Carlo Loffredo was born in Rome on April 4, 1924. Self-taught, he began playing double bass during the Second World War in a group of amateur university students. He soon joined the "013," an ensemble historians credit as Italy's first jazz orchestra, led by Piero Piccioni, alongside emerging players including Gianni Basso and Giorgio Gaslini; no dated, credit-level recording placing Loffredo and Gaslini on the same session was located for this profile, so the connection is reported here as historical context rather than a verified discography link. In 1945 he founded a jazz circle in Rome that organized listening sessions and jam sessions, and he frequented Rome's Hot Club, which opened in 1946 at "La Conchiglia" on Via del Corso, taking part in the bebop sessions led by trumpeter Nunzio Rotondo. In 1947 he represented Italy at Prague's inaugural Jazz Festival, winning first prize with a university quintet; a later, similarly billed success in Moscow is corroborated by a 1958 Leningrad-pressed release credited to the Roman New Orleans Jazz Band and titled "in USSR."

Loffredo's name is inseparable from the Roman New Orleans Jazz Band, but the standard account of his role in it does not hold up under Italian Wikipedia's own sourcing. The band had already formed in 1948 under other members, reported elsewhere as including Marcello Riccio, Giovanni Borghi and Luciano Fineschi, and it was Louis Armstrong, on a 1949 tour of Italy, who is credited with giving the group its name. Loffredo, commonly but erroneously credited with founding that first band, was at some point formally ordered by Rome's civil court to stop using the "Roman New Orleans Jazz Band" name commercially. What is undisputed is the band he built afterward: the Seconda (II) Roman New Orleans Jazz Band, formed with drummer Peppino D'Intino, trumpeter Piero Saraceni, clarinetist Gianni Sanjust and trombonist Peppino De Luca. Sources disagree on the exact founding year, placing it as early as 1955 or as late as 1957; this profile discloses the range rather than picking one.

Under his own name and several closely related Discogs group entities (Carlo Loffredo And His New Orleans Jazz, Carlo Loffredo E La Sua Orchestra, Quartetto Di Carlo Loffredo, La New Orleans Jazz Band Di Carlo Loffredo), Loffredo built a genuinely prolific recording career: 55 documented artist-relationship credits on his personal Discogs entry alone, running from a 1953 78 with the original Roman New Orleans Jazz Band on La Voce Del Padrone through a 2001 archival compilation, on labels including RCA Italiana, RCA, Cetra, Polydor, Parlophone, Columbia, Arc and the smaller DET Recording. His own-name leader catalog carries Discogs' Dixieland style tag directly on "...Blues From Rome!" (1961) and "Noi Maggiorenni" (1967, billed to the Quartetto Di Carlo Loffredo with Piero Saraceni, Marcello Rosa and Carlo Silj), and a Swing tag on "Musica + ... Musica" (1969, DET Recording). Like most Italian dance-orchestra leaders of his generation, his band also backed the era's mainstream vocalists: Nilla Pizzi (1957's "Sputnik Musicale"), singer Lia Grifi at the 1959 Sanremo Festival, Jula De Palma on 1967's "Whisky E Dixie," and popular singer Claudio Villa on 1972's "Villa Tutto Dixieland."

His most substantial recorded partnership connects directly to a musician already covered on this project: pianist Romano Mussolini. Discogs' track-level credits list Loffredo on bass across all nine tracks of 1958's "Romano Mussolini Con Nunzio Rotondo E Lilian Terry" (RCA Italiana). He returned for 1962's "Jazz Allo Studio 7," released as the Romano Mussolini All-Stars and winner of Italy's jazz critics' prize for 1963, alongside trumpeter Cicci Santucci, tenor saxophonist Enzo Scoppa, trombonist Dino Piana, clarinetist Gianni Sanjust and drummer Franco Tonani, and again for 1964's "At the Santa Tecla." Decades later the two reunited on 2002's Louis Armstrong tribute "Hello Satch!," credited to Lino Patruno, Romano Mussolini With Carlo Loffredo & The Jazz Stars Of Italy, on which Loffredo is individually credited on double bass.

Loffredo's discography also intersects with historical Italian jazz anthologies. On 1963's "40 Anni Di Jazz In Italia" (Ricordi, curated by historian Adriano Mazzoletti), he is individually credited on double bass on the track "Move" (a Denzil Best composition), alongside trumpeter Nunzio Rotondo, drummer Gil Cuppini, pianist Ettore Crisostomi, alto saxophonist Franco Raffaelli and guitarist Carlo Pes, also profiled on this project; the same two also share billing on an earlier, undated Parlophone 78, "The Man I Love / Beguin The Beguine," credited to Nunzio Rotondo And The Sextet Of The Hot Club Of Rome. He also shares billing on 1959's "10 Anni Di Jazz In Italia 1949-1959" and 1988's "Italian Jazz Graffiti" (Musica Jazz's own retrospective label). On a 1971 Dixieland compilation shared with cornetist Bobby Hackett's Genova Dixieland All-Stars, Loffredo's own individually credited contribution is a spoken introduction ("Presentazione"), consistent with the broadcasting career he built alongside his playing. He appeared on screen as a musician in Alberto Sordi's "Un americano a Roma" (1954); appearances in two further films are reported in a single source each and are not independently corroborated here. From the 1960s into the 1980s he hosted RAI radio and television programs built around jazz and variety entertainment, though no specific program titles were independently verified for this profile.

In 2008, the same year the Italian state named him Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, Loffredo published a memoir, "Billie Holiday, che palle!," which closes on a line describing jazz as inevitable in Italy, "mixed with holy water" from the moment of baptism. He died in Rome on December 8, 2018, at the age of 94. Multiple Italian outlets, including Il Mattino, Il Messaggero and the ANSA-fed SwissInfo wire, carried the same characterization of him at his death: one of the fathers of Italian jazz. Because the phrase recurs in near-identical wording across several obituaries, it is disclosed here as a widely repeated wire characterization rather than several independent critical assessments.

Loffredo's musical identity, from his 1940s university-quintet years through five decades of recording, sits squarely in Dixieland and traditional swing-era jazz: Discogs' own style tags on his leader releases split between the two, and his career-defining ensembles, the disputed first Roman New Orleans Jazz Band and his own undisputed Seconda (II) Roman New Orleans Jazz Band, were both New Orleans-revival combos built around clarinet, trumpet, trombone and rhythm section. That his groups also regularly backed mainstream Italian song-festival and variety vocalists (Nilla Pizzi, Lia Grifi, Jula De Palma, Claudio Villa) reflects the standard working reality of an Italian dance-orchestra leader of his generation rather than a second, competing musical identity; his own-name catalog and his public reputation both remained anchored in jazz throughout.