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Since those gnurantou of the record companies stubbornly refuse to release the complete studio works of Enzo Jannacci, we find ourselves forced to console ourselves as best we can. For example, blessing Switzerland which, evidently free of the legal shackles that bind others, especially us, publishes and republishes, wonderfully ignoring them, a series of concerts/pearls by great Italian singer-songwriters and singers recorded there during the much-maligned eighties. A very important work for many reasons. First of all, because evidently the opinion of the record companies, and that of the artists themselves, counts as much as two of clubs in briscola when playing flowers, since these concerts are recorded and published "without a net", just as they were recorded, with a good dose of mistakes, off-key notes, oversights and, consequently, a plethora of pearls.
In the "live" by Lucio Dalla, for example, there's "Lugano", a splendid gem, a song/alter ego of "Milano", not published (who knows why...?) on the wonderful "Lucio Dalla" (the one with "L'anno che verrà", "Anna e Marco", "Cosa sarà", and, indeed, "Milano"). Things that probably the authors, editors, and record companies would have prevented if they could have, and if only we were in that bureaucratic elephant masterpiece that is our poor country.
Anyway, in a nutshell, thank you, Switzerland, for these CDs and DVDs (both are published). Coming to the immense Jannacci, namely one of the most talented and underrated songwriters of our national scene, this album is, naturally, beautiful. We are on horseback between the old Jannacci and what we could, with many quotes, call "new", that is, between the one of "Vincenzina" and the senselessly sanremese of "Son scioppà" or "Se me lo dicevi prima", even if here the memory of the very first and unparalleled period is still very strong.
And so here is a medley worth the album, with "Vincenzina e la fabbrica", "Io e te", "Mario", "Vengo anch'io, no tu no", and "El portava i scarp del tennis" performed without any continuity solution and only voice and piano. A very high and moving moment, which splendidly ends in chaos, as only the author is able to make it end.
Then the pearls abound. Memories of the beautiful collaborations with Cochi & Renato, namely "Silvano" and "E la vita, la vita", or the contiani echoes of "Bartali". The orchestra, which is not detailed in the album, plays well even if amid some naivete and quite a few dated sounds.
He is exorbitant as only he can be. Either you adore him, or, probably, you can't stand him. But, nonetheless, he was and is a genius of our song, and I would dare to say of a certain type of our theater/cabaret, also so debased and trivialized in recent years.
Listening to Jannacci, for a young person today, risks being a titanic undertaking. Because one needs to love his sources, or at least know them. Because one must grasp the concept of the purest "non-sense", which Cochi & Renato rightly brought (often with six hands right with Him) to Italian television when it was (or perhaps seemed) less evolved than today... Because you have to love both jazz and the purest and most melancholic songwriting. Because one must accept a character who one minute can move you and the next lets himself be caught up in the purest and most conscious "stupidera".
Because... well... because it takes an ear and you have to have the guts.
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