.

Geography[link]

Umbria is bordered by Tuscany to the west, the Marche to the east and Lazio to the south. Mostly hilly or mountainous, its topography is dominated by the Apennines, with the highest point in the region at Monte Vettore on the border of the Marche, at 2,476 m (8,123 ft), and the Tiber valley basin, with the lowest point at Attigliano, 96 m (315 ft). It is the only Italian region having neither coastline nor common border with other countries.

The Tiber river forms the approximate border with Lazio, although its source is just over the Tuscan border. The Tiber's three principal tributaries flow southward through Umbria. The Chiascio basin is relatively uninhabited as far as Bastia Umbra. About 10 km (6 mi) further it joins the Tiber at Torgiano. The Topino, cleaving the Apennines with passes that the Via Flaminia and successor roads follow, makes a sharp turn at Foligno to flow NW for a few kilometres before joining the Chiascio below Bettona. The third river is the Nera, flowing into the Tiber further south, at Terni; its valley is called the Valnerina. The upper Nera cuts ravines in the mountains; the lower in the Chiascio-Topino basin is in a fairly large floodplain.

In antiquity, the plain was covered by a pair of shallow, interlocking lakes, the Lacus Clitorius and the Lacus Umber. They were drained by the Romans over several hundred years, but an earthquake in the 4th century and the political collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in the reflooding of the basin. It was drained a second time, almost a thousand years later, during a five-hundred-year period: Benedictine monks started the process in the 13th century, and the draining was completed by an engineer from Foligno in the 18th century.

In literature, one sometimes sees Umbria called il cuor verde d'Italia (the green heart of Italy). The phrase is taken from a poem by Giosuè Carducci — the subject of which is not Umbria but rather a specific place in it, the source of the Clitunno river.

History[link]

A typical landscape of the Umbrian countryside

View of Assisi

View of Norcia

The Cathedral of Orvieto

The region is named for the Umbri tribe, one of those who were absorbed by the expansion of the Romans. Pliny the Elder recounts a fanciful derivation for the tribal name from the Greek ὄμβρος "a shower", which had led to the confused idea that they had survived the Deluge familiar from Greek mythology, giving them the claim to be the most ancient race in Italy.^[4] In fact they belonged to a broader family of neighbouring tribes with similar roots. Their language was Umbrian, one of the Italic languages, related to Latin and Oscan.

The Umbri probably sprang, like neighbouring tribes, from the creators of the Terramara, and Villanovan culture in northern and central Italy, who entered north-eastern Italy at the beginning of the Bronze Age.

The Etruscans were the chief enemies of the Umbri, and the Etruscan invasion went from the western seaboard towards the north and east (lasting from about 700 to 500 BC), eventually driving the Umbrians towards the Apenninic uplands and capturing 300 Umbrian towns. Nevertheless, the Umbrian population does not seem to have been eradicated in the conquered districts.

After the downfall of the Etruscans, Umbrians attempted to aid the Samnites in their struggle against Rome (308 BC); but communications with Samnium were impeded by the Roman fortress of Narni (founded 298 BC). At the great battle of Sentinum (295 BC), which was fought in their own territory, the Umbrians did not substantially help the Samnites.

The Roman victory at Sentinum started a period of integration under the Roman rulers, who established some colonies (e.g., Spoletium) and built the via Flaminia (220 BC), which became a principal vector for Roman development in Umbria. During Hannibal's invasion in the second Punic war, the battle of Lake Trasimene was fought in Umbria, but the Umbrians did not aid him.

During the Roman civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian (40 BC), the city of Perugia supported Antony and was almost completely destroyed by the latter.

In Pliny's time, 49 independent communities still existed in Umbria, and the abundance of inscriptions and the high proportion of recruits in the imperial army attest to its population.

The modern region of Umbria, however, is essentially different from the Umbria of Roman times (see Roman Umbria), which extended through most of what is now the northern Marche, to Ravenna, but excluded the west bank of the Tiber. Thus Perugia was in Etruria, and the area around Norcia was in the Sabine territory.

