Biography

“Jazz and irony, world music and amusement, dance and improvisation: the music of the "wacky Italian" guitarist Enzo Rocco is a mix of contemporary jazz, free improvisation and folk music from all around the world always dressed with that generous amount of sense of theatre that always make so tasty his shows”.

Guitarist, improviser, composer, conductor. Enzo Rocco has taken part in various groups since the early ‘90 also attendeding contemporary music, music for theatre and ballet, folk music, happenings and improvisations with poets and with painters.

With his groups he has recorded a dozen of CDs (very well reviewed by the press all over the world) and he has played everywhere in Europe and often in Japan, Indonesia, Latin America, Northern Africa.

Nowadays, after closing the eight-years experience of the Tubatrio - his own group with Giancarlo Schiaffini (trombone/tuba/electronics) and Ettore Fioravanti (drums) - he leads his own amusing “bass-less” New Trio as well as keeps travelling around the world with Carlo Actis Dato (the humoristic, crazy duo being born in 1997).

Since Janyuary 2004 Rocco has been running a duo with the Scottish drummer Tom Bancroft (winner of the musicians of the year BBC3 Award 2006). The duo was born thanks to the suggestion of Roger Spence, Director of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and regularly takes part in many important jazz festivals in UK (London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Cheltenham, etc.).

Regularly active in Latin America since 2000, in Argentina Rocco created the “Spaghetti Jazz Trio” with Rodrigo Dominguez on saxophones and Hernan Mandelman on drums (cd “Live in Buenos Aires”, 2012) and runs a duo with Pablo Ledesma (“Seis episodios en busca de autor”, 2010).
He was also responsible of the Italian Song Project, born by a commission of the Italian Cultural Institute in Buenos Aires and dedicated to the arrangement of the most famous Italian songs.

He has been a regular partner of some important English improvisers, above all pianist Veryan Weston (cd “London Gigs”, 2000 ) and during a ten years friendship he played several gigs with the incomparable Lol Coxhill ("Fine Tuning", 2009).

In France in 2006 he led a trio with Frédéric Monino (bass) and Bruno Tocanne (drums) purchased by the “Cri du Port” of Marseille, whilst in 2011 he was invited to take part in some concerts in duo with Barre Phillips (Montpellier, Agde).

He collaborated in Italy with Peter Kowald, in Belgium with André Goudbeek, and partecipated to the Italian conductions of Butch Morris. Definitely he regularly meets a lot of musicians around the world. He often visits Japan and collaborates with the Italian Cultural Institutes around the world.

Since 1997 he has been more and more involved – concerts, workshops, meetings – in his personal concept of collective conducted improvisation called “comprovisation”, nowadays open to dancers and videoartits too.

Eventually he was for seven years the artistic director of the Bottesini Bassofestival, dedicated – in the name of the double-bass virtuoso in his home town Crema – to every kind of “low-pitched” instrument in every kind of music. Since 2000 he has collaborated to the festival “Mardi Graves” in Montpellier.


“Jazz = funky/neapolitan/electronic/blues mixed with verdi’s/heavy metal/opera mixed with russian/yodel/waltz of santo domingo mixed with an hard japanese noise- lullaby sang by an italian romantic crooner…”

“Enzo Rocco continues his untiring comparison all over the world with that musicians like him interested in the research of new languages mixing, in the name of the jazz, a lot of different influences…always seasoned with that theatrical, ironic, humoristic approach which is the natural way Rocco runs his idea of jazz.”