A note from COPOMIAO President Basil Russo: Each year, through the prestigious Donna Distinta Award, we honor women of Italian descent to spotlight their contributions, from culture and industry to philanthropy and activism.
The first 2024 Donna Distinta Award goes to Ms. Vanessa Racci.
- Vanessa Racci is a touring vocalist and recording artist of Italian American descent with a passion for retro jazz and music made famous by Italian Americans. This passion led her to develop a unique niche of music that educates as much as it entertains audiences in Italian enclaves across the country.
Vanessa grew up in a blue collar Italian American household in Thornwood, N.Y., living with her grandfather, Francesco Prisciantelli, of Pugliese descent. Vanessa developed a close relationship with her grandfather and they shared many traditions, like splitting a pasticciotto for dessert after every Sunday dinner. One of the traditions that would prove to influence her career is listening to and singing Italian and Jazz music.
Born in East Harlem in 1913, Francesco, known as “Hank,” grew up with the music of jazz greats and Italian American crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Lou Monte, Louis Prima, Jerry Vale, Connie Francis and the like. He would play this music in the house or in the car when picking Vanessa up from school. And Vanessa, even though a millennial, grew up listening to this classic music.
Vanessa started singing at the age of 4, belting out the “Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston. Her parents, Joseph and Roseann Racioppo, recognized her talent and encouraged her to sing at family gatherings. They then auditioned her on the local level, and by age 12, she was starring in musical theater productions, landing her first paid gig at Westchester Broadway Dinner Theater. In her teens she would land every leading role in Summer Stock or school plays, and by age 18, she won the prestigious Helen Hayes Award for her role as “Christine” in Phantom of the Opera.
When it came time to apply for colleges, her parents asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She quickly replied, “Be a singer, of course!” As “old school” Italian American parents, they replied, “Oh no, singing is not a career, it’s a hobby” and encouraged her to go to school for business. Being an obedient Italian American daughter, she did, but continued to study voice and music privately. She landed a job out of school at McCann Erickson Advertising Agency, and a few years later she transitioned to the client side to PepsiCo in Purchase, N.Y., working her way up to Marketing Director. The skills she learned as a marketing executive would enable her to become an expert at brand strategy and positioning, and she now applies that experience to her own artist brand.
During this time, Vanessa immersed herself in the book of jazz standards and toured with a trio. When her grandfather passed at the ripe age of 102, it inspired her to do something more personal with her music that would keep his legacy alive. She decided to combine her love of jazz and Italian music into her first album, Italiana Fresca; reinventing the Italian classics her grandfather taught her with modern jazz arrangements. She pitched the idea to Gianni Valenti of Birdland NYC after meeting him at a Jane Monheit masterclass. He loved it, paired her with Manhattan Transfer arranger, Yaron Gershovsky, and producer, David Finck, to realize her vision. The album, released in 2017 to a sold-out crowd at Birdland, reached #65 on the jazz charts and yielded 50+ performance engagements across the country.
While touring with her first album in New Orleans, Vanessa learned of the rich history Italian Americans have with jazz. New Orleans, from the 1880s onward, had been a destination for Sicilian immigrants who tended to be darker-skinned and were, consequently, met with discrimination. As a result, these Italian immigrants wound up settling in the same neighborhoods as the oppressed Black population of the time and many wound up learning jazz from local Black musicians, often forming bands together.
As a jazz lover herself, this history inspired Vanessa to dive deep into Italian Americans in jazz throughout history. It was then she learned that New Orleans Sicilian-American, Nick LaRocca, made the very first jazz recording in history and formed the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. From then on she followed the trail of Italian American jazz musicians through time from Louis Prima to Leon Roppolo, to Guy Lombardo, Harry Warren, Henry Mancini, Chick Corea, and John Pizzarelli. Her second album, Jazzy Italian, released on Zoho Jazz Label in 2022, celebrates Italian Americans who left their mark on jazz with fresh new arrangements from Grammy-winning producer, Steven Feifke, and Glafkos Kontemeniotis. The album took Vanessa’s career to new heights being programmed on Siriusly Sinatra on Sirius XM, in addition to 150+ other stations and making the top 10 Traditional Jazz Albums of 2022 on the RMR Jazz Chart. It was then that she decided to leave her corporate career behind and focus on singing full time. This has led to more and more performance engagements where Vanessa enjoys educating audiences on Italian Americans’ influence on jazz through song and historical anecdotes.
This work has led Vanessa to explore one of the composers more deeply, Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna), known as the “Italian Gershwin,” who contributed more than 800 songs to our Great American songbook, many of them jazz standards (such as “At Last,” “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” etc). She expressed her interest to the Columbus Citizens Foundation, who introduced her to the Tin Pan Alley Society, run by George Calderaro. Together, George, Vanessa and member, Robert Lamont, launched a tribute to Harry’s legacy on Feb 29th, 2024.
Vanessa is furthering her passion for Italian American contributions to music in America through producing a mini-Broadway style show, “Forbidden Love,” with co-star, Charlie Romo, telling the tale of Connie Francis and Bobby Darin’s love, lives and musical accomplishments.
Vanessa’s future goals are to continue deepening her jazz musicianship, work on bringing her “Forbidden Love” show to Off-Broadway and to start a foundation for Italian Americans in music that will offer grants to those who want to celebrate the legacies of past Italian American musicians or create their own.
To learn more about Vanessa Racci, or to sign up for her mailing list, go to www.vanessaracci.com, or follow @VanessaRacci on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok or Spotify.
Click here and listen to her albums Italiana Fresca and Jazzy Italian.