After the collapse of the Roman empire, Ostrogoths and Byzantines struggled for the supremacy in the region; the Lombards founded the duchy of Spoleto, covering much of today's Umbria. When Charlemagne conquered most of the Lombard kingdoms, some Umbrian territories were given to the Pope, who established temporal power over them. Some cities acquired a form of autonomy (the comuni); they were often at war with each other in the context of the more general conflict between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire or between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

In the 14th century, the signorie arose, but were subsumed into the Papal States, which ruled the region until the end of the 18th century.

After the French Revolution and the French conquest of Italy, Umbria was part of the ephemeral Roman Republic (1798–1799) and of the Napoleonic Empire (1809–1814).

After Napoleon's defeat, the Pope regained Umbria until 1860.

After the Risorgimento, the expansion of the Piedmontese, and Italian unification, in 1861 Umbria was incorporated in the Kingdom of Italy.

The borders of Umbria were fixed in 1927, with the creation of the province of Terni and the separation of the province of Rieti, which was incorporated in Lazio.

In 1946 Umbria became part of the Italian Republic.

Economy[link]

The present economic structure emerged from a series of transformations which took place mainly in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, there was rapid expansion among small and medium-sized firms and a gradual retrenchment among the large firms which had hitherto characterised the region's industrial base. This process of structural adjustment is still going on.^[5]

Umbrian agriculture is noted for its tobacco, its olive oil and its vineyards, which produce excellent wines. Regional varietals include the white Orvieto, which draws agri-tourists to the vineyards in the area surrounding the medieval town of the same name.^[6] Other noted wines produced in Umbria are Torgiano and Rosso di Montefalco. Another typical Umbrian product is the black truffle found in Valnerina, an area that produces 45% of this product in Italy.^[5]

The food industry in Umbria produces processed pork-meats, confectionery, pasta and the traditional products of Valnerina in preserved form (truffles, lentils, cheese). The other main industries are textiles, clothing, sportswear, iron and steel, chemicals and ornamental ceramics.^[5]

Demographics[link]

As of 2008, the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 75,631 foreign-born immigrants live in Umbria, equal to 8.5% of the total population of the region.

Government and politics[link]

Umbria was a former stronghold of the Italian Communist Party forming with Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Marche the famous Italian political "Red Quadrilateral". Nowadays Umbria is a stronghold of the center-left and of the Democratic Party. At the April 2008 elections, Umbria gave more than 47% of its votes to Walter Veltroni.

Administrative divisions[link]

Umbria is divided into two provinces:

Perugia

Terni

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Umbria.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Umbria

• Thayer, William P. (2010). "Umbria: the 92 Comuni". University of Chicago. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Umbria/map.html. Retrieved 24 August 2010. 

v t e Umbria Provinces and places Perugia Terni History Umbri Etruria Roman Umbria Duchy of Spoleto Trasimène Via Flaminia Politics and government Elections in Umbria List of Presidents of Umbria

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Gil Evans
With Ryo Kawasaki at Sweet Basil in New York City,1982
Background information
Born	(1912-05-13)May 13, 1912
Died	April 20, 1988(1988-04-20) (aged 75)
Genres	Jazz, third stream
Occupations	Composer, arranger
Years active	1933–1988
Labels	Impulse!, Prestige Records, Verve Records
Notable instruments
Piano

Gil Evans (13 May 1912, Toronto, Canada – 20 March 1988, Cuernavaca, Mexico) was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States. He played an important role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz and jazz fusion, and collaborated extensively with Miles Davis.^[1]

Early life[link]

Born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green, his name was changed early on to Evans, the name of his stepfather. His family moved to Stockton, California where he spent most of his youth. After 1946, he lived and worked primarily in New York City, living for many years at Westbeth Artists Community.^[1]

Career[link]

Between 1941 and 1948, he worked as an arranger for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Evans' modest basement apartment behind a New York City Chinese laundry soon became a meeting place for musicians looking to develop new musical styles outside of the dominant bebop style of the day. Those present included the leading bebop performer Charlie Parker himself, as well as Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi. In 1948, Evans, with Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and others, collaborated on a band book for a nonet. These ensembles, larger than the trio-to-quintet "combos", but smaller than the "big bands" which were on the brink of becoming economically unviable, allowed the arrangers to have a larger pallette of colors by using French horns and tuba. Claude Thornhill had employed hornist John Graas in 1942,and composer-arranger Bob Graettinger had scored for horns and tubas with the Stan Kenton orchestra, but the "Kenton sound" was in the context of a dense orchestral wall of sound that Evans avoided.

