Saturday, May 24, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Miami Herald
Across from the blue margaritas and black Bentleys that dot Ocean Drive, a floppy-haired boy sporting a SpongeBob SquarePants backpack, baggy jeans and camouflage shirt climbed a set of handrails near the beach.
His father and a friend propped up speakers and microphones on the cracked cement floor of a nearby outdoor pavilion -- a makeshift concert stage awaiting a 4-foot, 37-pound, 7-year-old rock star.
On that recent hot and sticky night, the brown-haired boy bounced off his temporary handrail play set and hopped in the sand. When the men finished readying the stage, the boy's dad called him over.
It was time -- time for a soon-to-be Hialeah Elementary School second-grader who plays and sings classic rock songs five and sometimes six nights a week throughout Miami-Dade County to toddle on the stage and perform.
He pulled his miniature acoustic guitar out of a case and lifted the strap over his head. He pushed his hair back from his chocolate-colored eyes and leaned into the microphone.
''Hello,'' he said with a deep Argentine accent, ``my name is Lucciano Pizzichini.''
His dad, Adrian Pizzichini, the other half of the band, held a guitar and sat quietly on a stool behind him.
''I'm from Argentina, and I'm 7 years old,'' said ''Lucchy,'' as his dad nicknamed him. ``I hope you enjoy my show.''
Moments later, Lucchy's pick struck the guitar string and Susie Q was carried on the air from the beach to the nearby Mango's Tropical Café.
People crowded around and pulled out their camera phones while Lucchy leaned back, tapped his black Converse shoe in rhythm and stuck the guitar solo without a single stray note. Passersby walked within feet of the boy and squinted at his fingers as they moved on the guitar, as if what they heard couldn't be real.
By Lucchy's last few notes, about 40 people had crowded around the pavilion and dollar bills poked out of the glass jar in his guitar case.
A BIOPIC AT 7?
About six months ago, Pablo Levinas strolled into a similar scene on Lincoln Road and, like most who hear Lucchy play, he couldn't walk away.
''I saw him play on Lincoln Road, and as a ..ary filmmaker it's a dream to have anything like this fall from the sky,'' Levinas said. ``It's really amazing.''
Although Lucchy had played a song or two with his dad's band before that night Levinas discovered him, it was the first full-length set he had headlined in public. Soon after, Levinas approached the family and said he wanted to make a film about Lucchy, a request that has since turned Levinas into a part-time manager for Lucchy while he films.
''I was just blown away,'' Levinas said, ``like everybody else.''
Lucchy's connection with the music was born well before he was.
Adrian Pizzichini, 40, played tunes by his favorite guitarists -- like Pat Metheny, George Benson and Paul McCartney -- to Lucchy when he was still in his mother's womb in Buenos Aires. When Lucchy was 11 months old, Adrian, his mother, Sandra, and he moved to Miami. By 2, Lucchy was plucking a one-string guitar, and before he was 4 he could strum entire songs, his family says.
''I like playing songs,'' said Lucchy, who, although he can sing and read English, doesn't speak it fluently, especially when he's nervous. ``The more people the better.''
The Pizzichinis now live in Hialeah. They rent an old two-bedroom house marked with chipped plaster walls and split front-porch tiles. Almost a dozen guitars are strewn throughout the living room, flanked by toy cars and coloring books.
Spider-Man, Lucchy's favorite superhero, covers the walls and window blinds in his room even though he says the third film in the series was ''boring . . . no action.'' He also likes movies and board games, along with his Mickey Mouse blanket.
''He never stays still,'' said Sandra Pizzichini, 26, who gets nervous when she watches her son perform. ``He wants to play all the time.''
DIFFERENT STROKES
In some ways, Lucchy is just like any other 7-year-old, but in most ways he's not at all.
Lucchy giggles at SpongeBob SquarePants and likes silly magic tricks, but he's memorized every note and every word in almost 40 songs.
He blushes when anyone talks about two girls he likes, but he can hold a guitar behind his head and play perfect melodies.
He talks to the teddy bear he named ''Marselito,'' adorned with a Miami Dolphins jersey, but he recently completed the first volume of the Berklee Press A Method for Guitar, written originally for college students.
