Nello Toscano, born Sebastiano Toscano on July 26, 1952, in Brescia, is a double bassist, composer and record producer who has spent nearly his entire working life in Sicily. His father, a mandolin player, moved the family to Catania while Toscano was still young, and it was there that he first picked up guitar under his father's guidance. He went on to earn a degree in philosophy before turning to the double bass in earnest, graduating from the Liceo Musicale "Vincenzo Bellini" in Catania. He later took a masterclass with bassist Dave Holland and studied with composer George Russell at the JACP (Jazz Advanced Cultural Project) in Paris, the two encounters he most often cites as decisive for his playing.

Toscano made his recording debut as a leader in 1994 with Winter Sky, cut over two days at Ciminiera Studio in Catania with trumpeter Enrico Rava, pianists Alberto Alibrandi and Giuseppe Emmanuele, reedman Mauro Negri and drummer Mimmo Cafiero. In 1995 he founded the Anaglyphos cultural association in Catania, and the following year turned it into Anaglyphos Records, a label oriented toward jazz and contemporary composed music. Its first release, Anaglifo (1997), was a trio session with trumpeter Paolo Fresu and composer Rosalba Bentivoglio, written for choreographer Roberto Zappala's ballet company.

In 1998 Toscano founded and began directing the Orchestra Jazz del Mediterraneo, a large ensemble built around a Mediterranean-inflected repertoire that has run under his leadership ever since. Its 2002 album First (Philology), billed to the orchestra featuring saxophonist Pietro Tonolo, drew on a deep pool of Sicilian jazz players including Francesco Cafiso, Dino Rubino, Rino Cirinna and Carlo Cattano. In 2019 he served as production manager on Norma (Tuk Music/Tuk Voice), a Vincenzo Bellini-themed project again fronted by Fresu, alongside the orchestra and arranger Paolo Silvestri.

Alongside the orchestra, Toscano has kept up a steady run of smaller-group leader and co-leader dates: duo and trio records with pianist Claudio Cusmano (Cammino Personale, 1997, also featuring Stefano Di Battista and Roberto Gatto; Two in Flight, 1998; Three Moments, 2005, with Bentivoglio; Remember to Remember, 2022, with drummer Enzo Zirilli), a trio with pianist Giovanni Mazzarino and drummer Paolo Mappa (I Remember Miles, 1997), his solo-billed Pasolini Nell'Era di Internet (2000, with Dino Rubino on trumpet), the quintet session Patchwork Project 3 (2012, with Rubino, Cafiso, pianist Seby Burgio and reedman Carlo Cattano), and a run of Mhodi-era records after Anaglyphos Records was acquired by Mhodi Music Company in 2022 with Toscano staying on as artistic director: Home Recording Session (2018), Inside (2022, whose single "Clouds" passed one million Spotify streams), Come Back to Sicily (2022), Radici (2023), Stories (2024), the single "Play Your Dream" (2024, with pianist Danilo Rea and drummer Mimmo Cafiero) and Shades of Red (2026).

As a sideman, Toscano's credits reach back to the mid-1980s Sicilian jazz scene around singer Gioconda Cilio and composer Stefano Maltese, and include session dates with saxophonist Gianni Basso (Italian Balladeur, 1996), alto saxophonist Massimo Urbani (Out of Nowhere, 1990), and American saxophonist Phil Woods (Phil On Etna, 1992, recorded live in Sicily). He also played bass on Giuseppe Emmanuele's A Waltz for Debby (1990) and North, South or Viceversa (1993), the latter session also crediting Fresu, Rava, tenor saxophonists Claudio Fasoli and Pietro Tonolo. He has recorded twice with Cafiso's own groups beyond the orchestra session, on A New Trip (2009, Francesco Cafiso Island Blue Quartet) and Portrait in Black and White (2008, Venus Records). Mhodi's own artist biography also credits him with performances alongside Lee Konitz, Kenny Barron and Charles Tolliver, though no shared recording credit for these has been independently confirmed at the Discogs level.

In 2017 Toscano co-founded the Monk Jazz Club in Catania, which marked its tenth anniversary season in 2026. He is included in the Dizionario del Jazz Italiano (Feltrinelli, 2014) and the Dizionario dei Compositori di Sicilia (Il Convivio, 2018).

Toscano's playing and writing sit at the meeting point of post-bop jazz and a self-described "Mediterranean" idiom, a thread that runs from the Orchestra Jazz del Mediterraneo's large-ensemble writing down to his smaller duo and trio dates. His two most direct influences are the ones he studied with directly: Dave Holland, for a bass approach built on tone and space rather than volume of notes, and George Russell, whose Lydian Chromatic Concept fed into Toscano's own harmonic thinking as a composer. His catalog runs a wide stylistic range: the melodic, ballad-centered cool jazz of his 1994 debut with Enrico Rava; freely improvised, real-time duo and trio work on later Anaglyphos and Mhodi releases; and the folk-jazz hybrid of Radici (2023), which reworks traditional Sicilian material inside a jazz frame. As a bandleader and label founder, he has also functioned as an organizer and mentor figure for Sicilian jazz musicians across three generations, from Giuseppe Emmanuele and Claudio Cusmano in the 1990s to Francesco Cafiso, Dino Rubino and Seby Burgio in the 2010s and 2020s.