Enzo Jannacci
L'artista

So far, this album has been discussed almost exclusively (but it was inevitable) for the only unreleased track it contains, the rap duet "Desolato" with J-Ax, which I hope might encourage some to approach the other tracks for the first time as well.

Non-unreleased tracks (but it's as if they were), interpreted and rearranged ex novo during the last year of Enzo's life. These are Jannacci songs, mostly ancient (an average of 40-50 years old; only two date back to 1981 and 1987 respectively); some seemingly delicate and sketchy, others powerful and dramatic like "Cosa importa", "La sera che partì mio padre", or "Maria me porten via". All of them, I believe, are almost unknown to most.

Then there's the chilling cover of "Io che amo solo te" by Sergio Endrigo, an artist for whom Jannacci played piano in his youth.

I read some articles claiming that Jannacci sings tracks here - respectively - by Tenco ("Passaggio a livello") and Milva ("Non finirà mai") for the first time. Not at all, he recorded them back in the day. And he especially wrote them. It's just that those records, never reissued on CD, can only be found at second-hand markets.

The same goes - total unavailability, except for eBay - for the rest of the albums from which the originals of these mature reinterpretations so touching come, giving entirely new - perhaps unsuspected - depth even to youthful snapshots from the early '60s like "L'artista", "Il tassì", or "Un amore da 50 lire". I had always considered these with sympathy for painting their microcosms of bizarre varied humanity in watercolor, but nothing more. Now, however, it seems almost like grasping a gruff but benevolent pat (autobiographical?) given by Jannacci to that artist so clouded by his sense of being an artist that he doesn't even notice those who are lovingly beside him. Or grasping an extra note of conscious melancholy in that thought of how people leave so many parts of themselves behind in taxis (a metaphor for life?) with such carelessness, only to realize, when it's too late, what has been lost forever.

As for the unreleased track, I admit that at first "Desolato" left me a bit perplexed (but it improves a lot, for me, not watching the video). I don't love rap, but in the end, the sincere, true harmony and rapport between Enzo and J-Ax that emanates from their joint Milanese jam session encouraged by Paolo Jannacci when Enzo was alive are there, palpable (no, this is not a duet recorded separately at a distance; much less is it one of those "duets with the dead", a vaguely macabre collage, alas increasingly common). And those "dirty problems ... indeed of grease. But from the Lord!" are the DOC satirical stroke of a man as intelligent, poetic, and sensitive as he is indomitable, proud, and independent.

On the other hand, the fil rouge that links - through its content - the same "Desolato" in particular to a triptych of Jannacci songs from the '80s, one of which, "Cosa importa", is re-sung in this album, is also evident. The other two are "Se me lo dicevi prima" and "E allora ... concerto" (to which belong the verses, addressed to the young generations, which Enzo - with a broken voice but perhaps even more majestic for it - declaims at the opening of the single): those are three songs, the result of the great work done during those years by Jannacci, the doctor, with young drug addicts.

Then there's the letter from Paolo Jannacci to Enzo in the CD booklet, which is moving and helps to better understand how long ago father and son had started thinking about this record and how strongly Enzo wanted it.

The arrangements are sophisticated and delightful at the same time (excellent, as always, Paolo Jannacci in this), with a good deal of the beloved jazz by father and son - but not only. And the musicians are those faithful (and excellent) ones of the recent years.

Finally, indeed beyond and above all this, dominating the scene at every moment, is Enzo's voice - at times very tired, at times still full and thunderous - that miraculously brings these pearls all to (re)discover back to light. And it does so by moving to tears. Like at the end of "La sera che partì mio padre" (that very sad March 29, 2013, Good Friday, wasn't Christmas but there isn't then all that much difference ...)

The night I leave too

I just hope it's Christmas

because at Christmas everyone is at home

eating and drinking

listening to each other talk

The night I leave

they will say I had to go

they will say I'm not going to suffer

but I already know that there

it's not like here ...