Giorgio Gaber

Giorgio Gaber, pseudonym of Giorgio Gaberščik (Milan, 25 January 1939 - Montemagno di Camaiore, 1 January 2003), was an Italian singer-songwriter, playwright, actor, cabaret player, guitarist and theathre director among the most influential Italian entertainment and music artists.

Also called Il Signor G by his admirers, he was also a valuable guitarist, among the first interpreters of Italian rock and roll in the late fifties, (between 1958 and 1960); moreover, he was a playwright and actor, becoming a forerunner of the song theater genre. He is one of the artists with the highest number of awards from the Tenco Club, with two Plaques and a Tenco Award.

Biography

The beginnings

He was born in Milan in via Londonio 28 from a middle-lower middle class family; his parents had met and married in Veneto (where his mother's family originated from) and later moved to Lombardy in search of fortune.

His father Guido Gaberščik (Trieste, 18 July 1903 - Milan, 1978) is an employee, his mother Carla Mazzoran (Milan, 11 March 1906 - Milan, 29 July 1984) is a housewife; his elder brother Marcello completed his studies as a surveyor and played the guitar for pleasure.

Giorgio's state of health is poor: during his childhood he fell ill twice with polio. The first attack, which occurred at the age of eight or nine, hits his left arm and causes him a slight paralysis in his hand. His father gives him a guitar so that he can exercise his fingers with pleasure, not as a constraint. Taking advantage of the fact that his brother already knows how to play it, Giorgio also learns to use the instrument. The idea will give good results, both medically and artistically. As an adult, Gaber will say: “My whole career stems from this disease”.

His model guitarists are American jazz musicians: Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Billy Bauer. Gaber, as a teenager, still doesn't think about singing: he is essentially an instrumentalist. He experiences music as a moment of fun, leisure, his main activity being that of a student. He also tries to learn from Italian musicians: in Milan he can listen to Franco Cerri live, who often performs at the Mexican Tavern.

His career as a guitarist began in Ghigo Agosti's group «Ghigo e gli angry», a formation that was born at the Hot Club of Milan, and made his debut at the 1954 jazz festival. his real surname, Gaberscik. After two years of performances, between light music and jazz, he joins the Rock Boys, Adriano Celentano's ensemble, in which Enzo Jannacci plays the piano. In 1957 the group appeared on television in the program linked to the Italy Lottery Voices and faces of fortune.

During this period he met Luigi Tenco, who moved to Milan from Genoa. With him he forms his first group, composed as follows: Jannacci on piano, Tenco and Paolo Tomelleri on sax, Gaber and Gian Franco Reverberi on guitar. The Rocky Mountains Old Times Stompers (this is the full name of the group) perform in the famous Milanese club Santa Tecla. Gaber and Tenco compose some songs together, developing an intense friendship at the same time. Between 1957 and 1958 Gaber, Tenco, Jannacci, Tomelleri and Reverberi take part in a tour of Adriano Celentano in Germany.

Giorgio Gaber together with Enzo Jannacci: The Two Corsairs.

In 1958 he graduated as an accountant. In the summer he leaves for Genoa, where he spends the summer season playing in the clubs in a bass-guitar-piano trio with Tenco, experiencing his skills as a singer for the first time. In the autumn he enrolled at the Bocconi University in Milan, continuing his studies with the work as a guitarist and singer of the "Rocky Mountains" at Santa Tecla.

He is noticed by Nanni Ricordi, artistic director of the music publishing house of the same name, who invites him for an audition. Gaber thus began his solo career, with the recording for the newborn Dischi Ricordi, branch of the historic music publishing house for pop music, of four songs, two originals in Italian: Ciao ti direò (rock) and Da te era bello restar (slow), and two American hits: Be-Bop-A-Lula and Love Me Forever. The 45 rpm label reads: "Giorgio Gaber and his Rolling Crew". For the first time, his pseudonym appears.

Signed by Giorgio Calabrese and Gian Franco Reverberi Ciao ti dirò is one of the first rock songs in Italian; Gaber was not accompanied by his group, but by musicians already under contract for Ricordi, including Franco Cerri on guitar and Gianni Basso on saxophone, both jazz players. The first disc will bring Gaber an appearance on TV in the transmission Il Musichiere conducted by Mario Riva (1959).

In the spring of 1959 Gaber participated, with all the new artists of the moment - including Mina, Celentano and Little Tony - in a rock evening at the Palazzo del Ghiaccio in Milan. In the same year he formed a duo with Enzo Jannacci, I Due Corsari, which debuted with the single 24 ore / Ehi! Star. The line-up recorded another 45 rpm: A slice of lemon (1960) is one of their greatest hits. At the end of 1959 Gaber joined the SIAE as a melodist and lyricist.

