AA. VV.
Questa gente balla

The year of our Lord nineteen seventy-seven was running, and little andisceppard, already a music enthusiast (of the kind of music that today is called prog), was helplessly witnessing the birth of that strange phenomenon known as disco music. For him - accustomed to losing days and nights in the futile attempt to decipher the allegories, metaphors, enigmas of that damned masterpiece that is The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway - the spread of this new stuff (to call it music seemed decidedly out of place), of these lyrics, which invited moving one's bottom, of these people, cheerful, sweaty, vacuously happy, was definitely a trauma (not the only one, probably, some might comment).

Needless to hide it from you, in my humble and modest abode - although many years have passed, and quite a few - there's no record of that genre here. Of those tum tum tum drums. Of those shouts and banal melodies. And let's not talk about the many evenings I pretended to have undergone meniscus surgery just to avoid participating in various shaking and wriggling.

Today - however - I have decided to talk to you about dance music. Certainly, in a somewhat strange way (but following the rules, I raise my right hand and say I swear!). In an oblique way. I'm telling you about a rhythm. Of music, of a thing.

Let's start. If you wish (and if I succeed), click below.

While you listen, I try to entertain you, with a few words. Until the end of the track.

Like a DJ. In reverse.

Of a thing, music, that when you hear it pulls you in, first of all, in your head. Lester Young, Teddy Wilson. Love Me Or Leave Me.

Lester introduces the theme. It's a simple, nice, easy-to-remember theme. He introduces it. Then he plays with it. He moves away, embroiders on it. Then, when you least expect it, he returns to it. And you recognize it. And it's not just your head that's happy. Teddy arrives. Same theme. A thousand variations. A thousand little embroideries. Sweet, intimate, secret. Same desire to play, not to compose operas, masterpieces. Just a desire for a nice thing. That grabs you in your head, but not only. No, not only. You won't feel like John Travolta. The notorious strobe lights of your (my) youth won't suddenly light up. But you'll find yourself dancing. Not wriggling. Not like at the disco. No, it's a different dance. Light, intimate, secret. Not danced in a disco. No, maybe in a room. Maybe alone, maybe in two. But you dance. Slowly, secretly, intimately. And it doesn't let go. It’s not to be listened to with speakers blasting. No. In headphones, rather. Or in the background. But yeah, there's little to do; it doesn't let go anymore. You can wander around, stop listening. But you’ll find yourself whistling it. And maybe taking a few steps.

Finished? I am.

Paolo Conte, Nottegiorno.

Discovered by chance, on television. I watch television very little. Oh well, sometimes I just watch the TV itself. Turned off. It relaxes me. Now, I think it's not hard to recognize analogies with the previous track. But it’s not the year. Not the instruments. Not the nationality of those playing and singing. No, look at how Milva moves. It's hard to say in words. That's why I help myself with images.

1956, the year of Pres and Teddy. 1943, the year Milva sings about.

In the year of our Lord nineteen seventy-seven, or thereabouts, a little andisceppard, stunned and powerless in the face of the spread of that strange thing called disco music, discovered a thing.

He didn’t know it yet, the other two tracks he would discover much later. But - desperate - in his little room, he found himself dancing. Not wriggling. Not feeling like John Travolta. And without strobe lights, for heaven's sake. But with a rhythm, a thing, starting from the head. And making you move, slowly, secretly, everything.

Not a dance done in a disco. No, maybe in a room. Maybe alone, maybe in two. Not with speakers blasting.

Something more intimate. That starts in the head and goes down to the tip of the toes.

That's all. These people dance. Sometimes it happens to me too.

Or maybe always. As if this thing, this rhythm, small, not shouted, just whispered, has been inside me all along. As if everything, every event, every movement, everything I do, were just a poor choreography of this dance.

These people dance. And right now, so am I.

But - please - don’t tell anyone.