Eraldo Volonté was born Luigi Eraldo Volonté in Milan on February 5, 1918, and died there on October 23, 2003. He was a tenor saxophonist, bandleader and composer who worked in Italian jazz from the early 1940s into the 1970s. His family steered him to the violin, and per Italian Wikipedia he took a diploma in it at Milan's Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory; the jazz archive of the Saint Louis music school adds clarinet to his conservatory studies. The Circolo del Jazz Hot, founded in Milan by Gian Carlo Testoni, drew him toward jazz, and he gave up a classical career to teach himself clarinet and saxophone, mostly tenor.

Italian Wikipedia gives his debut as 1940, playing with the violinist Max Springher, whose style resembled that of Stéphane Grappelli. He then joined the Orchestra del Momento of Aldo Rossi, where Discogs lists him among the group's members, and the big band of Enzo Ceragioli. In 1947 he formed his own group, the Orchestra di Eraldo Volonté; Italian Wikipedia says it won the Florence jazz festival in 1949 and lists a 1949 single, "Crescendo In Be-Bop" / "Stasera, Bebop!" (La Voce del Padrone), while English Wikipedia places him at Italy's first jazz festival in 1948 with drummer Gil Cuppini and Giorgio Gaslini. The Riviera Jazz label issued 1940s recordings by his orchestra on CD in 2000 as Jazz In Italy In The 40s, and he is credited on tenor across several tracks of the label's 1996 Jazz In Italy In The 30's And 40's.

His working partnership with Cuppini, according to English Wikipedia, began in 1948 and continued into the 1970s. In the 1950s he played in a trio with Cuppini and the pianist Giampiero Boneschi, worked in radio and television orchestras, and accompanied the singer Mara Moris, who became his partner. Discogs credits him on tenor on Bruno Canfora's Cole Porter LP (1955, alongside trumpeter Baldo Panfili and altoist Attilio Donadio), on Piero Umiliani's Da Roma A New York (1957), and on the Pupo De Luca and Cosetta Greco sessions for Durium (1958-1959). In April 1958 he was one of the Milan players on the Bud Shank session issued as I'll Take Romance. Through the producer Walter Guertler, the founder of Jolly and Celson, he also became a rock and roll session man: Italian Wikipedia says he led a band called Eraldo Volonté & His Rockers, with bassist Marco Ratti and drummer Leonello Bionda, on Adriano Celentano's first 45s, and Discogs credits him as leader and arranger on the 1958 Celentano singles.

At the end of the 1950s he formed a quintet with trumpeter Sergio Fanni, bassist Alceo Guatelli, pianist Renato Angiolini and drummer Leonello Bionda. Its EP for Astraphon (1958) and a second for Hollywood (1958) carry "Four," "Quartetto," "These Foolish Things" and "The King," and Italian Wikipedia has the quintet at the third International Jazz Festival in Sanremo in January 1958. Fanni later joined bassist Giorgio Azzolini's quintet with Franco D'Andrea at the piano and Bruno Biriaco on drums; Volonté is on Azzolini's Azzolini's Spanish Portrait (1973) with D'Andrea and Biriaco, and on Azzolini's 1971 big-band LP for Dire.

His long association with Gaslini is the best documented in the discography. Discogs credits him on tenor on the quartet's La Notte recordings, the score for Michelangelo Antonioni's film (EP 1961, LP 1967); Italian Wikipedia adds Gaslini's 1962 album Quando canta Rabagliati. He is on Gaslini's big-band Grido (1968), which also has Steve Lacy on soprano saxophone, on Newport In Milan (1971), and on Colloquio Con Malcolm X (1974), with Bruno Tommaso on bass. Gaslini wrote liner notes for Volonté's own Free And Loose, which contains a piece titled "For Gaslini."

Volonté's four main albums under his own name span 1963 to 1975. My Point Of View (Durium, 1963) is a quartet date with pianist Renato Sellani, Azzolini and drummer Lionello Bionda, playing "Summertime," "So What" and "On Green Dolphin Street." For Eraldo Volonté Presenta Jazz (Now) In Italy (Equipe, 1966), recorded in Milan in February 1966, he brought together trombonist Dino Piana, D'Andrea, bassist Giovanni Tommaso and drummer Franco Tonani. The liner note reprinted on its Bandcamp edition ties the record to the March 1966 Sanremo festival, where the only Italian group among seven bands was D'Andrea's trio, and argues that Volonté and Piana belonged on that stage too. Free And Loose (Windsor Record, 1968) was recorded in Milan in May 1968 with Piana, trumpeter Oscar Valdambrini, two bassists and the drummer Franco Manzecchi; the liner note says Manzecchi and one of the bassists, Benoît Charvet, came from Paris while the spring 1968 unrest there was still going on, and it calls the music free jazz, "the new thing." Safari (Carosello, 1975) is billed to the Eraldo Volonté Quartet, with pianist Guido Manusardi, bassists Stefano Cerri and Dodo Goya, drummer Giancarlo Pillot and percussionist Roberto Haliffi. Italian Wikipedia describes the record as jazz with African rhythms and Eastern melodies.

Alongside the jazz work he took a wide range of studio jobs. Between 1969 and 1973 he recorded a series of Disco Dimostrativo and Omaggio Alle Orchestre sampler discs for the music-library publisher Edizioni Musicali Club, several with Valdambrini, trumpeter Vanni Catellani and the organist Maspes; Discogs styles them Funk and Rhythm & Blues. In 1974 he played saxophone on James Bond Incontra Super Fly, an instrumental album of pop and soul covers for Adam's Rib. Italian Wikipedia adds that he wrote music for television documentaries and stage shows, often working with Dammicco, and he played soprano saxophone on Joe Venuti's The Incredible Joe Venuti (1977). Volonté died in Milan at the age of 85; his ashes were placed in a niche at the Cimitero Maggiore. His albums Jazz (Now) In Italy and Free And Loose were reissued on vinyl in 2001, and digital editions of those two and My Point Of View are on Bandcamp.

Volonté came up in the swing and bebop-era Milan of Aldo Rossi's Orchestra del Momento, Gorni Kramer's circle and Cuppini's ensembles, and his sideman work through the 1950s sits mostly in swing and cool-jazz settings, including a 2014 Frémeaux cool-jazz anthology that carries his quintet's "Konitz In Italy." By 1963 his own records had moved to the modal and hard-bop repertoire of the day: Discogs tags My Point Of View Hard Bop and Modal, and its standards include Miles Davis's "So What." Jazz (Now) In Italy is tagged Post Bop, Modal and Free Jazz and includes a piece titled "Ornette," and Free And Loose is tagged Free Jazz outright. Safari turns to African and Eastern colors, and Discogs classes his 1970s demonstration discs and pop-cover album as funk and easy listening. Discogs classes his 1958 to 1961 work with Celentano and Ghigo Agosti as rock and roll, but that is a side of his career rather than his main identity: 76 of the 98 masters and releases Discogs links to him carry a Jazz genre tag, and the rest are mostly those rock sides, pop singles and pop compilations.