The success

After the first single, Gaber achieved success in 1960 with the slow Non arrossire, with which he participated in the Six Days of the Song; in the same year he recorded his best known song among those of the first period, La balata del Cerutti, with the text of the writer Umberto Simonetta. During the sixties the lyrics of Gaber's most successful songs are signed by the writer. Among them, Trani a gogò (1962), Goganga, Porta Romana (1963), brought Gaber many television appearances.

Gaber is also attracted to French songs: he listens to the chansonniers of the Parisian Left Bank, to which he recognizes a cultural depth and attention to lyrics that are lacking in Italian pop music. Gaber states, by the way: "My teacher was Jacques Brel".

Gaber, like Gino Paoli, Sergio Endrigo, Umberto Bindi, Bruno Lauzi, Enzo Jannacci and Luigi Tenco, is looking for a balance between American influences (rock and jazz) and French song. All of them find it in the songwriting in Italian. The first Italian singer-songwriters, with the exception of the precursor Domenico Modugno, were born in this period, and Gaber is among them.

After a sentimental-artistic partnership with the singer and actress Maria Monti (together they wrote Non arrossire), on 12 April 1965 Gaber married Ombretta Colli at the Abbey of Chiaravalle, then a student of oriental languages ​​(Russian and Chinese) at the University from Milan. On January 12, 1966 their only daughter, Dahlia Deborah, known as Dalia, was born.

In the sixties Gaber participates in four editions of Sanremo:

in 1961 with the piece Benzina e cerini (written among others by Enzo Jannacci), paired with Maria Monti;

in 1964 he presented So happy (written with Sandro Luporini), paired with Patricia Carli;

in 1966 with one of his greatest hits, Mai, mai, mai (Valentina), paired with Pat Boone;

in 1967 with ... So come on !; paired with Remo Germani.

The first two are published by Ricordi, the last two are recorded for Ri-Fi, a label he moved to in 1965 after leaving Ricordi. After a few singles, Ri-Fi also publishes a "half-way" anthology with hits by Gaber and Mina, another leading artist of the label at the time (Mina & Gaber: one hour with them, October 1965).

In the summer of 1966 Gaber took part in the 14th Neapolitan Song Festival, where he ranked second with the piece by Alberto Testa and Giordano Bruno Martelli 'A Pizza, performed in tandem with Aurelio Fierro. This piece, together with Balata de 'suonne, of which he writes the music on the words of Riccardo de Vita, represents Giorgio Gaber's only foray into Neapolitan song.

In 1967 he took part in the fourth edition of the Rose Festival with the song Suona chitarra, sung in duet with Pippo Franco. In those years he made many carousels, participated in numerous television broadcasts, conceived and conducted his broadcasts. He alternates his activity as a singer with that of presenter and program organizer. Gaber is one of the most popular faces on television. He doesn't forget the Rocky Mountains, with which he plays in the famous and less famous clubs in Milan. He contributes to the launch of the young Franco Battiato.

In 1968 the axis of equilibrium was released, the only organic album made by Gaber with Ri-Fi, then the singer-songwriter changed the record company, passing to the Vedette. In that year he participates in the western musical comedy for Rai Non cantare, spara, starring the Quartetto Cetra, where he plays the role of Idaho Martin, known as the Meticcio, a half-blood storyteller who sings the "Ballad of Idaho Martin" and summarizes the previous bets, at the start of each of the 8 bets.

For the Vedette he immediately recorded a hit song, Torpedo blu, followed by Com'è bella la città (example of the inclusion of social themes in the song) and Il Riccardo (both in 1969) and Barbera and champagne (in 1970). In this period a friendship was born with the singer-songwriter Claudio Chieffo, of profound Catholic faith. Giorgio Gaber, an atheist, said of him: "It makes you think".

In 1970 the album Sexus et politico (made with Antonio Virgilio Savona of the Quartetto Cetra, known during the recording of Non cantare, spara) was released. Gaber performs songs written on texts by Latin authors. At the peak of his popularity, in 1970 he presented his latest television variety: E noi qui, del saturday night. Then he leaves the TV screens and starts a new career on the stage.

