Paola Arnesano was born in Bari in 1969. She studied singing with the soprano Maria Grazia Pani and acting with Antonella Porfido and Franco Damascelli. Her debut as a jazz singer goes back to the end of the eighties when, in co-operation with Mario Rosini on piano, she formed a quintet in her name. In the meantime she studied the piano with Nico Marziliano and she also studied arrangement for big band with the maestro Luigi Giannatempo.

Very fond of jazz samba and bossa nova, she studied their language and repertoire: this would result in the establishment of permanent bands like the Abrasileirado and the Trio de Janeiro, whose co-leader is Guido Di Leone. Mainly attracted to the cool singers of the fifties, she started to develop original projects, such as a jazz re-interpretation of the Italian songs of the forties or the writing of lyrics for a more recent music which had never been sung before. At the same time she started to compose her own music and this would lead to the release of her first two records. In the meantime she was asked to be permanently part of Attilio Zanchi’s quartet which, besides him, the double bass player, was also formed by Guido Di Leone and Gilson Silveira. Moreover she also steadily co-operated with Davide Santorsola, Mimmo Campanale and Maurizio Quintavalle. At that time she got second at the Premio Urbani.

She started to co-operate with the big names of the Italian jazz scene like Stefano Bollani, Roberto Ottaviano, Angelo Adamo, Gianni Cazzola, Ettore Fioravanti, Franco Cerri, Gianni Basso, Luigi Bonafede, Tiziana Ghiglioni, Marco Micheli, Massimo Manzi, Tomaso Lama, Gianluca Petrella, Daniele Scannapieco, Aldo Vigorito, Fabrizio Bosso, Pietro Ciancaglini, Enzo Zirilli, Nicola Stilo, Renato Sellani, Ares Tavolazzi and Dado Moroni, whom she recorded a duo-record with and whom she still steadily cooperates with.

Her concert activity took her to England, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. She gave several seminars in Italian schools and universities. Furthermore, in the last few years, she has also been performing as a member of the Faraualla vocal quartet and she has been co-operating with high calibre musicians such as Noa, Maria Pia De Vito, Paolino Dalla Porta, Francesco Sotgiu, Andrea Parodi, Pino Minafra, Rita Marcotulli, Bebo Ferra, Paolo Pietrangeli, Carmen Consoli, Antonella Ruggiero. Since 1993 she has worked at the music school Il Pentagramma in Bari, where she teaches singing, harmony and improvisation technique.

She won the Italian Jazz Awards "Luca Flores" 2009 as the "best jazz singer" in Italy.