Alex

UPCOMING SHOWS
Born in Prato (Italy) on March 16, 1968, at the age of 5 y.o. I started my music studies in electronic organ. I was a student of CAM (private music school) and my master teachers were Michele Rainone (propaedeutics and music theory), Enzo De Dominicis (classic and pop electronic organ) and Claudio Spinelli (classic and jazz acoustic piano).
From the age of 10 I'm performing on live stages playing organ, piano, synthesizers and various keyboards, with experiences in various styles (pop, rock, blues, fusion, jazz, folk, ethnic and some more... ) . But often I come back to my first love: J.S.Bach fugues and some more played using a true pipe organ!
In my life, I spent a part of time performing on live stages with some big italian artists ( Alan Sorrenti , Aleandro Baldi , Nick Becattini ). Moreover, I know personally several big international artists ( Brian Auger , Rudy Rotta , Scott Henderson , and many more...). Now I'm playing various keyboards (let's see my stage set on the left side) and I'm involved in several musical projects.
First of these, I’m playing with Mr.Banana Band (originally the band name was Mr.Banana & The Blobbers), a blues band which is playing in live stages in Italy and in Europe. The band is composed by Marco "Mr.Banana" Pieraccini (acoustic and electric guitar, lead vocal), Marco Polidori (electric bass, backing vocal), Stefano Puccianti (drums) and me (keyboards, backing vocal).
The band genre is modern- and old-fashioned blues, with many original songs and some evergreen covers from several blues composers (Albert Collins, BB King, Robben Ford and many others). In some cases, the base quartet is "enlarged" with some more additional players (e.g. saxophones, trumpets, trombones, etc.), allowing to do some specials sets. One of these specials is the "Tribute to Albert Collins and The Icebreakers", a live set when we are performing the same songs of the live album recorded by Albert Collins and The Icebreakers in the past season 1992-93. If you like, let’s see following video(s) from our live experience:
Mr.Banana Band
The genius of the lamp
Live @ Black Out Festival - Prato - June 29, 2007
Mr.Banana & The Blobbers
You don’t know my name
Live TV Show “L’Italia che canta” on RTB International (Sat TV chnl)
On air from Castiglion dei Pepoli (BO) – September 2, 2006
(Courtesy of Sasà Massarelli)
Moreover, I'm playing with Restauro Band , an italian / international pop band which offers cover songs for about 4 hours (!) of uninterrupted music in each show (over 100 songs played every time, selected from a playlist of over 3000 songs!!!). The band is composed by Emiliano Cangemi (a.k.a. "Zap" - electric guitar, lead vocal), Lara Mucci (a.k.a. "Pagnottella" - lead vocal), Maurizio Segurotti (a.k.a. "Kocis" - electronic drums) and me (a.k.a. "Big-ALE" - keyboards, backing and some lead vocal). Our shows are very strong, let's see the photo album...
Sometimes, other great-featured additional musicians are coming to our show (making several different stage sets to be possible), like Irene Tancredi (lead vocal), Carlos Peréz (percussions – he worked with several italian and international big artists like Laura Pausini and Renato Borghetti), Francesco Schina (saxophones), Daniele Nesi (electric bass), and many more. Sometimes, we are doing "techno remixes" of traditional italian popular folk songs, offering "a different point of view" about our folk tradition.
Furthermore, sometimes I’m performing in duets with one female singer (with Lara, Irene or some other like Francesca D’Ugo, Antonella De Angelis, and many others) or I’m playing like “freelancer” in some italian band.
When I'm not playing music, I work like electronic and IT designer, envolved in technological research applications. This allows to do some customization of musical instruments (e.g. installing flash memory storage units instead of standard electro-mechanics hard disk drives, etc.).