The initial hook for me was the fact that they were playing “The Chicken,” the funky Pee Wee Ellis tune that Jaco Pastorius had adopted as a set opener for his Word of Mouth big band in the early ’80s. As Jaco’s biographer, I was naturally curious about their version. These were three young guys, just 19 or 20 years old at the time they first posted this audacious video in 2017. Jacked on adrenaline and youthful enthusiasm, they burned through the funk vehicle at an absolutely blistering pace (that video to date has garnered an awesome 2.4 million views on YouTube). The rhythm tandem of bassist Riccardo Olivia and drummer Salvatore Lima was impeccably tight, but what really stood out for me was the guitarist, Matteo Mancuso, who executed the incendiary lines and mind-boggling solo that followed, sans pick, with a kind of nonchalance that was totally disarming. And while his fingerstyle approach immediately recalled such other players who eschewed the pick — Mick Goodrick, John Abercrombie, Lenny Breau, Phil deGruy, and of course the whole lineage of classical and flamenco players who historically have navigated imposing lines with a strictly fingerstyle approach — this was something else entirely.
Other YouTube videos followed by this precocious trio, including uncannily exacting renditions of chops-busting vehicles like Allan Holdsworth’s “Fred” (which has gotten 370,000 views to date), Chick Corea’s “Spain” (915,000 views), Tribal Tech’s “Face First” (113,000) and UZEB’s “Penny Arcade” (365,000), as well as Matteo’s at-home practice videos of him blazing through John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” (255,000), Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee” (648,000) and the age-old jazz jamming vehicle “Cherokee” (272,000), each one containing more jaw-dropping feats of fretboard fantasia by the young prodigio.
—Al Di Meola
The comments sections for those same YouTube videos were soon flooded with superlatives about this amazing new guitar discovery. And it wasn’t long before the pros began weighing in on Matteo’s abundant talent, with no less than Al DiPassalacqua), Pat Martino (Pat Azzara) and Joe Diorio to Frank Zappa, Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Di Meola, Vai, Frank Gambale, Joe Satriani, John Frusciante, John Petrucci and Chris Impellitteri.
