Filippo cavalieri

Biography

Born in 1974, Filippo "Phil" Cavalieri grew up in an era where jazz-rock was at its peak. His formative musical years took place in Ferrara, Italy, where he played in the clubs with all kinds of bands playing everything from Jimi Hendrix to Barry White. As he was learning his instrument, Phil was influenced by Santana, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, and the guitarists of the classic rock bands of the seventies. Even though Cavalieri claims to be more of a blues-rock player, it was the influence of jazz that led him to the style of playing and composing in a different way of look at the improvisation.

Phil finished school and then moved to Holland, where he studied and played with different jazz players like Jan Kuiper, Winfred Buma and Leonardo Amuedo, and attended workshop by John Abercrombie, Charlie Haden, Scott Henderson, Gary Willis, John Taylor and Tuck Andrews.

Cavalieri started to play as pro in different bands around Italy in the mid-'90s and, since then, has proven himself as a world-class player and composer. In 2000, he started to play and compose with an independent label called Stranisuoni and worked in different projects with the Italian pop singer Luca Bui, bringing his new tunes to a national broadcast. After this experience of commercial music he turned back to jazz and started again with a new series of studies that took him far from the music for a full immersion research in how to create a personal way of playing and compose. He attended classes by a new generation Italian jazz players like Paolo Ghetti and Fabio Petretti, and graduated with a study of John Scofield's music.

Cavalieri's new way as independent artist started with a new composition that reflected the interest of the outside playing of Scofield and recent Wayne Krantz. The result is his new self-produced release, The First Third, that mixes outside playing and a bit of psychedelia ("Never forget the Grateful Dead!" seems to read between the guitar strings), where Phil plays different instruments on every tracks—of course, with guitar as the main instrument. The album will be sold on CDBaby and fusion label Abstract Logix websites.