Paolo Conte
Paolo Conte Live

In 1988, Paolo Conte released his second live album, following the highly acclaimed "Concerti" of 1985: the tracks in this record are almost all taken from a concert held by the artist at the Spectrum in Montreal, Canada, on April 30, 1988, except for "Messico e nuvole," which is instead from a concert in Bologna in 1984 at the Osteria delle Dame. Yes indeed, at the time, Conte was much more famous abroad than in Italy, and it was so for many years. Today he is famous in both Italy and abroad (fortunately, I say). The band accompanying him in this musical adventure is top-notch: Barbieri, Marangolo, Volpe, Turone, Allione, Boccalini, Capurro, Crocco, Lepratto, Marchelli, Pelissier. They often enjoy varying the studio versions of the tracks, with almost always delightful results.

We immediately encounter the unmistakable voice of Our Artist, compared to Tom Waits and Randy Newman no less by the "New York Times": hoarse, smoky, cavernous as if it emerged from some rocky nook, shrill, lopsided, the result of thousands of smoked cigarettes and probably also thousands of whiskies gulped, and yet despite all that (or perhaps precisely because of all that), hypnotic and perfectly suited to the pieces he interprets. When I think of the "typical listener" of Paolo Conte, a chain smoker sitting at a table in a "smoky" venue comes to my mind, as smoky as and more than the listener himself, enveloped in the smoke haze released by a thousand cigarettes of his fellows, smoking one cigarette after another and drinking one whisky after another, staying up late and eventually inviting someone to a sensual and languid dance. But, nowadays and with current laws, I doubt such places still exist.

This live is a bit too "Aguaplanocentric": indeed, 5 out of 13 tracks are taken from the (double) album "Aguaplano," released just the previous year. However, it still makes for a fine listen: a grand piano launched in the high seas (Aguaplano); a black woman looking for you in this lazy merry-go-round (La negra); an invitation to his "historic" guitarist Jimmy Villotti to indulge in a sumptuous meal together at this point in their lives, along with an invitation to dance "from afar" to two women, only to discover they were two Chinese women once they were approached, but "nearsightedness is like that, it's like that, it's like that" (Jimmy, ballando); an invitation to dinner to a woman, only to ask her at the end, "sorry, you pay: I don't have a dime, this is the reality, you don’t earn with blue notes" (Blu notte); Max’s ease that does not simplify at all (Max).

On the other hand, there are three gems, namely songs written by Conte for others and never performed by him until that moment: "Messico e nuvole," recorded by Enzo Jannacci in 1970, simply magnificent despite the replacement, in the title, of the more exotic "Mexico" with the more native "Messico"; "Vamp," written for Gabriella Ferri and performed by her in 1981, beautiful, entertaining, and lively ("It wasn’t America who knows, it wasn’t Africa who knows, the old Varieté way"); "Don’t break my heart," written for Mia Martini and recorded by her in 1985 but with an Italian text and the title "Spaccami il cuore", while here there is a different English text, quite soporific for me, despite being later interpreted by Miriam Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie in their "Eyes tomorrow" of 1991.

Being a Paolo Conte record and moreover live, where he often gives his best, even in this he couldn’t miss the characteristic, common to him and very few others, of transporting you and making you travel with your mind, even if perhaps comfortably seated on your home sofa, to Africa, South America, to remote islands and even to past ages. And all this thanks to his lyrics and, above all, his music, often imbued with rarefied and old-time atmospheres, with the almost constant accompaniment of a masterfully played piano. And it could not be otherwise: "And where there is a piano around there is always a crowd making noise, there are eyes looking for each other, there are lips watching each other. I don’t trust, in certain cases a piano is a cry: there are legs brushing against one another and temptations talking."

P.S.: maybe it’s due to the excessive "Aguaplanocentricity," maybe it’s the absence of "Via con me" (and a Paolo Conte live without "Via con me" isn’t a real live!), maybe (especially) due to the comparison with the previous "Concerti" but also with his subsequent lives, my mind tells me to give four stars to this work. But the heart keeps shouting: "Five stars." And the heart wants what it wants, always!