Paolo Rustichelli is an Italian-American pianist, composer, and producer, and the son of Oscar nominee Carlo Rustichelli. His music is eclectic but generally belongs in the genres smooth jazz, jazz rock, and progressive rock.

Career

Pioneering the use of the monophonic

synthesizers A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

like the ARP 2600 and

Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

, Hammond Novachord,

Hammond C3 organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

, and the

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

, Paolo Rustichelli composed and produced various movie soundtracks and a progressive rock album, ''Opera Prima'' (RCA 1973). Among many scores, made completely with synths, are included Top Box Office European movies like ''Amici Miei atto III'' and ''Testa o Croce''. His jazz-rock album ''Mystic Man'' (1996) featured Miles Davis,

Carlos Santana Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (; born July 20, 1947) is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of Rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured ...

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he help ...

, Wayne Shorter, Andy Summers, and Jill Jones. The song "Paisa" reached the Top Ten on the

Radio & Records ''Radio & Records'' (''R&R'') was a trade publication providing news and airplay information for the radio and music industries. It started as an independent trade from 1973 to 2006 until VNU Media took over in 2006 and became a relaunched sister ...

Smooth Jazz/NAC charts. The song " Full Moon" from ''Mystic Jazz'' was composed for Carlos Santana. Tenor Plácido Domingo sang Paolo Rustichelli's "Kyrie" on his album ''Sacred Songs'' (2002). The song "My Geisha" from the album ''Neopagan'' reached the top ten on the Radio and Records Smooth Jazz/NAC charts of 2006 and 2007. "Med Groove" from the album ''Soul Italiano'' reached No. 1 in smoothjazz.com chart and was an Amazon.com Smooth Jazz Best seller at no. 1 for several weeks in January and February 2014. Paolo's new single 'Hypnofunk' (2019) it's a musical celebration of the psychedelic era with a touch of hip hop rhythm. Paolo is currently working on his Album "Tempus Fugit" which is scheduled to be released in March 2020.

Partial discography

* ''Opera Prima'' (RCA Italy, 1973) * ''Mystic Jazz'' (

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

, 1991) * ''Mystic Man'' ( Island, 1996) * ''Neopagan'' (Next Age, 2006) * ''Soul Italiano'' (Next Age, 2016)

External links

Official site
*

(jazz news)
Paolo Rustichelli: Mystic Man
(allaboutjazz.com) Italian film score composers Italian male film score composers Smooth jazz pianists American modern pagans Italian modern pagans 1957 births Accademia Musicale Chigiana alumni Living people Italian jazz pianists Italian male pianists 21st-century pianists 21st-century Italian male musicians Male jazz musicians {{keyboardist-stub