After graduation, Marinacci began working with the most prestigious pop music ensembles and big bands of the RAI (the Italian state broadcasting company), especially in Turin and Rome. During this intense period he focused on baritone sax, flute and bass clarinet, working with great bandleaders and conductors like Armando Trovajoli, Ennio Morricone, Franco Ferrara, Gorni Kramer, Gianni Ferrio and Piero Piccioni. In 1950 Gino moved towards jazz and became part of the group of Nunzio Rotondo, collaborating with some of the great talents of the time, such as Piero Umiliani, with whom he recorded the Piccola Suite Americana per Quattro Ance. He began to win awards for his work on baritone sax, becoming one of the leading players of that instrument on the Italian jazz scene. Also with Piero Umiliani, he recorded the soundtrack of the film ‘L’Audace Colpo dei Soliti Ignoti’, together with Chet Baker.

Carlo Fabbri: “What Gino Marinacci was offering, in my view, was absolutely innovative for Italy at the start of the 1970s. The set-up and the developments undoubtedly came from jazz: the simple head-jam-head arrangement, the mostly modal harmony and the melodic ideas all bear this out. But the sound is much lighter, and it is approached in a very different way. The beautiful themes and arrangements take on an evocative character from the particular blend of flutes doubled at different ranges, trombone, the great color added by the Fender Rhodes (which was coming to the fore in those years) and the percussion, played in an elegant, discreet way. Everything adds up to a sound with a slightly Latin flavor. [...] Hearing that sound of Marinacci’s record took me back in time: in the 1970s I was already devouring music with a passion, and the first name that comes to mind is that of Eumir Deodato, the percussionist and Rhodes pianist, in particular… though in Eumir’s music the rhythmical drive is stronger. I can point out that sometimes Gino seems to be having fun by doubling the flute sound, exaggerating the breathiness or overlaying his voice, a technique invented by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the amazing unsighted black multi-instrumentalist, a style that later became famous when it was used by certain rock groups.” - Carlo Fabbri, December 2020.