Collection: Carella, Rocco

Rocco Carella was born in Bari, Italy, in 1973. He started guitar lessons at seven, but stopped after some years to pursue his other love, football. Then, at 14, he saw Pink Floyd live in concert: he rushed home to his guitar and spent a sleepless night learning to play Wish You Were Here. This was love the second time around, and it endured: the guitar has never been out of his life since. He resumed classical guitar lessons then, at 16, got his first electric guitar. He changed his focus, exploring rock and blues. That led to his first experiences with local bands: he played in a number of bands in and around Bari, from rock to folk, playing both electric and classical guitar.
In 1994 Rocco started on a new path, studying jazz with a local jazz-fusion star. A year later he attended the prestigious International Seminar ‘Siena Jazz’, studying jazz guitar with Tommaso Lama. In its wake, he embarked on a deep and intense study of the jazz idiom, supplemented by workshops and seminars with some of the most influential Italian jazz guitarists, and with great international jazz and jazz-fusion artists such as Garrison Fewell, Scott Henderson and Mike Stern.
In 2003 he founded the Rocco Carella jazz-fusion trio. In 2005 he was a finalist in the Eddie Lang International Jazz Competition.
Rocco’s first album, Portrait of My Land (classical guitar with a world music approach) was released in 2011. His second, I'm so Far From the Crowd, featuring both classical and electric guitar, followed in 2012. An album for solo classical guitar, Abandoned and Forgotten, was released in 2017.
Rocco's main influences among guitarists are mainly in the jazz-fusion field – for example, John Scofield, Mike Stern, Robben Ford, and John McLaughlin. He is also inspired by the more classic jazz players like Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, and Joe Pass. From the rock and blues field he is influenced by, among others, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Rothery, Mark Knopfler, John Mayer, B.B. King, and Andy Summers. And among Italian guitarists, his great influences were Pino Daniele and Francone Mussida.
Rocco Carella’s publications with Bergmann Edition include the trio Passetino and an anthology of highly accessible jazz-infused solo pieces for classical guitar.