Gianmaria Testa
Da Questa Parte Del Mare

Always minor singer-songwriter. Or post-singer-songwriter. Or whatever you want. Maybe simply beautiful songs. But does it make sense today to stubbornly write beautiful songs? Does it make sense to be a Don Quixote against a system, a market, a plethora of fools who think they are record producers, against a people who, while having dinner, prefer to have a quiz show in the background rather than good music…? It makes sense, yes, even if it might not seem so.

Because the song, in many and various forms, has existed for a long time (recently even the good Sting provided a wise example), and it will be difficult to get rid of it. A bit like it were a beautiful prostitution, provocative if intelligent, entertaining if amused. Until a few years ago, Gianmaria Testa was available only as an import from France. And you could stop your judgment there. And everyone can think what they want. Today, fortunately, after a newspaper published a very interesting acoustic collection a few years ago (it was the excellent “Il Valzer Di Un Giorno”) -and it’s known that Italians at least pass by the newsstand- after some reputable jazzman (Rava above all) noticed him and agreed to collaborate, after the theater-going public made it clear that they are there, Testa has incredibly been able to reclaim his homeland, almost as if he were a leader of guitar and sung word. But a quiet leader, very quiet and very, very, very Piedmontese. And of the best Piedmont, his Piedmont, he has a fundamental and (to me) beautiful characteristic: the inverse proportionality between the quality and strength of the message and the ability to do and handle marketing (which lately, for others, is more marketing…).

In other words: he doesn’t know how to sell and doesn’t know how to sell an excellent product like his songs. A characteristic that many wines from Piedmont have: there are Barbareschis and Nebbiolos that outdo any Tuscan or Sicilian wine (let’s not even talk about the others…), but that the wine shop snubs, the famous enologist or critic (surprise, surprise) does not consider and which the paid media services of Mediarai never mention. The product from Piedmont is often poorly sold because they don’t know how to sell it, and because nobody “buys into” helping them sell it.

So, guys, get ready to see the preholiday displays overflowing with the very modest latest album by the very modest Cammariere, and maybe only in a little secluded corner in the last display case, this splendid concept album (yes… another extremely old and out thing…: a concept album!) deep, written, performed, and played excellently by the only true heir of the classic singer-songwriter tradition (an immense school that deserved many more students and much more study…). An album entirely dedicated to immigration, with beautiful, direct, never patronizing or banal songs, and indeed, in periods of racist simplism like the ones we’re living in, also an uncomfortable and provocative album, but so “stylish” that its depth and provocative nature reach too few people. Among them also a “cover”: the ancient “Miniera” (Bixio-Cherubini, 1927) that the not-so-young, like me, will probably have heard sung by some mother or grandmother (oh… poor kids who will remember their mom lulling them singing “Terra Promessa” by Eros or, worse, “La Regola Dell’Amico" by Max…).

In short, an unmissable album and an excellent gift for the ears of those who can, know how to, and want to understand. Because at Christmas it’s nice to be able to reflect on serious things, in a non-populist, non-ironic or banal way, maybe also thanks to that old, beautiful thing that often seems dead or dying, but that in the end always makes it, which is the song. The real one.