ALESSIO RICCIO   INNOVATION AND EXPLORATION   By Luigi Radassao   Viking stature, long raven-black hair and sporting a black leather biker jacket, Alessio Riccio initially seems more a heavy-metal drummer than the notorious, conscientious lover of percussion art.  But his affable ways, his extreme kindness and, above all, the broad “flourishing” of musical themes that crop up when speaking with him immediately betray this first impression, while preserving and consolidating all the best and most important that is inherent to eccentricity: the variety in interests, the pluralism in artistic trends, and non-conformism in musical choices. Eclecticism is the term that best suits Alessio’s volcanic personality: a naturally gifted drummer and, what’s more, from an extensive educational background; creator and promoter of heterogeneous projects in jazz, percussion and improvisational music; insightful expert on percussion in all its various forms (from ethnical traditions to the drum’s historical and instrumental evolution to the cultured western pursuit); above all, a musician dedicated to the continuous study of a true expressive dimension while refusing to renounce his style, his ideas and his instrument as a means to obtain, in the music making world, some unmistakable peculiarities.  The formative as well as artistic courses of this eccentricity has often made stimulating trajectories “devoid of centre”, at variable gravitation, from which Alessio’s elliptical music, orbiting around a plurality of flames, can be considered the transcending image.   In Alessio’s drumming there beats an extreme rigour – almost mechanical due to the use of computer, loop, drum machine, drum programming and sequencer - giving form to an inexhaustible search that is at once polyrhythmic, polyphonic and polytonal. Yet, there is also a formal and similarly extreme syntactical independence – almost urgently free - that nonetheless winds its way through a complex yet severe design. Like the geometric squaring of the circle, he has both the mathematics that would like to bridle, stress and measure everything cyclical, insoluble for its own nature, and the circumference that, through its incommensurable and inexhaustible “pi - p”, rebels against engineer-like rationality. I met Alessio in his recording studio in Florence. Surrounding him were a panoply of drums and machines of every sort, virtually a symbolic representation of the heterogeneity that nourishes him. In the hopes of “sizing up”, as much as possible, this musical and cultural eclectic I asked him some information regarding his initial approaches to music and the drums.   ALESSIO RICCIO: My discovery of music came at a rather late age. It came by mere chance and, consequently, without any pressures when I was 16 years old and an absolute neophyte. This was quite possibly the reason I immediately and profoundly fell in love with it:  I still have those magical memories of the first attempts at “playing” in the attic of my parents’ house, the first lessons and the first threats from the slightly vexed next-door neighbours who warned me against playing the “drum”.  Studying has always been a pleasure for me, a kind of second nature: it was never a sacrifice and I considered it a way of approaching the fascinating dimension of music that had a bewitching power over me and, at the same time, was full of strength and poetry. This is probably why I have always put it before other, more “normal” adolescent things, forcing myself to enrol and study at the Conservatory during my last two years of high school: a true delirium of books, lessons, schedules and teachers! Music was everything:  I have always been a “nerd” in the sense that not one Sunday went by when I wasn’t engaged in practicing and studying the drums. As soon as I finished my extramural music studies I invented study-plans that took up 8-10 hours of the day.  Playing was never very difficult for me and I could never get enough of it. I have studied music in Italy (Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Bologna, Siena and Rome) and I have almost always had great teachers, among whom I would like to cite Timothy Kotowich and Fabio Rogai (my first teachers), Alessandro Fabbri and Piero Borri, Maestro Renzo Stefani from the Florence Music Conservatory, Horacio Hernandez and Ettore Fioravanti.  Alongside all these great instructors,  I attended, a bit sporadically, drumming seminars.  I have deep respect for my course of study:  I received scholarships from Siena Jazz, the Berklee College of Music of Boston and from the Drummers’ Collective of New York.  I have won numerous prizes, including those for drummers (such as the “Modern Drummer International Contest” from New York in 1997, the “Outstanding Musicianship Award” from Berklee of Boston in 1994 and the “Percfest” in 1998), as well as those for music projects and those for musician selection in important Jazz orchestras (AMJ National Orchestra, the O.F.P. Orchestra and the New Talents Orchestra).  