Enzo Jannacci
El portava i scarp del tennis

THE REVIEW

El portava i scarp el tennis is a double CD, a "the best of" by Enzo Jannacci.

About three months ago I found myself at a highway rest stop. When I enter a rest stop, often, as I think many of you do too, I start rummaging through CDs and DVDs to see if there's something that interests me but I'm not looking for low-grade TRASH, I'm looking for the "beauty" and this double CD is VERY beautiful.

Who doesn't know Jannacci? Oh yeah, of course ...Jannacci! The one who sang vengo anch'io no tu no right? ...the one who said ci vuole oreeeecchioooo... who I think, poor guy, died recently... oh yeah, he died when that other guy ... Califano died too!

In short, I, like almost everyone, knew Enzo Jannacci "in passing." Then there are those who know him very well but they are few, Jannacci is not Eros Ramazzotti, whom even stones know, he's much better, but that's another story.

Jannacci, compared to us, is from another era, he could be my father, for many of you he could be your grandfather. He was from the Milanese school, the one of Dario Fo, Gaber... yes, Gaber. it's nice when Gaber talks and if Enzo also said so, it must have been true. From another era, as I was saying. Yet he was more modern than all of us, than the most seasoned hacker, than the most diehard internet user who knows everything and knows nothing. Why? Because he was a free man. Free from constraints, from prejudices. Frank, sincere, a cool guy, a real one. He was even an artist.

Those eyes, even smaller behind the thick lenses of his myopic glasses, that (apparent) mumbling almost unintelligible somehow concealed his soul, his uncommon sensitivity, his keen intelligence, his culture. Yet he was a life teacher, a wise man, a philosopher, a madman.

And so by the third listen of this CD, I really started to be moved when he tells me that bucarsi è ormai anche fuori moda and that it's beautiful when you look at the tunnel from which you've just come out and it doesn't seem real. I am moved when a tramp asks you for a cigarette and you don't give it to him because it's your last but he wants it anyway because he's bursting like ...you know, a dinghy nibbled by a doberman? My heart tightens seeing every day Vincenzina going to the factory, resigned and subdued, believing that's life. That to play and to live, to know how to be in the world you need an ear.

Then there's a fantastic one where he says Silvanoooo e non valevo le ciccioli and you can see he's having fun, him and his music. You can feel he's serious, the joy of living, the passion, the energy. Real stuff, not plastic music.

28 songs that let you know him a bit more. The link says 19.90 but at the rest stop 9.90 (euro). What fools, 28 songs by Enzo Jannacci for 9.90 haha ...when for a pizza and a (crappy) beer you spend twice that.