Enzo Jannacci
Foto Ricordo

To speak about certain albums, one must wait for inspiration. For several days, the idea of reviewing this album has been swirling around in my head, but for one reason or another, the right moment never seemed to come.

A few days ago, I spoke of "Quelli che..." as one of the cornerstones of the singer-songwriter-doctor's discography, but this "Fotoricordo" from 1979 is absolutely no less. Memorable songs that, once again, when listened to now, do not lose a milligram of their strength and (sad) relevance. The only moments that feel like fillers are three surreal dialogues featuring Giorgio Bracardi, who seems out of context and excessively over-the-top. Musically, however, there is not a single useless second in this album, which was also, in this case, wrongfully ignored by the Italian music industry and shamefully has never been re-released on CD.

"Io e te" is a beautiful atmospheric track that talks about the existential discomfort that still grips many young people today ("Yes but here that love is made in three, that there's no work, the future is a black hole at the end of the tram"). "Saltimbanchi" is a slice of an artist's life, perpetually moving to propose their things, as long as it lasts ("Saltimbanchi si muore"). "Natalia" is another of Enzo's stories of lived life, this time a story experienced within the profession he carried out for many years with passion and humanity (the surgeon), the sad story of a child with heart disease and a scandal of "bribes" within a hospital.
Even "Mario" falls into the masterpieces of the Jannacian song, a song written by Pino Dosaggio and discovered, by chance, listening to the radio at night. Enzo enhanced it to the fullest with a sublime and dramatic interpretation at the same time. The protagonist is a sad character with suicidal intentions, from which Enzo dissuades him ("but still, I say, where does one change by shooting a shot here, in the head? Let life do this old grind, we're wounded enough"). Enzo Jannacci also has the merit of having brought to the fore the not yet famous Paolo Conte by covering two of his most ingenious compositions, "Bartali" and "Sudamerica", two pieces on which I don't think it's necessary to spend unnecessary words.
"La poiana", one could say, is the only "divertissement" of the album, an ironic song about hunters written and composed years before with Dario Fo. But the most dramatic and lyrical piece is the one that closes the album, which is "Ecco tutto qui", where the intensity of the music perfectly matches the dramatic nature of the lyrics ("Strange life, but it's as if life were a way of dying…").

The cover is also very beautiful, with a family portrait (and the cat...) on skates, incidentally with the first "public" appearance of his son Paolo, another character worth mentioning who has become a distinguished musician, an excellent multi-instrumentalist, and a great arranger.
And now I want to repeat what was written at the end of the last review about Jannacci: REISSUE THIS RECORD!!