The Davis-led group was booked for a week at the "Royal Roost" as an intermission group on the bill with the Count Basie Orchestra. Capitol Records recorded 12 numbers by the nonet at three sessions in 1949 and 1950. These recordings were reissued on a 1957 Miles Davis LP titled Birth of the Cool.

Later, while Davis was under contract to Columbia Records, producer George Avakian suggested that Davis work with any of several arrangers. Davis immediately chose Evans. The three albums that resulted from the resulting collaboration are Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), and Sketches of Spain (1960). Another collaboration from this period, Quiet Nights (1962) was issued later, against the wishes of Davis, who broke with his then-producer Teo Macero for a time as a result. Although these four records were marketed primarily under Davis's name (and credited to Miles Davis with Orchestra Under the Direction of Gil Evans), Evans's contribution was as important as Davis's. Their work coupled Evans's classic big band jazz stylings and arrangements with Davis's solo playing. Evans also contributed behind the scenes to Davis' classic quintet albums of the 1960s.

The demands of the score for Porgy and Bess were legendary, including the very first note for the lead trumpet. The limited time allotted for rehearsals revealed that the ability to read such a challenging score was not consistent among jazz musicians, and there are many audible errors. Yet the recording is now regarded by many as one of the greatest reinterpretations of Gershwin's music in any musical style, because Evans and Davis were each devoted to going outside the "mainstream" of commercial expectations for jazz musicians. Evans was a great influence on Miles Davis's interest in "non-jazz" music, especially orchestral music. Unfortunately, Evans' orchestral scores from the Porgy and Bess sessions were later found to be incomplete (or simply lost), and Quincy Jones and Gil Goldstein attempted to reconstruct these for Miles Davis's final 1991 concerts at Montreux, recorded as Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux. Davis had relented after years of refusing to revisit this material, but he was clearly ill, recovering from pneumonia, and trumpeter Wallace Roney, who was mentored by Davis, covered many of the challenging passages. Davis died before the release of the album.

From 1957 onwards Evans recorded albums under his own name. Evans knew tubist Bill Barber (musician) and trumpeter Louis Mucci from Thornhill's band, and both were stalwarts in Evans' early ensembles, with Mucci finding a spot on nearly every pre1980s Evans recording. Among the featured soloists on these records were Lee Konitz, Jimmy Cleveland, Steve Lacy, Johnny Coles and Cannonball Adderley. In 1965 he arranged the big band tracks on Kenny Burrell's Guitar Forms album.

Evans was explicitly influenced by Spanish composers Manuel De Falla and Joaquín Rodrigo, and by other Latin and Brazilian music, as well as by German expatriate Kurt Weill. His arrangements (many already well known to some listeners from their original cabaret, concert hall or Broadway stage arrangements) revealed aspects of the music in a wholly original way, sometimes in an unexpected contrast to the original atmosphere of the piece, and sometimes taking a dark ballad such as Weill's "Barbara Song" into an even darker place. The personnel list for The Individualism of Gil Evans (1964), not only features Bill Barber and hornists James Buffington and Julius Watkins (along with two others), but each section features the cream of the younger (some more classically trained) musicians who were making their names in jazz. The presence of four of the most acclaimed young bassists (Richard Evans, Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, and Ben Tucker) along with veteran Milt Hinton would ordinarily indicate that each is used individually for separate tracks, but Evans' scores usually required at least two bassists on any given track, some playing arco (with the bow) and some pizzicato (plucking with fingers, the standard jazz method). These arrangements frequently featured greatly slowed-down tempos with polyrhythmic percussion and no prevailing "beat." To his by-now standard French horns and tuba, Evans' scores added alto and bass flutes, double reeds, and harp; orchestral instruments not associated with "swing" bands, providing a larger pallette of orchestral colors, and allowing him to attain the ethereal quality heard in his arrangements during his Thornhill days. He frequently wrote a part for the tenor violin of Harry Lookofsky. Yet, this album featured an orchestral arrangement of "Spoonful" by bluesman Willie Dixon, an early indication of Evans' breadth and a hint of things to come.

