"Italien ohne Sizilien macht gar kein Bild in der Seele: hier ist erst der Schlüssel zu allem."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italienische Reise, Palermo 1817
I was born in a suburb of Palermo, in the south of the south of Europe in the place where Goethe had big serendipity (all described in Italienische Reise) and a potpourri of cultures. My first impulses to music came by my father, he was a polystrumentist (bass,guitar,voice,drum in a poprock band called Le Pagine Gialle) and I can clearly remember even if I was really really little, that every time we were in the car waiting for the green traffic light, he started to play drum on the steering wheel of his white Fiat Uno, and what a rhythm! Then I started to torture for days and days the guitars of my uncles until finally at 16 I bought my first Yamaha and I started to take classical lessons from Alberto Di Rosa.
Suddenly I started to feel the need for other instruments and I took even a fretless bass for playing with the classical choir of the Conservatory of Palermo in the Accademia dei Cantori Nuovi directed by the Maestro Norino Buogo. That was particulary formative and funny because once they discovered that I was able to play in a decent way guitar and percussions there I started to substitute even the percussionist and the classical guitarrist when they can't play to some concerts.
After a bit, in the end of the 20th century I met thanks to Andrea one of his pupils, Giuseppe Urso, in my opinion the best jazz drummer and teacher of Sicily and I started to take formal lessons until I left the first time my triangular isle searching for a job in the rest of Italy.
In the meantime I started to play jam in Rome, Milan, Mantova, Padova, Vicenza, Montreal, Chicago, and occasionally when I came back to Palermo for the holidays, even in my hometown together with a lot of interesting jazz, blues and even rock musicians and bands, then I went for 3 years in the class of Electroacoustic Music in the Conservatory of my town under the guidance of Maestro Giuseppe Rapisarda, but I wasn't able to finish that accademic study because the urgency to leave once again was too intense, so in Venice I become a broadcast audio and video tech. for national TV of Germany, Spain and Italy, and I continued to travel the world in search of artistic and life experiences, giving music lessons and recording musicians in studios. I even came to be interested in popular and traditional music and I started to create ensembles with several musician froms the Arabic world, Africa, from India, Hungary, China, Japan, Bali/Java, and I started to experiment and study all these systems. Before arriving in Dresden thanks to the invitation of Davide Accardi, a friend and guitarist, I've played in Palermo with the Crabs, Alien from Nylon, Brahaman, Ozacaf, Malvasia, La Banda di Palermo, Coro dell'Accademia Cantori Nuovi directed by Maestro Norino Buogo, Prot!, Masquerade, Winetrip, Qualcuno Cadra', Francesco Mastrilli (sax), Danilo Mercadante, Pietro Bonanno (piano), Davide Rinella (guitar and harmonica), Salvatore Mercadante (double bass), Francesco Guzzardi (guitar), Marco Corrao (guitar, dobro, voice), Alberto Petrigno (double bass), Francesco Ribaudo (guitar), Alessandro Bettina(keyboards), Lorenzo Mercurio (voice), Marco Bracci (electric bass), Matteo Brucato (guitar), Mirko Luparelli (voice), and more.
In Dresden thanks to common friends I met the Pangaea Trio and..