These were very important experiences insofar as they enabled my growth as musician through the serene contact with percussionists and drummers of an international realm, guiding me through the understanding of a real artistic consistency in my projects and allowing me to work alongside musicians with whom I had always dreamed of sharing this creative experience in music. Ostensibly, musicians of diverse backgrounds, each with his own different technical and cultural baggage.  Which of these musicians were most important for you and what was it like working with them? ALESSIO RICCIO: They were all important for me even if in different ways and in different moments: the Time Escape, my first group, an irreplaceable musical initiation, the nucleus that, at the time, had absolutely incredible reviews; Steve Coleman, Carla Bley and Steve Swallow because I met them in a decisive moment in my artistic growth – that rite of passage from “drummer” to “artist”; my experience in the Italian Youth Jazz Orchestra with Mario Raja (of whom I have fond memories), Bruno Tommaso, Gianluigi Trovesi, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Eugenio Colombo and Rudi Migliardi; Tim Berne, Dominique Pifarély, Michel Godard, Steve Lacy, Gabriele Mirabassi and Ernst Reijseger who participated in my projects and with whom, notwithstanding the usual time restrictions, I was able to give shape to a part of my musical ideas.  Then we naturally have the musicians with whom I usually work, Claude Barthélémy, whose music seems “made to measure” for me, given that it takes its form through the interpretation of extremely articulated musical arrangements and through the total improvisation, a kind of Frank Zappa of Jazz, that balances between extreme rigour and irony; and Stefano Battaglia, a musician of great sensitivity who possesses a special place in my heart due to the great influence he had in my artistic maturity.  Despite the obvious differences, these were true and great mentors, musicians of superior understanding whose artistic vision were never prisoner to clichés or common settings. This was your musical “formation”.  From whom or from what did the instrument you play come into being? ALESSIO RICCIO: As we can see from the sketches in “The Metalanguage Unit” section, it seems a sort of dilated drum set, broadened to the extent of embracing drums and metallic percussions of different origins.  Yet, once you begin to play, it becomes obvious that this is no mere extension of a percussion instrument but a search for a totally new instrument, just as Harry Partch’s sonorous creatures, Scriabin’s multimedia keyboards or Russolo’s noise-tuners could have been. The Metalanguage Unit is a vision and, as such, it was hatched from my unconscious, from the most profound part of my essence as man and artist.  It is quite difficult to trace the spark that generated this creation, an invention that materialized in my mind in an altogether instantaneous way, without warning.  In this sense, I firmly believe The Metalanguage Unit represents something purely mine: it is my “temenos”, an authentic space in which those who are interested are invited to share in the musical experience.  The enormous work necessary to transport it from an oneiric dimension to a tangible one fundamentally consisted in the neurotic attention to detail as is shown in the personalized touch in each element, whether instrumental or mechanical.  This is why I consider it more than just a drum set:  it is a sonorous sculpture because it is home to the intangibility of the musical moment and to the concrete resonant object.  At the same time it is creation and vehicle, points of arrival and departure, expression of purity and artistic discipline; for me, these are all extremely important factors in music. The Unit’s realization was an opportunity for immense reflections both as man and artist:  it was a rebirth releasing me once and for all from the inevitable psychological conditioning intrinsic in the didactic learning process and from the pressures induced by the musical instrument companies that obligate everyone into using the same instrumental configurations.  I feel it my duty to thank Luigi Tronci from UFIP and Luca Deorsola from Drum Sound, two men at the helm of musical instrument companies who both possess a “distinct” philosophy; not only have they always believed in my visions but have played a influential role, through their talent and sensitivity, in helping me to concretely accede to my ideas. At such a young age (Alessio is just in his thirties) you are already trying to be something other than mere “accompanist” drummer or percussion soloist.  