Director Ennio Morricone wanted Rocco again  for "La leggenda del pianista sull'Oceano"'s  soundrack, the last movie by film director Giuseppe Tornatore.( ...)"I proposed a variazione on the outline, using an arpeggio sequence. The director incouraged me to play freely using a typical slang roman expression: "Hey Rocco, throw yourself, but not from the bridge!"
"My first collaboration with dir. Morricone" dates back to the recording of the "Piovra 9"'s soundtrack. (...) I had recorded for Morricone a demo with 54 different sounds from guitars and other string instruments, so that he could choose and then write my melodic line. But sometimes he just suggests a melodic phrase, letting me completely free to improvise, as he told me once: "Play as you like, provided you don't whin!" referring to a particular "whinning" reverb I use on and off, the only one he really doesn't feel comfortable with".

Rocco Zifarelli, he is from the south...and one can hear his roots in his authentic love for melody and in the ethnic sounds and atmospheres running through "Lyndon", his first CD as a leader. (Via Veneto Jazz). "Here it is his first album...
(...) His guitar is a bow shooting high precision and very powerful arrows...His tecnique is astonishing, his style is futuristic. Rocco masters distorted sounds, whammy bar  effects. In "Pacman", the opening tune, Zifarelli ventures in unusual and original melodies and harmonies. Let us turn on the volume then in order to appreciate delicate dynamics, the variety of colours and hues, the richness of the arrangements.
(...) So many and so talented musicians collaborated in the CD: international artists such as Paco Sery and  Matthew Garrison, and italian beautiful musicians such as Agostino Marangolo, Stefano Di Battista, Pippo Matino, besides the string section of Rai Orchestra.(...) "I like risking"- states Rocco- when I was playing in the TV Orchestra I used to bring the scores of my arrangements with me in order to have the musicians' opinion and suggestions. But I didn't dare to arrange the strings...It was Pino Iodice who wonderfully  did it, he is one of the few  all-round musician I know.
(...) don't let us get to know this CD with an unattentive and superficial attitude: we're going to listen to one of the most appreciated and all-round young Italian guitarists, one of the few young italian musicians well known in Italy as well as abroad."

Here's to you a musician who expresses himself best in an instrumental repertoire, where one can find an explosive mix of tecnique, elegance and jazz-rock. Rocco's virtuosism is never for its sake though,  as  it  is always functional to his personal sense of composition.
Rocco conceived "Lyndon" after a long professional and artistic experience, so that's why he wanted all the musicians he grew up with to be by his side, including the strings and  winds of the Rai Orchestra and many prestigious special guests. (...) a varied but consistent mega-production, rich and elaborate but never over intellectual, where one can appreciate Zifarelli's remarkable talent as a composer and as an arranger"

Versatile, manysided, Rocco Zifarelli stands as a representative of a "no limits" sense of composition and expression, the one willing to explore all the timbric and harmonic possibilities of his instrument. In the age of hyper-specialization is it  difficult indeed to find a musician who humbly recognizes the importance of the orchestral professional experience, which seldom allows creativity, but Rocco is surprisingly an exception...Zifarelli  is indeed a very peculiar artist, intolerant of any restriction when talking about music, so curious and opened to perform his profession with the attitude of a session man, as if music were nothing but a universal jam session to which anyone is invited to partake. Rocco's remarkable capability to move from a music situation to another, besides his extraordinary tecnique, enable him to play with great italian and international jazz stars, as well as with great composers and directors, such as Gianni Ferrio and Ennio Morricone (...)
As one can see from the many and varied experiences he went through , versatility is undoubtedly Rocco's main quality, together with a constant research attitude which combines tecnology and jazz spirit. While listening to Rocco's "Lyndon", one can feel how much Zifarelli loves the sublime art of improvisation and the breaking of all rules (...).