The new artistic path: song theatre

«[…] The end of the Sixties was an extraordinary period, full of tension, of desire, beyond the political and non [political] events that we know, and making television had become disqualifying. I was a bit sickened by a certain formula, its limitations of censorship, language, expressiveness were tight, and then I said to myself, okay, I did this job and I was successful, but now I would like to put some conditions. It seemed to me that theatrical activity regained meaning in the light of my rejection of a certain narcissism. "

«[…] Then I asked myself if [the] success, the popularity and the money that came with it should condition my life, my choices. The answer seems clear to me: I discovered that theatre was more congenial to me, it amused me more, it allowed me a direct expression, without the mediation of the record or a camera placed between the artist and his audience. The income was certainly less than the proceeds from selling the records, but I was earning enough not to have to suffer the choice of field. [...] Compared to money, I think that if you manage to earn a lira more than what is necessary to live fairly, you are rich.

Giorgio Gaber's debut in the theatre dates back to 1959, at the Girolamo Theatre with his then-girlfriend Maria Monti. The recital was titled Il Giorgio e la Maria. Monti recited monologues on Milan, Gaber intervened between the monologues with her songs. In 1960 Gaber had recorded a single with Dario Fo: My friend Aldo, where the first sang and the second acted. Gaber had known the theatre of Fo and was passionate about it.

In the early sixties he had met Sandro Luporini, a painter from Viareggio. Together they wrote the lyrics of So happy (1964), brought to Sanremo, and Barbera and champagne.

1970 is the year of the turning point: Gaber renounces the enormous television success and brings "the song to the theatre" (creating the genre that will take the name of song theatre). He felt "trapped" in the part of singer and TV presenter, forced to play a role. He leaves this environment and strips himself of the role of storyteller. The Gaber that everyone has known is no longer there: it belongs to the past. He starts over and introduces himself to the public as he is.

This is why he creates "Mr. G", a character who no longer plays a role: he plays himself. So "a person full of contradictions and pains", a gentleman like everyone else: "Mr. G is a Mr. Gaber, that's me, it's Luporini, in short, we who try a kind of depersonalization to identify ourselves with so many people". In addition to inventing a new character, he creates a new genre, the themed show with songs that develop it, interspersed with monologues and short stories. With his new record company, Carosello, Gaber publishes both live recordings of theatrical performances and studio albums.

The shows and albums of the period 1970-1974

«The discovery of the theatre, that is a means that allowed me to say what I thought through my profession, was of enormous importance. The two hours of the show, for example: woe to it if it were a quarter of an hour, because I have problems of initial release, of approaching the shamelessness that every artist should have, and that comes to me as I go forward, because at the beginning of the show I would run away. I think I have, basically, a sort of closure that almost makes me say to the audience: "Sorry, I'm up and you are down, but it's a coincidence, it happens because this time I'm the one who has to tell you something". "

"The formula at first includes only songs, since I still do not recite, and small spoken interventions that will gradually turn into monologues, where a theme is faced - the schizoid condition rather than mandatory freedom, or psychoanalysis - as in one a prose show, however, developed through songs and then monologues. My approach is already different from the classic one of pop music, which foresees that the public comes to see a show of songs they already know: they come to me to see songs they don't know. "

In order not to take a leap into the void, Gaber had already decided in 1969 to test his hold on the theatrical audience, so different from that of television. The opportunity had come from none other than Mina. At the beginning of 1970 (from January to March) Gaber and the prima donna of Italian pop music made a series of recitals in the theaters of many Italian cities. Gaber performs in the first half, Mina in the second half. The tour is repeated in the following season, in the same period.

Season 1970-71

After a preview on 6 October 1970 at the Regson studios in Milan (for the purposes of recording the live show for the Carosello), on 21 October "Mr. G" debuts at the San Rocco Theatre in Seregno, directed by Beppe Recchia and the musical direction of Giorgio Casellato. [23] Gaber takes the recital on tour in the theatres of the Lombardy regional circuit.

At the end of 1970 he made the only television appearance of that year: he presented the song Mr. G sul ponte at Canzonissima.

“I understood that I could live like this and that that was my way. I was living better. […] At first I was a bit scared, because after the "full" with Mina no one came to see me anymore. However, despite the shock, inside of me I felt it was right to do it. "

The show is produced by Paolo Grassi, then director of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. At the end of this first season Gaber takes stock. The results do not appear satisfactory to him, but Grassi convinces him that he has found the right path and gives him decisive help to continue the show in the following season. Gaber asks his friend Sandro Luporini to write the lyrics of the songs and monologues with him. This is how Mr. G's Old and New Stories are born, an expanded version of the previous year's show. From 1971 Gaber and Luporini will meet every summer in Viareggio to prepare for the next year's show. The ideation of the show and the writing of the texts take place together, then Gaber composes the music independently.