''Well, this is the first non-teenager that I know who went through that book all the way,'' said Larry Baione, chair of the Berklee College of Music's guitar department. ``That's way above ordinary.''
Despite two hours a day of intensive music study with his father, who studied music in Argentina, Lucchy finds time for friends and to play video games and soccer.
A FATHER'S DEVOTION
Adrian Pizzichini used to play with other bands but has quit in the last few months to devote himself to Lucchy and his future. He still teaches music lessons for about $50 an hour, and Sandra Pizzichini works all day at a supermarket. Adrian Pizzichini and Levinas say all the money made on the street, about $100 a night, goes to Lucchy's acting, dancing and singing lessons.
''When he plays, I can close my eyes and just enjoy the music,'' said Adrian Pizzichini. ``It's beautiful.''
When they have a gig, Adrian and Lucchy pile the music equipment into a grayed Mazda Protégé and head to South Beach or Hollywood or wherever the show is that night.
Through his local shows and a MySpace.com Web page, which has accumulated about 63,000 hits, Lucchy has accrued a small but growing fan base.
''I've never seen a kid like that,'' said Martin Zaluk, as he waited for Lucchy to play on Lincoln Road. ``He's like an amazing little rock star.''
''This is a child prodigy,'' said Aliza Sebag, a Phyllis R. Miller Elementary School teacher who has coached music for 25 years. ``I've seen children who are very talented before, but not like this.''
For Adrian Pizzichini, just making music with his son, his best friend, is enough. Sometimes, he even slips on sunglasses when he watches Lucchy play to hide the tears.
''Me Siento dichoso,'' he said. ``That is the best that I can feel.''
His father and a friend propped up speakers and microphones on the cracked cement floor of a nearby outdoor pavilion -- a makeshift concert stage awaiting a 4-foot, 37-pound, 7-year-old rock star.
On that recent hot and sticky night, the brown-haired boy bounced off his temporary handrail play set and hopped in the sand. When the men finished readying the stage, the boy's dad called him over.
It was time -- time for a soon-to-be Hialeah Elementary School second-grader who plays and sings classic rock songs five and sometimes six nights a week throughout Miami-Dade County to toddle on the stage and perform.
He pulled his miniature acoustic guitar out of a case and lifted the strap over his head. He pushed his hair back from his chocolate-colored eyes and leaned into the microphone.
''Hello,'' he said with a deep Argentine accent, ``my name is Lucciano Pizzichini.''
His dad, Adrian Pizzichini, the other half of the band, held a guitar and sat quietly on a stool behind him.
''I'm from Argentina, and I'm 7 years old,'' said ''Lucchy,'' as his dad nicknamed him. ``I hope you enjoy my show.''
Moments later, Lucchy's pick struck the guitar string and Susie Q was carried on the air from the beach to the nearby Mango's Tropical Café.
People crowded around and pulled out their camera phones while Lucchy leaned back, tapped his black Converse shoe in rhythm and stuck the guitar solo without a single stray note. Passersby walked within feet of the boy and squinted at his fingers as they moved on the guitar, as if what they heard couldn't be real.
By Lucchy's last few notes, about 40 people had crowded around the pavilion and dollar bills poked out of the glass jar in his guitar case.
A BIOPIC AT 7?
About six months ago, Pablo Levinas strolled into a similar scene on Lincoln Road and, like most who hear Lucchy play, he couldn't walk away.
''I saw him play on Lincoln Road, and as a ..ary filmmaker it's a dream to have anything like this fall from the sky,'' Levinas said. ``It's really amazing.''
Although Lucchy had played a song or two with his dad's band before that night Levinas discovered him, it was the first full-length set he had headlined in public. Soon after, Levinas approached the family and said he wanted to make a film about Lucchy, a request that has since turned Levinas into a part-time manager for Lucchy while he films.
''I was just blown away,'' Levinas said, ``like everybody else.''
Lucchy's connection with the music was born well before he was.
Adrian Pizzichini, 40, played tunes by his favorite guitarists -- like Pat Metheny, George Benson and Paul McCartney -- to Lucchy when he was still in his mother's womb in Buenos Aires. When Lucchy was 11 months old, Adrian, his mother, Sandra, and he moved to Miami. By 2, Lucchy was plucking a one-string guitar, and before he was 4 he could strum entire songs, his family says.