It seems more of an exploration in the hopes of building music based on a more “global” sound… ALESSIO RICCIO: Music is in itself a global language and my exploration takes its form through this conviction: a search that is expression of crossroads having, consciously or not, persistently characterized my projects. The departure points have been many but all have had a common base – accuracy and thorough examination. Everything takes off from there, from detail, from the particular.  It is a bit like a living organism whose functions, even the most complex ones, are dependent on the functioning of a single cell.  In musical terms, it is about giving form to the sounds I have inside me, having them come out from the most profound and authentic part of my essence, living them for each moment of their existence.  The study I have carried out in these last years has a sole objective:  a conscientious and stylistic emancipation implemented through the recovery of different elements – those “interior” that are tied to my original human nature and necessarily rediscovered by looking within me, and those “exterior” that, in this specific case, are tied to the bonds of European culture and music, decisive factors for freeing oneself from the American drummer’s influence.  All of this obviously happened through a re-analysis of languages, forms and contexts, of the elements with which we express ourselves, of the role of artist and of the liberties we are more or less allowed to take with music: those delicate concepts such as ethics, conscience, coherence and versatility.  Only profound conviction enables the musician’s personality to come not via the working table but by rediscovery through a more natural process - the release from the infections to which not even music is immune: conventionality and cliché. It was therefore a question of knocking down those walls, which inhibited the spontaneous manifestation of the music that lived within me, thus bringing into being what you perceived as “different” and that, in reality, I would define “original”, intending it as a dimension, solely mine, to share with the public during the time of performance.  What’s more, one of the phrases that most influenced me during my drummer’s youth and still obsesses me was made by Count Basie’s drummer, Charlie Persip: he claimed not to have a favourite drummer because his favourite drummer was, in fact, himself or, more appropriately, the drummer he aspired to become. Electronic uses – drum machine, loop, sequencer, drum programming – is integral part to this “global sound”. Thanks to this technique you are able to construct patterns, created in real time, that you then use as a rhythmic canvas in order to form continually changing polyrhythmic and polymetric sounds. Strong dynamics between form and improvisation are established in the precise moment man and machine interact: the “new”, the surprise in whose depths resides the true pleasure of music, is then able to emerge due to a structural element in itself “inanimate”.  I wonder if it is a question of the surprise taking you over as well, during your own performance (or else following, during the listening) or if, vice versa, it is all so “programmed” to astonish only the listener?     ALESSIO RICCIO: My music is a hybrid par excellence, being that it lives in that borderland where elements apparently antithetical, such as writing and improvisation, acoustics and electronics, jazz, rock and classical music unite.  My own peculiarities as musician are based on opposites:  in fact I love to associate languages and sounds, elements seemingly irreconcilable in relation to such “contrasting” poetics.  It is in fact through this contrast that the surprise, to which you previously referred, surfaces: rhythm develops from an encounter-attack through the loops, with their rhythmic and coloured “grills”, and through what I choose to play in a given moment, all of which is, in certain ways, nearly impossible to plan. As far as I can see the point of reference for the evolution of the timekeeping concept is exactly located at the point in which fusion occurs between the continuous rhythmic flow of a minimalist nature – accompanied by an  inevitable assembly-line sensation  – and a metaphysical trance: “cubist rhythms”, as I refer to them for the fact that they can be heeded and interpreted by following the most diverse angularities, taking shape on long measures and prevailingly establishing themselves on the hypnotic and delayed effect of repetition. The ear then meets a fluctuating variety of aspects: a dimension in which we can play inside or out, with or against, given that the phrasing no longer feels the stylistic limitations and time, being round and absolutely remote from the typical western rhythmic stasis that often imprisons the drummer in pre-fabricated patterns, can once again breathe.  