ROCCO ZIFARELLI
In a tribute to Ennio Morricone who passed away last year Jason Sidwell talks to recent GT guest artist, Rocco Zifarelli, who played guitar with the legendary film composer for the last 23 years of his life.
Interview with Ennio Morricone’s guitarist.
Ennio Morricone passed away on 6th July 2020. Famous for Spaghetti Western scores such as The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, and Hollywood blockbusters like The Mission and The Untouchables, Morricone was renowned for writing unique guitar parts. Jason Sidwell talks to Ennio’s guitarist Rocco Zifarelli, about recording and performing with a music legend.
GT: How did you get to work with Ennio?
RZ: I worked with Ennio Morricone from 1997 until he passed away in 2020. Our work was initiated while I was an external member of the Italian RAI TV orchestra;the bass player and head of the orchestra, Nanni Civitenga, received a call from Ennio, asking him if he knew a good guitarist. Luckily, Nanni mentioned my name. Our first work was a recording session for a movie soundtrack and when I received the call, I was both surprised and terrified. Ennio was renowned for his intolerance towards mediocre musicians and I knew he had been quite hard on previous guitarists. He was always very particular with players who performed his music. The first guitar part to record was a double melodic line: one to be done normally and the other one with harmonics, some natural, some artificial. The group was small, just guitar, bass, drums and piano. We were to play above the recorded orchestra with a reference metronome. Ennio was directing from the control room and we started reading the parts only; initially I didn’t know what he wanted as there was no information on the part. So I used a very wide and ambient sound as I thought that was the best option to blend well with the orchestra. To read the melody better, I used Bill Frisell’s technique; harmonics shaped by the volume pedal. After having rehearsed the first piece all together, Ennio asked us to play individually. At that point I began to get a bit concerned, as if it were an examination. When I played my part, he looked bewildered, and asked me to play again. Then he said to me, “Wait, I’ll come over there.” I began thinking he was going to kick me out, and asked me to play in front of him again. Then he put his finger on the part and said: “No, these are two guitars and two separate lines: you have to record one line first and then overdub the other part”. There was not any indication like ‘guitar 1’ and ‘guitar 2’. So I played the first part and then the second with the harmonics. He said to me, “very good!” For the second piece I played exactly what was written but in a less artistic way; I was less myself, sticking to the part. When he asked me to play the piece alone it was okay for him. But I said, “Maestro, can I play in another way?” So I played it more legato in a light and airy way. Then he came over again, took the part off the music stand and said, “I don’t give a shit about the part, play whatever you want!” He encouraged me to be myself. That was a baptism for me. That evening, he called me at home, since it was a two-day session, and said: “Rocco, very well done, good job. See you tomorrow!” Then the session organiser called: “Great Rocco, you have conquered the Maestro!” I was flying at that moment!
GT: Name five pieces with prominent guitar and you have enjoyed playing live.
RZ: During my long collaboration with Ennio I played many of his compositions live. We did many world and European tours and for every tour the song list was a little different.
Generally the pieces were organised in suites among which there were two where the guitar was very much in evidence. I enjoyed alternating between electric and nylon-string guitars and using many different effects and presets during the same suite.
BALLAD OF SACCO E VANZETTI
One of these suites was called Social Cinema, and started with a piece called Luz Prodigiosa sung by the great Portuguese singer Dulce Pontes and continued with The Ballad Of Sacco And Vanzetti. Ennio asked me to use effects to recreate the noise of an electric chair. The suite continues with an arpeggio of electric classical guitar (generally the Godin Grand Concert) that introduced Sostiene Pereira. After that, others include The Working Class Goes To Heaven in which Ennio asked me to improvise on a line of Minor chords with a screaming, aggressive and very dissonant tone. For this I used a lot of distortion and harmonics manipulated by the whammy bar. Crazy, but again he liked it.
THE MAN WITH THE HARMONICA
Ennio hardly used the famous lead guitar themes in live concerts because he had rearranged the suite for a large orchestra. This resulted in a predominantly rhythmic role for the guitar except on The Man With The Harmonica. Here the guitar plays the main theme which in the original 1968 version was recorded by Bruno Battisti D’Amario; he along with Alessandro Alessandroni was the main lead guitarist for all of Ennio’s westerns and 60s and 70s movie scores. D’Amario used a fuzz to obtain a penetrating distorted sound which Ennio had requested. Although it was originally played in first position, I initially played it in fifth position to have more control. I soon realised that to get the same tone I would have to play it in first position with open strings and a heavy pick strum to create the necessary twang; bridge pickup, fuzz and a lot of reverb! Entering with a big solo part with only a slight veil of orchestral strings as support is a great responsibility. It was one of the most tense moments in concert for me.
