Francesco Fratini is a Roman trumpeter, born in 1990, who leads a quartet and a trio, plays in the Umbria Jazz Orchestra and the national youth jazz orchestra, and teaches trumpet at Saint Louis College of Music in Rome. He started the instrument at eight at the Testaccio music school, then studied classical trumpet at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome with Salvatore Catania and Franco Vasselli. He attended the Siena Jazz summer seminars in 2007 and 2008, where Enrico Rava was among his teachers, and in 2009 Enrico Rava invited him into his ensemble. Musica Jazz mentions a Gershwin project with Rava at that age, and a biography on Saint Louis College's site places him in the ensemble alongside Daniele Tittarelli, Gianluca Petrella and Giovanni Guidi when he was 18 or 19.

In 2010 he moved to New York on a four-year scholarship to the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2014. His biography names his teachers there as Reggie Workman, George Cables, Aaron Goldberg, Steve Cardenas, Jimmy Owens, Andrew Cyrille and Laurie Frink, and his biography lists collaborations with the tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown and the bassist Alexander Claffy. He returned to Rome in 2015 and completed his Santa Cecilia degree in jazz trumpet in March 2016, with top marks and honors.

Back in Rome he became a permanent member of the Umbria Jazz Orchestra and of the Orchestra Nazionale Jazz Giovani Talenti, the national youth jazz orchestra, and Discogs lists both groups on his artist page. His first Umbria Jazz Orchestra project, in Winter 2018 in Orvieto, was a Porgy and Bess arrangement with Paolo Fresu, according to a Musica Jazz interview. The orchestra's December 2018 Orvieto concerts became Bud Powell In The 21st Century (Sunnyside, 2021), a live album led by the pianist Ethan Iverson on which Fratini sits in the trumpet section. With the young-talent orchestra he is credited on Oscene Rivolte (Parco Della Musica Records, 2019), conducted by Paolo Damiani. In 2023 Musica Jazz described him as supporting Kyle Eastwood's quintet on the opening night of Umbria Jazz and being scheduled to play Police repertoire with Stewart Copeland at the same festival. His biography adds performances around Italy with Pietro Lussu, Danilo Rea and Fabio Zeppetella and, through Musica Jazz, work with John Scofield and Uri Caine; these are stated biographical connections, and no release credits for them are documented.

His own records begin with the Francesco Fratini Quartet's The Best Of All Possible Worlds (Via Veneto Jazz, 2019), a debut with the pianist Domenico Sanna, the bassist Luca Fattorini and the drummer Matteo Bultrini. Its title piece was first recorded in 2016 by his earlier group, the No.Quintet, on All Is For The Best (Filibusta Records), where Discogs credits him as composer. Rockit's interview describes the quartet album as mixing jazz with hip-hop and contemporary influences, with the rapper Charles Burchell featured on "Daily Quest For Love," and lists a second project, the trio hic. with the pianist Nicola Guida and the drummer Fabio Sasso. He also belongs to AGUS Collective, a Roman jazz organization founded in 2012.

Since 2022 he has recorded as the Francesco Fratini Trio, a trumpet, bass and drums lineup with Giuseppe Romagnoli and Matteo Bultrini, for the Brooklyn label La Reserve Records. Homemade (March 11, 2022) is a six-track EP of Fratini's own compositions; La Reserve's story on it describes cool jazz, bebop and hip-hop influences and quotes him saying that "Rome has something to say." Queen Size (October 13, 2023) is ten tracks, including a title piece by Romagnoli and "Per Carlo," a tribute to the saxophonist Carlo Conti with horns from the Beng! Band. Discogs does not index either trio record, and both are documented through the label, Sound Contest, Apple Music and press coverage.

As a sideman he appears on releases by Milena Angelè, Gianluca Vigliar, Vittorio De Angelis, Ettore Fioravanti's Opus Magnum, Emanuele Triglia and Elena Paparusso, among others, and also on pop, folk and hip-hop records for Alice Clarini, Sara Jane Ceccarelli, Schola Romana, Giacomo Nardelli and others. He appears as a trumpeter and spoken-word voice on Camilla Battaglia's ELEkTRA (Ropeadope, 2024), per the release's Bandcamp credits.

Fratini plays post-bop and neo-bop trumpet with a hip-hop-tinged rhythmic sensibility. Musica Jazz quotes him saying he thinks of himself first as an improviser rather than a lead trumpeter, and that orchestra work and his own projects complement each other. Rockit's interview ties his sound to a commitment to honoring African-American musical roots while developing his own voice, and La Reserve's writer likens the trio's spacious, deliberately paced arrangements to Italian tailoring. On a January 2024 radio interview he named "With a Song in My Heart" by Nicholas Payton as his favorite jazz track.

His discography splits between his own small-group records, which are jazz, and a long list of sideman work in pop, folk and hip-hop settings. Twelve of the 19 releases Discogs lists him on at release level carry a Jazz genre tag, and his own quartet album is tagged Contemporary Jazz.