A book in which he talks about his music, his new record, Evolution, accompanied by a symphonic orchestra, he always carries a pentagram Moleskine in his pocket to write down harmonies, notes and chords. Giovanni Allevi plays the same piano as Stevie Wonder, he has played at New York's famous "Blur Note", his records are even sold in China. Born in the Marche area in Italy he is a musician by adoption, he is a composer with a diploma in pianoStudies and a degree in philosophy. His is a pure talent, difficult to classify, his music isn't jazz, it isn't pop, it isn't funky, or rather, it's all of these things mixed together. He once said: "We are going back to Italian renaissance, where the artist has to be a bit of a philosopher, a bit of an inventor, a bit mad". The piano, because it is the instrument closest to the soul, to feelings, to adrenalin.
He lives in Milan, his city of choice, "I love metropolitan cities, chaotic, full of smog and traffic, they fascinate me maybe because the city where I was born, Ascoli Piceno is a small provincial city. In my urban classification as well as Milan, I would put New York and Shanghai in first place. In big cities I feel like a artichoke frying in a pan, trapped, motivated and extremely active yet at the same time I feel part of that missing humanity thrown by chance into the river of existence. Heidegger said that the feeling of anxiety is fundamental for anyone who wants to be artistically creative and I agree wholeheartedly, to get to the heart of things you can't wrap yourself in cotton wool. They say that Milan is grey and rich, actually it is trodden by strange visionary poets, who transmit a vague sense of melancholy, but if you know where to look, you will discover a lot of underground hidden energy, a type of hidden identity which I tried to describe in my piece called "Downtown"
For Allevi, the city isn't synonymous with tourism. "For me it means meeting and observing people, I do it all the time quite obsessively. Especially before a concert. I'm not superstitious, I believe in ritual gestures when they are used to reach a state of concentration". Some examples? Before every concert I always eat a slice of chocolate cake, I stroke the keyboard and I whisper to it to be good. When I go shopping I always buy the same things: one year I ate pasta with tuna every day. In the bar I always have coffee and brioche; then I write on a paper napkin the names of the people I have met that day, and I transform them into melodies which, sooner or later end up in my compositions. Two days before a concert I go to a swimming pool and swimming slowly underwater I go over in my mind every note, every movement of my fingers.
His Milan begins at the Station of Porta Genova: "I see it as an ex industrial area, emerging from the myths of the late twentieth century to stand before us today, beautiful, interesting and meaningful". If he had to show the city where I live to a friend, he'd start there: "Then I'd make them get on an orange tram which goes round the ring road and then I'd take them on the underground and, without going back up to the surface I'd stop to have a cappuccino in a bar next to where they sell the underground tickets, where all humanity, lost and found, stops to pause. I frequently visit non places, the ones that aren't characteristic, the ones that are the same everywhere. For some time now, people recognise me, above all youngsters, and they're very surprised to see me there. I always answer in the same way, as long as I find myself amongst normal people I will write music aimed at people's hearts". If he had to choose the best place to read a book or the best place to have a conversation he is in no doubt: busses, the underground and crowded bars. If he had to summarize Milan in a smell, he'd chose the smell of coffee and if he had to recommend the author who has best described Milan he'd quote Elio Vittorini who has in some pages talked about the city Allevi knows best, where he stays even when he's on holiday: "I don't usually go on holiday, I switch off and let myself go to the rhythm of those streets" The only exception is a stroll along the Navigli and a pause at the Libraccio book shop. He reads a lot, but only a page a day: " because I stop for hours and meditate over every single sentence".
He can't do without
Dylan Dog, Kant's philosophical thoughts, and he loves cats ("
my first cat was called Bemolle"). This is a wonderful moment in his life: It's incredible the satisfaction you get seeing your work appreciated, the sacrifices that you made which could easily have gone unrecognised become worthwhile. My music contains resolved complexities, to achieve simplicity you must go through years of study and sacrifice, and continually compare yourself to the great names of the past. His harshest critics define him as a cult figure for rock fans but he likes this definition. "
I'll be a sort of flag that finally rock fans can wave at against the classical academy, I take it as a compliment which sums up everything that is happening around my piano" They compare him to
Keith Jarret even if he doesn't like to improvise: "
Seeing that I'm an anxious person, I shy away from anything undefined, I prefer certainty that is why notes by soul's decree are fixed and cannot be anything else". He considers "
Hey Jude" by the
Beatles to be a masterpiece, he's mad about the six Brandeburgh concertos by
Johann Sebastian Bach, and he doesn't rule out that one day in the future he'll go back to being a classical concert pianist.
All that remains is Allevi, and his Moleskine where he jots down the next chapters in his extraordinary musical career.
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