1971-72 season

Music: I Borghesi, studio album. Of the 11 songs that compose it, remember: the song that gives the album title; Che bella gente, Italian version of a song by Jacques Brel ("Ces gens-là"); a re-engraving of La Chiesa is renewed with a new text and, as the original piece, L'amico.

Theatre: «Mr. G's old and new stories» (debuted at the Piccolo Teatro on 28 December 1971). The show is conceived as an extension of “Il Signor G”. The dominant theme is the dialogue between "G", an adult man, and young people. In the theatre Gaber feels freer: the texts (almost entirely written with Sandro Luporini, to whom his work owes a lot) are characterized by the intelligence of the development of many social and political issues, often against the tide; Gaber becomes more aggressive and angry and, making use of his artistic depth, he lashes out against people's hypocrisy and false conscience. The musicians accompanying Gaber are: Giancarlo Messaggi on double bass, Ivo Meleti on guitar, Giancarlo Ratti on drums and Giorgio Casellato on piano.

On April 16 (a Sunday) Gaber appears on television in Mina's Teatro 10 program. He introduces L'amico and sings in a duet a fantasy of his best-known songs.

Season 1972-73

Theatre: «Dialogue between a committed and an I don't know». They are two characters who embody two different ways of dealing with reality. This is how Gaber himself describes them: «On the one hand, let's call the poet so bourgeois, with his problems, his pains, his things: a bit smug, a bit narcissistic. On the other hand, the man who has freed himself from his individual burden to give a total, collective meaning to his life ».

To bring the dialogue to life, Gaber uses a pre-recorded magnetic tape with his own voice. Gaber, the "I don't know", takes the stage and responds in front of the audience to the "Committed". The show deals in an original and exciting way with topics such as the dehumanization of the individual in the capitalized world (The gear, The hair) and the distancing from moralists and intellectuals. The shampoo, in which Gaber ironically presents a symbolism between foam and the renunciation of thinking, and Freedom are imprinted in the memory of the public.

The live album is recorded in the debut evenings, those of 6-7-8 November 1972 in Genoa. Much appreciated by young people, the "Dialogue" is a great success; the show is often sold out, the result of uninterrupted word of mouth among the spectators.

In 1973 Gaber signed two discs: the first is Recital Mina-Gaber, taken from the shows held in 1970 and 1971. The other disc released in that year is the Gaber al Piccolo collection, containing songs taken from both the new show and from "Mr. G" and "I bourgeois".

1973-74 season

Theatre: «Pretend to be healthy». Gaber sings 22 songs, four of which are taken from the previous year's show: I mastini, Lo shampoo, La liberty and È Sabato. Gaber and Luporini underline a certain inability to make ideals converge with daily life, the personal with the politician. The "Mr. G" experiences, at the same time, the desire to be a thing and the impossibility of being it. The utopian impetus is strong, which culminates in the piece I apologize if I speak of Maria dominating the scene.

The debut takes place as usual in Genoa, on 2 October 1973. The last show is held in a psychiatric hospital in Voghera: it is the first time for Gaber. Almost entirely the show is presented in a program in four episodes of the RSI (The radio and television of Italian Switzerland) of 1973, which however offers a different order of songs and monologues compared to what is staged in the theatre.

This time the full recording of the show is not released, but only the songs, without the monologues. Registration takes place between 12 and 20 September in Milan, therefore before the "premiere". In the theatre Gaber performs alone on stage, without musicians, using the recorded backing tracks.

Over the years, the turnout of the public at Gaber's shows has definitely increased: if “Mr. G” had a total of 18,000 spectators; the “Dialogue” reached 166 performances with 130,000 admissions; "Pretend To Be Healthy" was performed 182 times and viewed by 186,000 spectators.

With this show ends the period of harmony between Gaber and the "movement" (ie the committed audience of the left). From here on, in fact, the "singer" will gradually distance himself, considering him now unable to aggregate individuals, if not giving in to the process of massification.

The shows of the period 1974-1980

«[…] It seems to me that the conversation is continuous. He leaves with the veterans of '68 and describes the crisis of the individual with his loss of identity, his not knowing who he is, his need to have an identity card to recognize himself and follows him in all the efforts he makes to take off this weight of production that crushes him, his search for freedom that too often turns out to be non-antagonistic to the system and to production. "

1974-75 season

"Even for today we don't fly" is the first show to insinuate the doubt that the need for change felt in those years is dissolving into a sort of fashion or an attitude of convenience: pieces like Il rabbit, Angeleri Giuseppe, L'Analisi Reality is a bird, they unmask with pungent irony the inability to propose real changes in everyday life. The idea of the title of the show is due to Luporini.