In 1966 he recorded an album with Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto, Look To The Rainbow. He was discouraged by the commercial direction Verve Records was taking with the Gilberto sessions, and he went into a period of hiatus.

During this period while he was somewhat depressed about the commercial and logistical difficulties of his previous scoring requirements, his wife suggested that he listen to the guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Evans developed a particular interest in the work of the rock guitarist. Evans gradually built another orchestra in the 1970s, with none of the coloration instruments from his past arrangements. Working in the free jazz and jazz-rock idioms, he gained a new generation of admirers. These ensembles, rarely more than fifteen and frequently smaller, allowed him to make more contributions on keyboards, and with the development of truly portable synthesizers, he began using these to provide additional color. Hendrix's 1970 death made impossible a scheduled meeting with Evans to discuss having Hendrix front a big band led by Evans. In 1974, he released an album of his arrangements of music by Hendrix, with guitarist Ryo Kawasaki. From that date on, Evans' ensembles featured electric guitars and basses, including a notable collaboration with bassist Jaco Pastorius. In contrast to his intricate scores for large ensembles, which usually required precision orchestral playing wrapping around the "traditional" solo "break," his later arrangements might feature (more or less) unison playing by the entire ensemble, such as on Hendrix's "Little Wing," with improvisational touches added throughout by the musicians completely ad libitum. Live recordings demonstrate that entire pieces were collaborative efforts, and Evans can be heard giving cues from the keyboard (behind the band) to guide the band into a new section. Before the 1970s, his keyboard playing was sparse on recordings, because the intricacy of his music required that he conduct, but after the 1970s, he gradually moved from the front of the band back "into" the band.

Where Flamingos Fly (recorded 1971, released 1981)) demonstrated his ability to contract the most accomplished musicians, with veterans Johnny Coles, Harry Lookofsky, Richard Davis and Jimmy Knepper (who played the solo on the "Where Flamingos Fly" track on 1961's Out of the Cool) alongside young multi-instrumental phenomenon Howard Johnson (jazz musician), synthesizer player Don Preston (at that time still a member of the Mothers of Invention), and Billy Harper.

In April 1983, the Gil Evans Orchestra was booked into the Sweet Basil jazz club (Greenwich Village, New York) by jazz producer and Sweet Basil owner Horst Liepolt. This turned out to be a regular Monday night engagement for Evans for nearly five years and also resulted in the release of a number of successful albums by Gil Evans and the Monday Night Orchestra (produced by Horst Liepolt). Evans' ensemble featured many of the top-call musicians in New York, many of whom were also in the NBC Saturday Night Live Band and there were many conflicts, so their "deputies" for the night might be other world-class musicians. Yet Evans was also known to let newcomers "sit in" occasionally, and the band also performed arrangements by band members, current and past. Stalwarts in this ensemble were Lou Soloff, Marvin Peterson, Tom "Bones" Malone, George Adams (musician), David Sanborn, Hiram Bullock, Mark Eagan, Bill Evans (saxophonist) (no relation) and Gil Goldstein. In 1987, Evans recorded a live CD with Sting, featuring big band arrangements of songs by and with The Police. In the same spirit of introducing new talent in his bands, he collaborated with Maria Schneider (musician) as an apprentice arranger on this and other final projects.