THE SICILIAN CLAN
Another piece that I loved playing was part of the Scattered Sheets suite; The Sicilian Clan.
“Then Ennio came over again, took the part off the music stand and said, ‘I don’t give a shit about the part, play whatever you want!’”
The guitar plays the main part and to imitate the original sound it is necessary to consider that it was recorded in 1969. Again, Bruno Battisti D’Amario was the guitarist and he used a Fender Jaguar with very heavy flatwound strings and Fender blackface amps. This is typical surf guitar gear as surf was fashionable at that time in Italy. So I had to emulate an old 60s tone with modern gear and work on my picking technique to get it sounding right.This is one of my favourite compositions by Ennio and I love it in its entirety. So much so in fact that I recorded a free interpretation on my Music Unites album. In addition, I also recorded two versions of Ennio’s rousing main theme from The Untouchables.
LOVE CIRCLE, ONE NIGHT A DINNER
(Metti Una Sera A Cena)
One Night At Dinner is a kind of fast bossa that I preferred to play with the electric guitar and not with the classical nylon acoustic. I alternate rhythms and arpeggios in tempo with sync’d stereo delay. During the piece’s stops I used the volume pedal for a swell pad effect along with the expression pedal to increase the wet mix, blending in with the orchestra.
GT: How complex or unusual do you think Ennio’s music was? Did he ever discuss his composition approaches with you?
RZ: Over the years with Ennio I had the privilege of appreciating mostly his cinematic repertoire. This music spanned 60 years of his musical life, and his contemporary classical music background is evident throughout his soundtrack scores. He was the best student of Goffredo Petrassi, a great Italian musician, composer of contemporary classical music and professor of composition at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome. His extensive knowledge is evident in both the arrangements and the sound texture of the orchestra, as well as the numerous compositon and arranging techniques he used to augment what was happening on screen. We all know that Ennio is famous for composing beautiful and captivating film melodies that have fascinated and moved millions of people around the world. But I believe that one of Ennio Morricone’s great merits was that of giving new life to contemporary music as a whole. Think of his use of instruments such as the whistle, the mouth harp (very popular in Sicily) the guitar in western movies, the use of the pan pipes (Casualties Of War), the wind instrument melodies in The Mission and the use of the electric bass and synthesisers. Ennio seemed to have no musical limits and I never understood where he got his inspiration from when composing or using instruments and sounds unrelated to classical music. While he didn’t really listen to records or radio, he had the intelligence to surround himself with the right people in Rome where he lived. We often talked about his musical concepts and it was normal to
refer to his old and historical film compositions. When we were grouped as six solo musicians with some assistants we made many long journeys; along with him and his wife Maria, we often had dinner together, played cards and chess, and there are countless stories he told us after our questions - like children listening to fairy tales. Also we would discuss the new music we were to record; he often explained the film or the scene in order to find a suitable sound to express his music. He was very good at listening to other musicians’ perspectives too. But he rarely asked for advice as his ideas were very clear in his mind. I always aimed to play his music as close as possible to his idea.
GT: Did he accept your musical suggestions?
RZ: There were many moments when we discussed a suitable sound or guitar part that he had written. I must say that he was always perfect, both in the idea of the sound and in the writing of the part. When he wanted something well defined his score was perfect; he knew the guitar very well, in all its positions and range. I felt he trusted me a lot as, once he had explained the sound he wanted, I always managed to make it happen and don’t remember a moment when he expressed dissatisfaction. Sometimes he would sing his idea to me, often very particular things, and I had to get as close as possible. Once he wanted something very crazy and very rock, not for a film but for a record by a
Sardinian singer-actress (Clara Murtas - In Forma Di Stella, from the CD De Sa Terra A Su Xelu). Ennio had to arrange traditional religious songs from Sardinia, and decided to use the guitar to mimic the voice which I could have done only with the tremolo bar, heavy distortion and delays so the harmonics carried up and down. He liked it a lot; he said that everything was perfect but I shouldn’t make the neigh of the horse! He often called me in advance to get information, to find out if a certain thing could be done or if I had a particular instrument. I like to collect stringed instruments from all over the world so I can do almost anything. One day he asked if I had the Balalaika. I did, so he asked how it was tuned; generally two strings have the same pitch and the third one is a 4th above, but I could tune it differently if he wished. He faxed me a part and I told him it was pretty easy with no problems. On the day of the recording the music was for The Demons Of St Petersburg (2008), a movie by Giuliano Montalto who Ennio had worked with many times. I spent the day recording acoustic and electric guitar parts with the orchestra but when I first arrived in the studio he asked: “Rocco, did you bring the Balalaika? Please don’t leave after the sessions because you and I have to remain along with the sound engineer to record this important thing, okay?” During the whole session, until about 6 pm, he kept reminding me to not leave at the end. After the sessions with the orchestra, the technicians put a monitor in front of me in the hall and I had to play on a scene in which there were soldiers who provoked about 30 prisoners with their weapons, forcing them to dance, grabbing and forcing an old balalaika player to make these prisoners dance. He played in a somewhat awkward way, worried and afraid, which did not match what Ennio had written. I explained to him that it didn’t work so he told me to play something more suitable so I improvised less than a minute of music that worked much better. Then he came to me and said, “write down what you played and then we will register it in your name”. I replied that there was no need as it was an improvisation. I didn’t even remember what I had done! The important thing was I had great joy playing for him but the fact that he wanted to register the piece in my own name impressed me a lot.