''I like playing songs,'' said Lucchy, who, although he can sing and read English, doesn't speak it fluently, especially when he's nervous. ``The more people the better.''
The Pizzichinis now live in Hialeah. They rent an old two-bedroom house marked with chipped plaster walls and split front-porch tiles. Almost a dozen guitars are strewn throughout the living room, flanked by toy cars and coloring books.
Spider-Man, Lucchy's favorite superhero, covers the walls and window blinds in his room even though he says the third film in the series was ''boring . . . no action.'' He also likes movies and board games, along with his Mickey Mouse blanket.
''He never stays still,'' said Sandra Pizzichini, 26, who gets nervous when she watches her son perform. ``He wants to play all the time.''
DIFFERENT STROKES
In some ways, Lucchy is just like any other 7-year-old, but in most ways he's not at all.
Lucchy giggles at SpongeBob SquarePants and likes silly magic tricks, but he's memorized every note and every word in almost 40 songs.
He blushes when anyone talks about two girls he likes, but he can hold a guitar behind his head and play perfect melodies.
He talks to the teddy bear he named ''Marselito,'' adorned with a Miami Dolphins jersey, but he recently completed the first volume of the Berklee Press A Method for Guitar, written originally for college students.
''Well, this is the first non-teenager that I know who went through that book all the way,'' said Larry Baione, chair of the Berklee College of Music's guitar department. ``That's way above ordinary.''
Despite two hours a day of intensive music study with his father, who studied music in Argentina, Lucchy finds time for friends and to play video games and soccer.
A FATHER'S DEVOTION
Adrian Pizzichini used to play with other bands but has quit in the last few months to devote himself to Lucchy and his future. He still teaches music lessons for about $50 an hour, and Sandra Pizzichini works all day at a supermarket. Adrian Pizzichini and Levinas say all the money made on the street, about $100 a night, goes to Lucchy's acting, dancing and singing lessons.
''When he plays, I can close my eyes and just enjoy the music,'' said Adrian Pizzichini. ``It's beautiful.''
When they have a gig, Adrian and Lucchy pile the music equipment into a grayed Mazda Protégé and head to South Beach or Hollywood or wherever the show is that night.
Through his local shows and a MySpace.com Web page, which has accumulated about 63,000 hits, Lucchy has accrued a small but growing fan base.
''I've never seen a kid like that,'' said Martin Zaluk, as he waited for Lucchy to play on Lincoln Road. ``He's like an amazing little rock star.''
''This is a child prodigy,'' said Aliza Sebag, a Phyllis R. Miller Elementary School teacher who has coached music for 25 years. ``I've seen children who are very talented before, but not like this.''
For Adrian Pizzichini, just making music with his son, his best friend, is enough. Sometimes, he even slips on sunglasses when he watches Lucchy play to hide the tears.
''Me Siento dichoso,'' he said. ``That is the best that I can feel.''
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Best Prodigy (2007) By: New Times of Miami,
Best Prodigy (2007) By: New Times of Miami
Lucciano "Luchy" Pizzichini, age seven, glumly kicked a soccer ball on the sidewalk outside a Little Havana steakhouse this past February as he waited for his dad, guitarist Adrian Pizzichini, to finish setting up the stage for rock and reggae outfit Kayak Man. "I hope he lets me perform," the kid sniffed. Asked what song he'd use to open the stage if he could, Luchy straightened up, narrowed his eyes, and said coolly: "Why Don't We Do It in the Road." Surprised passersby giggled at the comment as they meandered down Calle Ocho during the monthly Viernes Culturales ("Cultural Fridays") street fair. But Luchy had an even bigger surprise in store. Those same observers turned on a dime and came running back when a childlike voice suddenly blasted the Beatles number out of the restaurant's patio speakers. Soon a crowd of adults had squeezed its way around the tables to witness Luchy's skillful guitar picking and soulful singing on his renditions of "Suzy Q" and the Pink Panther theme song. It took some coaxing to get the cocky little rocker off-stage for Kayak Man's act, but who could blame himç Luchy has performed some of his 24-song repertoire at venues such as Arturo Sandoval's new Rumba Palace on Ocean Drive. In between scribbling autographs and accepting accolades, Luchy told New Times he'd be happy to offer some friendly advice to the young'uns: "Two hours of practice a day and lessons from my daddy."
