Sergio Coppotelli was born in Rome on December 4, 1929. He started out as a classical guitar student before moving into jazz jam sessions in Rome in the late 1940s, playing alongside trumpeter Nunzio Rotondo and drummer Carlo Loffredo; this early period is documented only in his Italian Wikipedia biography, with no Discogs session to confirm it. In 1948 he broadcast on Italian radio fronting his own trio alongside accordionist Luciano Fancelli, and through the late 1940s and early 1950s he worked with composers Bruno Martino and Piero Piccioni, taking part in Rome's first jazz festival in 1956.

In 1957 Coppotelli moved to Milan, where he studied harmonic theory, played in Riccardo Rauchi's orchestra and recorded with musicians on the Milan jazz scene, including, per his biography, saxophonist Gianni Basso and trumpeter Oscar Valdambrini; again, no specific joint session is independently verified on Discogs for this period. He rejoined Bruno Martino's ensemble in 1960, writing music for seven of Martino's songs with lyricist Antonio Amurri, including "Il Cuscino Lo Sa" and "Che Sara Di Noi," before returning to Rome for good in 1964.

Back in Rome, Coppotelli became a fixture of the Cinecittà studio scene, working through 1985 on film and television sessions for composers including Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, Armando Trovajoli, Gianni Ferrio and Bruno Canfora, and appearing on RAI variety programs such as Canzonissima and Fantastico. His earliest Discogs-verified recording dates from this period: he plays guitar on The Sound (1970), led by pianist Amedeo Tommasi with bassist Giovanni Tommaso, flutist Quarto Maltoni, trombonist Mario Midana and drummer Vincenzo Restuccia. In 1974 he won a RAI competition for principal solo guitar in the broadcaster's own Rome orchestra (today the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI), a chair he held for eleven years. His biography credits him with backing visiting American jazz musicians, among them Gil Evans, Lee Konitz, Archie Shepp and Steve Lacy, during the orchestra's guest engagements in this period; this claim rests on his Italian Wikipedia biography alone and has no corresponding Discogs credit.

Coppotelli left the RAI orchestra in 1985 to dedicate himself entirely to jazz, and over the following 31 years, until his death, released seven albums as a leader along with one DVD of a live concert. His 1986 studio album Everithings Music is Discogs-verified with bassist Massimo Moriconi, tenor saxophonist Maurizio Giammarco, drummer Gianpaolo Ascolese, and pianists Antonello Vannucchi and Stefano Sabatini. A 1994 live quintet date, issued in 2000 as The Best Live on Splasc(h) Records, is Discogs-verified with pianist Cinzia Gizzi, saxophonist Stefano Di Battista, bassist Pino Sallusti and drummer Carlo Bordini. AllMusic separately lists alto saxophonist Massimo Urbani, pianist Stefano Sabatini, bassist Moriconi and drummer John Arnold as the quintet on 55 Years Young...All That Jazz (Splasc(h), 2003), recorded live at the Le Roi club in Arezzo on May 16, 1985; that lineup is not itemized on Discogs, so it is reported here on AllMusic's authority alone. A 1996 electric-guitar quartet date, Blues in the Sky, is Discogs-verified with bassist Pino Sallusti, pianist Alessandro Bonanno and drummers Carlo Bordini and Gianni Di Renzo, and his 2003/2004-era quintet record Remembering Gil, a tribute to Gil Evans, carries billing for Giancarlo Maurino, Alessandro Bonanno, Pino Sallusti, Gianpaolo Ascolese and Enzo Scoppa without itemized instrument credits on Discogs.

Coppotelli taught throughout his career, and his biography names him among the formative influences on a run of younger Roman jazz musicians, including Giammarco, Di Battista, pianist Rita Marcotulli, Moriconi and Gizzi; these mentorship claims, like the ones above, rest on his biography rather than a specific documented session. He played a Gibson L5 archtop and named Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall, Tal Farlow and Wes Montgomery as formative influences on his style. Rome's Alpheus club hosted a concert marking his 80th birthday on December 3-4, 2009. His recordings were reviewed in the American jazz press, including Cadence and the All-Music Guide to Jazz. Sergio Coppotelli died in Frascati, near Rome, on June 10, 2016, at age 86, and is buried at the Monte Compatri cemetery.

Coppotelli's guitar style grew out of swing and bebop, built on a clean, driving tone he carried from his classical training, and he described his own playing as moving between momentum-driven, decisive passages and more lyrical, harmonically lush ones. He drew on the American guitar lineage running from Eddie Lang and Django Reinhardt through Charlie Christian, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall, Tal Farlow and Wes Montgomery, and his working-quintet recordings from the 1980s onward, built around tenor and alto saxophone front lines, sit in a straight-ahead post-bop idiom alongside standards such as Duke Ellington's "Caravan" and Thelonious Monk's "Well You Needn't." His two decades inside Rome's RAI and Cinecittà studio system, scoring and recording alongside major Italian film composers, ran in parallel with this jazz identity rather than displacing it, and he set it aside entirely in 1985 to lead his own groups for the rest of his life.