GT: You’ve spoken in the past about recording 50 different guitar tones for Ennio to refer to when using the guitar in his compositions...
RZ: Ennio had a sort of painter’s approach to music, using notes and chords as colours. He loved the expression and tonal potential of the guitar, especially the electric as it had a big colour palette that could be added to his. When he called me for new recordings he generally asked for one electric and one acoustic guitar (mostly nylon). Normally I brought four but
often, having listened to the music I would realise that certain takes would have worked better with a banjo, or a dobro or a mandola. So I prepared a CD with about 50 tracks of guitar and other stringed instrument samples, both dry and with effects, explaining them track by track. I created a library with many different sounds including jazz, funk and rock styles on Tele, Strat, Les Paul, 335, enhanced by delay, compressor, wah, and chorus. I also recorded mandolas, mandolins, oud, banjo, Venezuelan quadro, bouzouki, charango and balalaika. I played them in different ways and some with weird effects. I also recorded Roland guitar synthesisers, alone and merged with guitar for unusual combinations. Each track was numbered so Ennio could reference a track with a sound he needed. I think he appreciated this.
GT: How did your guitar sounds help him?
RZ: While Ennio had a classical background he was always experimenting and exploring. I was able to interpret the character of the parts by the important guitarists who had preceded me. But he gave me the opportunity to be myself. I think of myself as a modern jazz musician, a composer and an improviser always looking to expand my voice. Ennio was the first non-jazz Italian artist who asked me to use my style at the service of his music. There were situations in which he arranged instruments around my style, which was very gratifying. He appreciated my ability to play with large stereo sounds and to follow the orchestra by using harmonics and whammy bar articulations. For my volume pedal playing, I’ve been greatly influenced by Bill Frisell, Allan Holdsworth, Adrian Belew and David Torn who are masters at this. Almost all of Ennio’s music from 1997 to 2020 featured the guitar with the volume swell effect, fading in and out of the orchestra. My studies in modern jazz harmony have been essential for this. For example, you can hear and see my parts on several live DVDs and CDs such as The Working Class Goes To Heaven which features a very distorted tone with harmonics, manipulated with the whammy bar. A similar style appears on De Sa Terra A Su Xelu by the Sardinian singer Clara Matris, or a piece from The Correspondence which was the last movie Ennio made with director Giuseppe Tornatore. The title is Improvisation In G, with four minutes of my improvised guitar; it was Tornatore who said to Ennio he needed a solo in the David Gilmour style, so I played something that also reminded me of Jeff Beck. I used my ‘65 Strat straight into a Kemper. In general, I use my Agostin guitar which has great sounds and tuning stability. I think it’s unique that Ennio gave me the opportunity to play a long solo for a film soundtrack. Usually it’s only guitarists like Eric Clapton who are allowed that luxury! Finally, there is a story behind the collaborative studio photo (see page 13); Ennio, his engineer Fabio Venturi and myself are in the control room as often happened at the end of the sessions with the orchestra. Ennio had asked me to overdub additional guitar parts. Here we were finding solutions for a piece from the TV movie The Island in which Ennio wanted something that emphasised a chase or tension scene. The sound he liked was a mix of pitch transpose and delay to simulate a very tight sequencer effect. We played this piece live a couple of months later with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome. He phoned me in advance because he wanted exactly that sound but he didn’t know how I got it or what to call it. I reassured him it was fine as it was a Kemper preset that I had already created; it was the main sequencing-type tone I used on Abidjan, a track from my Music Unites album.
“Ennio gave me the opportunity to play a long solo for a film soundtrack. Usually it’s only guitarists like Eric Clapton that are given that luxury!”