Introduction
Bruno Martino (11 November 1925 – 12 June 2000) was an Italian jazz composer, singer and pianist.
Martino's early working life was spent in European radio and night club orchestras, later composing for popular Italian singers and touring the world with his own orchestra. He had a late-blossoming career as a singer.
Estate
Internationally he was mostly known for Estate, composed in 1960, a standard that has been played many jazz performers since the early 1960s, including João Gilberto, Joe Diorio, Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans, Shirley Horn, Eliane Elias, Michel Petrucciani, Monty Alexander, Mike Stern and Robert Jospé.
Dracula Cha Cha Cha
Bruno Martino's song "Dracula Cha Cha Cha" appears in the album Italian Graffiti (1960/61) and is performed onscreen in Vincente Minnelli's film Two Weeks in Another Town (1962).
It inspired the title of Kim Newman's novel Dracula Cha Cha Cha (1998), which takes place in Rome, 1959.