The search is exalting because it leads to the most absolute linguistic freedom: freedom to respond to the colourful and melodic requests of extemporaneous composition, freedom to immerse oneself in very complex metrics without feeling the inevitable immensity  of the same (even though dependent on sequencer or click – rigid elements par excellence) and freedom to unite everything; instead of destroying the sensation of time’s flow, it succeeds in exalting that innate cyclical ability, moving according to the criteria of an absolute instinctive autonomy.  A drummer’s musical vocabulary broadens beyond measure solely because he no longer distributes the “beats” according to the pre-constructed mathematical schemes, “keeping time” or not, thanks also to the confrontation with the machine that awakens through meeting a most spontaneous creation. The listening, the interaction (with whom and/or with what):  is it there that the mysterious – surprising – part of music resides? ALESSIO RICCIO: The revelation of music is situated one step beyond the limits of our musician’s consciousness and artistic experiences. It is that door leading to absolute creativity, the ultimate goal.  For me it is a primary need: I have never been able to accept playing music when I already know the outcome or, worse, by following models I do not recognize as such. Style and context do not matter, attitude does: an attitude ever poised between vocation, talent, discipline and the sense of responsibility.  No matter if we are able to communicate among ourselves or with others, it is more an artistic choice tied to the direction in which we would like to proceed in a given moment.  The music we play must be an expression of ourselves and of our will to grow, without fear of the unknown or of failure. Now, you have catapulted yourself into the difficult field of the recording industry by having your own label.  What are the projects, and their various spheres, that occupy you the most? The foundation of a recording structure was simply child to the need to create music and to completely follow it through the realization process.  I need to physically feel the power of my creations:  the musical moment swells until it embraces all the phases of a work’s realization.  It is exactly what I am looking for:  the poetic function of music remains unaltered until the final cut, from the moment that you are the one who establishes its direction, caring for the smallest detail so that music’s communicative force is not dispersed, driven into thousands of “passages”.  Having the recording company makes me feel good, not only because it gives shape to my musical visions but it also allows me to directly manage the fruit of my music, something I believe to be very important since it legitimises the enormous efforts that musicians invest in the creative act.   Among the latest generation of drummers, to whom do you enjoying listening or who do you admire the most for his/her planning? ALESSIO RICCIO: I need to borrow a quote from the Dutch pianist, Misha Mengelberg, to respond to this question - it is a phrase found in one of my favourite books, “Improvisation” by Derek Bailey.  Mengelberg sustains that, since what he would like to hear no one yet plays, he will play it himself.  I agree.  Don’t get me wrong: there are very many great drummers around today, most of them great from a pure instrumentalist point of view.  In this moment, I am concentrated on trying to give form to my musical visions and this objective makes me very selective regarding my listening choices. If you really want some names I’ll give you those to whom I am currently listening, even if they’re not the “newest”:  Neil Peart, Terry Bozzio and Joey Baron.  Plus, almost all of my biggest influences have come from non-drummers.  Careful, though! Tomorrow I might change my mind.   What are your projects for the future and what are your upcoming realizations? ALESSIO RICCIO: Concerts with Claude Barthélémy (in France, Canada and U.S.A.), Dadadang, Sonorous Sculptures, Kenny Wheeler, Homage To A Dream and recordings with Stefano Battaglia, with Markus Stockhausen and with a trio including Ned Rothenberg.I will finish my recording projects and my videos, those cited under recordings as well as three projects with two different quartets (acoustic and electric) and I hope to put together some writing, on which I am currently working, into book form: I have great confidence in this project, whether it is published or not. My primary goal remains my artistic growth that occurs through the actual “putting into work” all of these projects that I still consider vehicles rather than points of arrival: exploration, reflection, attention to detail and the reunion of everything in a holistic vision of music without separating music from all the other aspects of life.  And, above all, to have music be always and absolutely expression of my original nature, the one and true key towards evolution. (Text written, edited and adapted by Luigi Radassao; photographs by Peter McCausland)

	Mario, the webmaster mariggio@tiscalinet.it Last Modified: 07-24-2001.