A hot and mediterranean atmosphere, it is what the young barese musician Rocco Zifarelli  conveys in his music. Very much appreciated by Pat Metheny, at only thirty-two Zifarelli has become one of the most versatile musicians of the international jazz scene: he collaborates with great composers such as Ennio and Andrea Morricone, he is a session man in the Rai Orchestra and besides his virtuosity enables him to get great audiences to know jazz. His first CD "Lyndon", performed live here in Foggia, stands as an example. It may be a parochial point of view, but  the friendly USA-Italy challenge against the titled Artur Blythe 's trio was indeed won by Rocco Zifarelli, who gained the non-amateurs enthusiasm when he ended his set with the typical "rockstar jump".

An outstanding release form one of Italy and Europe's top talents, guitarist Rocco Zifarelli. Rocco has been at the forefront of the fusion scene in Rome, Italy for several years and it is easy to see why; impressive technique, inventive and harmonically sophisticated lines, and beautiful arrangements and compositions. The album's cast is also impressive: Stefano Di Battista, a very strong alto and soprano saxophonist from Rome, drummer Paco Sery of Sixun and Zawinul fame, and fine bassists Pippo Matino and Matt Garrison. The tune "Difficult Collaboration" is inventive both harmonically and in its use of sounds. It also contains fine group interplay. The cover of Jaco's "Havona" is a powerful fusion-fest with fine solos from both Rocco and Matt Garrison. Rocco also performs surprisingly well on the oud ("Preloud", "Interloud") and his knowledge of musics of the Mediterranean and Middle East informs his fusion throughout the album. This is an expansive album that bears repeated listening and will please Tribal Tech fans as well as fans of guitarists Bill Frisell or Ralph Towner. Recommended.

 At last Rocco Zifarelli's first CD "Lyndon" issued,  more welcomed and acclaimed abroad  than in Italy, as often happens with italian jazz records. Immediatly after its publication, though, the CD has recorded a widespread interest by important music magazines, such as Guitar Club, which dedicated articles and interviews to the barese guitarist.
At the beginning of his artistic career Zifarelli was very much influenced by the Methenian style, a necessary stage at that time but now completely over. It is difficult indeed trying to define someone's style in the age of cross-overs, as far as cross-overing is the rule that upsets all the rules. Zifarelli's music is funky, fusion, jazz, rock, new age and ethnic, as the CD and the prestigious and differently oriented featuring artists show. Artists such as Stefano di Battista, Pippo Matino, Paco Sery, Agostino Marangolo, Matthew Garrison, Javier Girotto, Maurizio Di Lazzaretti, all contributed in the experimental and ever developing fusion of styles, in order to create a new homogeneous and unitary synthesis.(...) Rocco plays the mandoud in two songs of the album. The mandoud  originates from a traditional African string instrument, conceived by Rocco himself and constructed for him by an italian handicraftsman. The rest of his instrumentation is an handicraft solid body  constructed for him in Italy. Jazz influence is always there, lying in the improvisations, in the light and shade effects of the alternating pianos and fortes, in the jazz phrasing of almost all the musicians playing in the CD. I think that Rocco's sound is wonderful, it is so aerial, a balanced mixture between Holdsworth sound and Strato sound.
The drive of "Pacman", "Difficult collaboration" and "Sweet flame" reveal a strong rock influence, whereas the enchanting arabesques  drawn by the mandoud on "Preloud" and "Interloud" evoke a north African atmosphere.(...) The tune "Havona" is a beautiful tribute to Jaco Pastorious, maybe one of the most important Zifarelli's and Matino music influences. (...) "Lyndon" is a very beautiful fusion CD made in Italy as Zifarelli avoids to follow the path of his American masters creating instead a thoroughly original music.
Zifarelli's band ( made of some of the most talented musicians in Italy, such as Dario Deidda, Giovanni Imparato and Maurizio De Lazzaretti), is at the moment touring all over Italy. Let me tell you, the drive and the impact are astonishing!