Charly Antolini

Charly Antolini (born 24 May 1937 in Zürich) is a Swiss jazz drummer.

Antolini started playing the traditional Swiss Basler drum and in 1956 went to Paris where he played with Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman among others, and playing in the Oldtime Jazz Band "The Tremble Kids" with trumpeter Oscar Klein and clarinettist Werner Keller. In 1962 he went to live in Stuttgart, Germany where he spent 5 years playing with bassist Peter Witte and pianist Horst Jankowski in the SWR Bigband led by Erwin Lehn. With bassist Peter Witte, between 1965 et 1967, he recorded 5 albums for the romanian pianist Eugen Cicero, a new talent who translete classical music in Jazz (Lizt,Chopin, Tschaikowsky). He also played in big bands with Kurt Edelhagen, Peter Herbolzheimer and Max Greger in the NDR Bigband.

In 1976 he set up his own band, "Charly Antolini's Jazz Power", originally featuring Steve Hooks (tenor sax); Andrei Lobanov (trumpet); David Gazarov (keyboards) and Rocky Knauer (bass), although later members were Len Skeat and Brian Lemon. In the 80s he toured Germany, Italy and Denmark with Benny Goodman, as well as with Lionel Hampton, Barbara Dennerlein, Albert Mangelsdorff, Earl Hines, Roy Eldridge, Jimmy Giuffre, Art Farmer, Oliver Nelson, Art Van Damme, Stuff Smith, Baden Powell among others.

In the late 80s-early 90s he recorded three live albums with British tenor saxophonist Dick Morrissey and in 1994 he set up the band Super Trio with pianist Dirk Raufeisen and bassist Jimmy Woode.

At the end of 2004 Herman Rarebell, Pete York and Antolini formed a three drummer project called Drum Legends, and released a live CD and DVD.