ALEX ROSSELLI

by Hapax Legomenon

ALEX ROSSELLI

Instrumental-Rock-Jazz-Fusion Alessandro “Alex” Rosselli is a versatile guitar player from Italy. Fans of instrumental rock will enjoy all of his current recordings. It so happens I have a proclivity for this kind of music so I seek it out. Finding an artist with 5 albums worth of material, and all of it instrumental, for this listner was like being a kid in a (ear) candy store. I was poking around CD Baby one afternoon and started sampling this man’s music and was intrigued by what he had to offer. Rosselli started with Impressions in 2001, and if you are wondering why it is not available on CD Baby its because the album is currently undergoing a remastering and will be re-released. All four of the other titles My Red Guitar, Arlekkino, Moonlight, and Walking Through the Gates, are currently available. This group of recordings is a good example of all the different moods, tones, atmospheres, and varying compositions that can be created and executed in the realm of the electric six-string. Rosselli takes the nod from Hendrix and all the greats in wide array of genres, including rock, jazz, and fusion. At times he flat out rocks and goes off on a run then decides to drop it down a few notches and play less aggressively allowing the listener to hear the more tasteful and directed side of his playing. Rosselli does his share of experimentation during the course of five CDs, seeing what kind of sounds he can coax from his axe. For example, in regards to the 2004 release Arlekkino, he states “I wanted to explore different sounds, using more midi-guitar as usual, to create sound effects such as ambient keyboard or melodic solos.” Rosselli was not afraid to use today’s technologies to help create the sounds he was searching for on his albums. There is a lot to take in within these five CDs and I think this artist has a lot potential to take things to another level if he stays on this path. I admire him for taking the initiative and putting all this work out there with nothing else to back him but his six-string and some inventiveness in the studio, it is just the man and his guitar and that is as simplistic as it gets. I think for those particular reasons I could really appreciate the things Rosselli is trying to accomplish. © MuzikReviews.com-http://www.muzikreviews.com Keith “MuzikMan” Hannaleck-June 13, 2007

Italian-born instrumental guitarist Alessandro ("Alex") Rosselli cites Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Allan Holdsworth, and Joe Satriani as influences. While there are certainly characteristics of these legends' styles in Rosselli's playing, his music greatly expands upon these elements to create a style uniquely his own. His music often employs a very clean, melodic guitar sound, sometimes punctuated with a distorted lead guitar track. Rosselli's recording career has spanned five albums, each showing a range of musical styles and nuances. He recorded his first album in 2001, titled Impressions, and followed it up a year later with Walking Through the Gates. In 2003, Rosselli released Moonlight which showed his more introspective side, with songs like Moonlight and Bells and Trains, but still rocked out on songs like Like a Shooting Star. His guitar technique and musicianship evolved considerably by the time he released Arlekkino in 2004 and the album is a finely-textured collection of songs. His most recent release, the 2005 album My Red Guitar, marks a return to a more straightforward recording approach.