Lucciano "Luchy" Pizzichini, age seven, glumly kicked a soccer ball on the sidewalk outside a Little Havana steakhouse this past February as he waited for his dad, guitarist Adrian Pizzichini, to finish setting up the stage for rock and reggae outfit Kayak Man. "I hope he lets me perform," the kid sniffed. Asked what song he'd use to open the stage if he could, Luchy straightened up, narrowed his eyes, and said coolly: "Why Don't We Do It in the Road." Surprised passersby giggled at the comment as they meandered down Calle Ocho during the monthly Viernes Culturales ("Cultural Fridays") street fair. But Luchy had an even bigger surprise in store. Those same observers turned on a dime and came running back when a childlike voice suddenly blasted the Beatles number out of the restaurant's patio speakers. Soon a crowd of adults had squeezed its way around the tables to witness Luchy's skillful guitar picking and soulful singing on his renditions of "Suzy Q" and the Pink Panther theme song. It took some coaxing to get the cocky little rocker off-stage for Kayak Man's act, but who could blame himç Luchy has performed some of his 24-song repertoire at venues such as Arturo Sandoval's new Rumba Palace on Ocean Drive. In between scribbling autographs and accepting accolades, Luchy told New Times he'd be happy to offer some friendly advice to the young'uns: "Two hours of practice a day and lessons from my daddy."
Band of the hour: Lucciano Pizzichini
Band of the hour: Lucciano Pizzichini
By Vanessa Garcia
Take a back seat Amadeus, because Lucchy's filling your shoes. Lucchy, short for Lucciano Pizzichini, came straight from Buenos Aires to Miami at 11 months, and now, at the tender age of seven, he's already been invited to play with the likes of Juanes and Santana, and is sponsored by Gibson Guitars. Ask him how he likes being famous and he responds: "Mucho!"
Full of joy and the energy, Lucchy is also precocious. His father taught him everything he knows, but he says he likes to play because "music is, well, quite frankly, an art." A musician himself, Adrian Pizzichini used to play with his band Kayak Man until he discovered that he and his son made a good team.
"We were in southwest Miami one day at a restaurant, after taking his mom to the dentist, and the restaurant had an empty stage, so we got onto the stage and started playing, and people loved it! People really loved it!" says Pizzichini. So they started playing on Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive, two street musicians gathering a crowd, until their act caught like wildfire and they started getting calls from TV and radio shows: PBS, Sabado Gigante, just to name a couple. And the calls keep coming.
Together, the father-and-son team practice two hours every day and dance around to classic rock tunes like Susy Q and I'm Free. Their band also consists of Lucchy's band, which also includes Sebastian Acosta (drums) and Sebastian de La Calle (bass).
Ask Lucchy what he wants to be when he grows up and he tells you: "A rock star." He already is. He also goes to elementary school and loves ice cream.
By Vanessa Garcia
Take a back seat Amadeus, because Lucchy's filling your shoes. Lucchy, short for Lucciano Pizzichini, came straight from Buenos Aires to Miami at 11 months, and now, at the tender age of seven, he's already been invited to play with the likes of Juanes and Santana, and is sponsored by Gibson Guitars. Ask him how he likes being famous and he responds: "Mucho!"
Full of joy and the energy, Lucchy is also precocious. His father taught him everything he knows, but he says he likes to play because "music is, well, quite frankly, an art." A musician himself, Adrian Pizzichini used to play with his band Kayak Man until he discovered that he and his son made a good team.
"We were in southwest Miami one day at a restaurant, after taking his mom to the dentist, and the restaurant had an empty stage, so we got onto the stage and started playing, and people loved it! People really loved it!" says Pizzichini. So they started playing on Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive, two street musicians gathering a crowd, until their act caught like wildfire and they started getting calls from TV and radio shows: PBS, Sabado Gigante, just to name a couple. And the calls keep coming.
Together, the father-and-son team practice two hours every day and dance around to classic rock tunes like Susy Q and I'm Free. Their band also consists of Lucchy's band, which also includes Sebastian Acosta (drums) and Sebastian de La Calle (bass).
Ask Lucchy what he wants to be when he grows up and he tells you: "A rock star." He already is. He also goes to elementary school and loves ice cream.
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