Film music[link]

In 1986, Evans produced and arranged the soundtrack to the film of the Colin MacInnes book Absolute Beginners, thereby working with such contemporary artists as Sade Adu, Patsy Kensit's Eight Wonder, The Style Council, Jerry Dammers, Smiley Culture, Edward Tudor-Pole, and, notably, David Bowie.

He also arranged the music for the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money.

Personal life[link]

Evans married following the 1949 Birth of the Cool recording sessions and was survived by his second wife and two children. His son Miles played trumpet in his Monday Night Orchestra.

Evans died in the same Mexican city as Charles Mingus, Cuernavaca.^[1]

Awards & honors[link]

• In 1986, Evans was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

Grammy awards[link]

• 1986: Bud and Bird (Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band)

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• 1957: Gil Evans & Ten
• 1958: New Bottle Old Wine
• 1959: Great Jazz Standards
• 1960: Out of the Cool
• 1961: Into the Hot
• 1964: The Individualism of Gil Evans
• 1971: Blues in Orbit
• 1971: Where Flamingos Fly (Artists House)
• 1972: Masabumi Kikuchi + Gil Evans
• 1973: Svengali
• 1975: Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix
• 1975: There Comes a Time
• 1977: Priestess (Antilles)
• 1978: Little Wing (Circle)
• 1978: Parabola
• 1980: Heroes & Anti-Heroes (duo with Lee Konitz)
• 1987: Collaboration (with Helen Merrill)
• 1987: Paris Blues (duo with Steve Lacy)
• 1990: Take Me To The Sun

Live albums[link]

• 1974: Montreux Jazz Festival '74
• 1976: Tokyo Concert
• 1978: Live at Royal Festival Hall and The Rest of Gil Evans at the Royal Albert Hall
• 1980: Live at the Public Theater Volume 1 & 2
• 1986: Live at Sweet Basil Volume 1 & 2
• 1986: Farewell: Gil Evans & the Monday Night Orchestra Live at Sweet Basil
• 1986: Bud and Bird
• 1987: Live at Umbria Jazz Volume 1 & 2
• 1987: 75th Birthday Concert
• 1987: Rhythm-A-Ning
• 1987: Last Session (with Sting)
• 1988: Tribute to Gil

Arranger[link]

• 1947-1949: The Real Birth of the Cool: Studio Recordings (Claude Thornhill)
• 1956: Johnny Mathis (Johnny Mathis)
• 1956: The Jazz Workshop (Hal McKusick)
• 1957: Miles Ahead (Miles Davis)
• 1957: Debut (Marcy Lutes)
• 1958: Porgy and Bess (Miles Davis)
• 1958: Dream of You (with Helen Merrill)
• 1958: Jamaica Jazz (Don Elliott)
• 1960: Sketches of Spain (Miles Davis)
• 1963: Quiet Nights (Miles Davis)
• 1965: Look To The Rainbow (Astrud Gilberto)
• 1965: Guitar Forms (with Kenny Burrell)
• 1968: Filles de Kilimanjaro (Miles Davis)
• 1982: Star People (Miles Davis)

Filmography[link]

• 2005: RMS Live With Gil Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1983
• 2007: Gil Evans and His Orchestra^[2]
• 2007: Strange Fruit with Sting
• 2009: Miles Davis The Cool Jazz Sound

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gil Evans Homepage
• Interview with "Gil Evans: Out Of The Cool" author Stephanie Stein Crease

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Pat Metheny
Background information
Born	(1954-08-12) August 12, 1954 (age 57) Lee's Summit. Missouri, United States
Genres	Jazz, jazz fusion, folk jazz world fusion, post-bop, jazz-rock, crossover jazz
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, guitar synthesizer
Years active	1974–present
Labels	ECM, Geffen, Nonesuch
Associated acts	Pat Metheny Group, Noa, The Orb, Steve Reich
Website	www.patmetheny.com
Notable instruments
Gibson ES-175 Ibanez PM20 Signature Model Ibanez PM100 Signature Model Ibanez PM35 Roland GR-300 Pikasso guitar

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny (/məˈθiːni/mə-THEE-nee; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.