Nicola Guida – Interview

I was born in Basilicata, in the south of Italy, but I have been living in Rome for more than 10 years. I was very young when I started playing. At home we listened a lot of music, there was always some music playing around. I think it was our escape from the reality.

During my childhood, the piano was the most interesting object around me and I was intrigued by it. My father wanted me to grow in the wake of the classical tradition, but I preferred to improvise.

Herbie Hancock, Martial Solal, James Poyser, to name a few, but I’m not that kind of pianist who finds inspiration only from other pianists. I’ve always been attracted to those musicians who were able to generate a soundscape, a very specific texture, a sound. I like to picture the piano in my mind as a kind of film projector, and the music as a kind of cinema without images. In this sense, the music of Puccini, Piero Piccioni, J Dilla, Miles, Flying Lotus and many others influenced me.

It is thanks to a partnership between the Italian association ‘Musicisti Italiani di Jazz’ and the Italian Institute of Culture that I had this great opportunity to come to Tokyo for the first time.  But I guess it will not be the last one. After only a few weeks I am already, madly, in love with Tokyo. The cubic meters which develop themselves towards the sky are the same that extend underground, a labyrinthine city that is also so extraordinarily visceral.

Thanks to my friend Grant Richards I discovered an incredible place, which has actually become my homeplace here in Tokyo: the Electrik Jinja. Here I got to jam and meet musicians like Toku, Kenji Hino ‘Jino’, Dj Tatsuo Sunaga, Hikari Ichihara, David Negrete, Katsuomi Goto and many others.

I will try to play as much as possible with these cool musicians for the rest of my time left in Tokyo. Last week I played with my ‘Japanese’ trio, with Ryo Shibata on Drums and Yoshihito P Koizumi on bass, at the Electrik Jinja. I’m also working on a collaboration with a Japanese artist that I admire very much, but I am still not willing to disclose the name for superstition! On my return to Europe this winter I will focus on the release of my first Ep as a leader .

Three is not enough to exhaust my preferences. I will say the first three that come out of my mind.

Kind of Blue – Miles Davis

Fantastic vol 1 – Slum Village

Hamlet Suite – Carmelo Bene