Carmelo "Larry" Nocella was a tenor saxophonist born in Battipaglia, in the province of Salerno, on 18 December 1949. He grew up in the province of Salerno until he was about seventeen, playing in a boarding school band and studying clarinet at a college in Angri, and later studied at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella in Naples, first on trombone and clarinet, though the Campania region's cultural archive says he never completed his diploma. He moved to the tenor saxophone at 18, after listening to Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan and John Coltrane.

In 1970 he moved to Milan, where he worked mostly in dance bands, and then to Turin. According to Italian Wikipedia, the American drummer Kenny Clarke heard him there, at the Swing Club, and invited him to play with him at Le Chat Qui Peche in Paris. He returned to Milan in 1973 and became a regular at the Capolinea, one of Italy's main jazz clubs, in a circle that included drummer Tullio De Piscopo, pianist Mario Rusca and pianist Enrico Intra, according to his Discogs biography. On 21 January 1979 he played the Capolinea in a live set with an American group (Cedar Walton on piano, Bob Berg on tenor, Billy Higgins on drums, Tony Dumas on bass), later circulated on an unofficial CD-R titled Milan 1979 under the name Eastern Rebellion.

His recorded career begins in 1976 with sideman work on De Piscopo's Vol. 2, where he plays tenor and soprano saxophone, and on Mario Rusca's Recreations. In January 1977, at Cap Studio in Milan, he recorded Brother Man with the Pillot-Farmer Quartet: drummer Giancarlo Pillot, bassist Julius Farmer and pianist Franco D'Andrea, with Nocella on tenor and sopranino saxophone. The same four musicians play "Skylab" on Carosello's compilation Il Meglio Del Jazz From Italy. His first record under his own name, No Secret (Harmony, 1977), was billed to Larry Nocella & His Intimate Sound, with keyboardist Vince Tempera and guitarist Angelo Arienti arranging and producing, and Farmer and De Piscopo in the band; it mixes standards ("Moonglow," "I Only Have Eyes For You," "Black Coffee") with a Stevie Wonder tune, in a jazz-funk and disco idiom that SAAR Records reissued on vinyl in December 2022. In 1978 he was on De Piscopo's Future Percussion, which closes with a track titled "3 For Larry," and on guitarist Angelo Arienti's quintet album Sunday, April 2, with pianist Riccardo Zegna, bassist Lucio Terzano and drummer Paolo Pellegatti.

His one straight-ahead jazz album as a leader came in November 1980. Everything Happens To Me (Red Record, VPA 167) was recorded at the Music Center in Bologna in a quartet with three Americans, pianist Bob Neloms, bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Dannie Richmond. Red Record's Alberto Alberti organized it and used the Mingus Dynasty's Italian tour to secure that rhythm section. It has six tracks, among them "Rose," "Central Park West," "Along Came Betty," "Nakatini Serenade" and the title standard. The same year he played tenor saxophone on five tracks of Area's Tic & Tac (Ascolto), the band's first record after the death of singer Demetrio Stratos, alongside bassist Ares Tavolazzi. His Discogs biography adds that he played the Nimes festival that year with Chet Baker; no recording of it is documented. In 1981 he was co-billed on the debut album of singer Tiziana Ghiglioni, Lonely Woman (Dischi della Quercia), with pianist Riccardo Zegna, bassist Piero Leveratto and drummer Luigi Bonafede; Discogs files it under Jazz with a Modal style tag.

In the mid-1980s he worked with the Neapolitan singer-songwriter Pino Daniele. Discogs itemizes his saxophone on Ferryboat (Sciò Records, 1985); Italian Wikipedia also lists the live album Sciò (1984) and one track of Bonne Soirée (1987). Session credits from the period include Fabio Concato's Svendita Totale (1978), Tony Renis's Disco Quando (1978), Vincenzo Tempera's Strike Up The Band (1980) and the Italo-disco group F.A.S.'s Winner (1985). Keyboardist Gianni Giudici's own biography says he co-founded a blues band with Cooper Terry and Nocella.

Nocella died in Turin in May 1989, at 39; Italian Wikipedia gives liver cirrhosis as the cause. Turin's Larry's Club took his name, a community rehearsal room in Battipaglia is dedicated to him, and a stage production about his life, Everything Happens To Me, directed by journalist Carlo Pecoraro, premiered in Battipaglia on 21 May 2022.

Nocella's stated starting points were Rollins, Parker, Mulligan and Coltrane, and Italian Wikipedia credits him with an intense expressive and sonic charge and absolute pitch. His apprenticeship in the Capolinea era, and the invitation from Clarke, tied him to the bebop tradition, and the Bologna quartet album is a straight-ahead session built on standards and hard-bop repertoire ("Along Came Betty," "Nakatini Serenade").

He was also a working session player in the Milan studio scene. His solo debut is a jazz-funk record with a disco pulse, the Area album puts him in a progressive jazz-rock band, and the Pino Daniele, Concato, Renis and F.A.S. credits are pop and disco sessions. Discogs tags his Red Record, Carosello and Dischi della Quercia releases as Jazz, and the pop-session work is the smaller part of the record.