Paola, a Musical Heart Set Free by Jazz
Music does not always free the soul. For Paola Paris, accountant and a member of the Bocconi teaching faculty in accounting, music was also a cage. It was a burning passion which took hold of her at the age of seven, but, because of limited alternatives, her passion forced her into a genre which was restrictive for her: classical music. Until, as an adult, a friend convinced her to make a move towards jazz.
Paola Paris was born and raised in San Donato Milanese, in the Metanopoli neighborhood built for Eni employees. In elementary school she discovered her passion for music: "I wanted to play Latin music or rock, but where I was living, anyone who wanted to play music and didn't have many opportunities had to study classical music, unless they wanted to learn on their own." She studied the concert flute and received a diploma for the instrument at the Conservatory of Piacenza in 1986. Soon after she began teaching at the Municipal School of Classical Music in San Donato while at the same time beginning a career as a university student, which led her to graduate with honors, "and the Spadolini golden medal," from Bocconi in 1991. "I had a passion for mathematics," remembers Paris, "but I decided to dedicate myself to the profession of accounting."
In music, the turning point came when she was 27 years old, when she met a friend who worked as a mechanic ("I also drive a motorcycle," she confessed), who spoke to her about the Big Band that had been started at the Municipal School in San Donato. "Classical and jazz are still two worlds that hardly communicate with each other in many educational institutions," explains Paola, talking about her decision to take the big step. "I didn't know anything about jazz. I knew how to read music really well, but rhythms in the two genres are completely different. I wanted to try and it opened up a whole new world." A world that finally freed her from the cage that had closed her in, with walls as thin as the fifth line on a score of music, for so many years.
Approaching jazz, Paola stopped teaching classical music and dedicated body and soul to her new burning passion. "I enrolled in jazz seminars and I studied with great jazz musicians like Tino Tracanna, Paolo Fresu and Giulio Visibelli. Then in 2002 I started studying at Enrico Intra's Jazz School." Five years of hard and frantic studying alongside working professionally ("in addition, I became a mother at that time"). Five years during which Paola also started attending Conservatorio Verdi in Milan, where she graduated with the first wave of graduates in jazz in 2009. "It was a period that was very difficult but wonderful at the same time. It was intense, I was working during the day and studying at night, all with a new baby. But it was the only way for me to fill the gaps in my knowledge about jazz," she says.
Recently, Paola has played both the flute and the sax on various occasions with the Big Band and the Flight Band from the San Donato Municipal School, with Intra's School at the tribute to Trovajoli during the Ambrogino d'Oro events in 2006 at the Piccolo Teatro, and at her university, Bocconi, in 2008 along with Marco Vaggi and Enrico Intra. Lastly, with Paolo Favini's octet, Maurizio Crozza's sax player. "I'm always the 'reading' sax,' though, and never the 'improve' player, as they say. But with jazz I still feel like I'm at the same level as a new jazz player. Unfortunately, I have a developed musical ear, but my fingers are still behind."
Paola Paris's words are sometimes tinged with sadness when she talks about her work teaching music: "I don't want other people to feel the same regret. Today I teach jazz flute privately and group music in the course I hold at the San Donato Municipal School of Classical Music. I also teach jazz to all the kids who study classical, trying to get them to use their instrument in a different way."