The painter had heard this phrase uttered for the first time by a friend of his. He often went to his paint shop. When his friend saw him with a particularly absorbed air - typical of artists who are unable to free their poetic vein - he would say to him between the serious and the facetious: "Even today you won't fly". The show gets a great success, so much so that in the following theatrical season the anthological show "Recital" will contain various monologues and songs.

Even for today non-flying is recorded live on 9 October 1974 in Milan for the purpose of recording the disc on the Carosello label. The hall is the Milanese Opera House, which is reopened for the occasion after the restorations.

In the summer of 1975 he performed in front of 40,000 people at the "Feast of the youth proletariat", at the Lambro Park in Milan. Gaber closes the festival after Franco Battiato and PFM.

1975-76 season

For each show Gaber dedicates about four months of preparation. The tour lasts 8 months: the theatre engages the singer for 12 months a year. This year he decides to do something different. He is mainly dedicated to the script of a film. As for the theatre, it is on stage with Giorgio Gaber-Recital, an anthological show where he presents the best of his theatre-song. He decides to touch those squares that in previous years he had not been able to reach. In fact, the tour doesn't touch the big cities. The film project is postponed.

1976-77 season

Gaber and Luporini stage a new show. For the singer it is the sixth in his new professional life.

"Compulsory freedom" lives on a burning issue: are we free today or are we obliged to be free? “On the one hand, there are people who passively accept everything that is fed to them by the system. On the other hand, there are those who believe they are antagonistic to the system, but their antagonism is bogus and is recovered in a short time. See the fashion of blue jeans that now feed real industries. Both types do not escape the standardization ".

In this show, lasting three hours, Gaber sings the memorable Elections. Another theme, which takes shape in this show and which will be expanded in subsequent ones, is that of the relationship between the individual and one's body. For Gaber-Luporini the capitalist system has entered so deeply into the life of man that it modifies in the individual the consciousness of his own body and his own needs.

"Compulsory freedom" was born on Lake Lugano instead of Versilia. That year, in fact, the Gaber family, to protect little Dalia (they were times when kidnappings were unfortunately frequent), decided to spend the summer in a quiet town in Italian-speaking Switzerland, near Lugano. Gaber is alone on stage with his guitar. Without the live orchestra, the songs are on a recorded basis.

The show was recorded live on 14 October 1976 at the Teatro Duse in Bologna for the Carosello. It is the last show in which Giorgio Casellato signs the arrangements. During the tour Gaber is reached by the news of the death of his father (January 28, 1977).

In 1977-78 Gaber and Luporini prepared a text for the theatre entitled Project for a revolution in Milan 2, taken from the book by Alain Robbe-Grillet Project for a revolution in New York, and set in the satellite city. The show will remain at the project stage.

1977-78 season

Gaber replies «Compulsory freedom», taking him to the cities where he had no opportunity to act during the previous season. Adding the two vintages, Gaber climbs the stage 334 times.

Season 1978-79

Breeding chickens (debut on October 3 in Parma) is the recital of the real turning point: for the first time Gaber and Luporini feel in society, on the one hand, a growing homologation and, at the same time, the exhaustion of the drive for change which had marked an entire decade, starting in 1968.

They express all their disappointment towards those young people who claim to fight "against" the system, while in reality theirs is a fake battle, it's just an attitude. Half measures are abandoned to give way to the absolute detachment from all that has been, as if one felt the need to isolate oneself from a society in free fall. To mark their change of position, Gaber and Luporini abandon the we and use the you, addressing their own generation.

This show was also recorded live at the Teatro Duse in Bologna (October 18, 1978) for the purpose of recording the disc on the Carosello label. From this season the orchestration and arrangement of the pieces are handled by Franco Battiato and Giusto Pio, while Giorgio Casellato takes care of the organization and coordination. Battiato and Pio are notably detached from Casellato: instead of bass, drums and electric guitars appear synthesizers, winds and string quartets.

The show, which develops in a crescendo of tension (masterful the monologues "The gun" and "The suicide") culminates in the songs La festa and When it's fashion is fashion (final piece of the show). Farmed chickens unleashes a great wave of indignation from those areas of the political world that had always tried to keep the media hurricane caused by the Song Theater under control.

The reception in the halls is difficult: in many theaters Gaber is made the target of throwing objects. He says: “It is clear that while they were throwing coins at me or insulting me for 'When it is fashion it is fashion' I would say: 'man, look at what adventure I have taken. But who made me do it? '. But, I repeat, it is a great privilege to be able to go there and say what you think ". And again:" When I finish the show, I know very well that they will get angry, that they will whistle, I feel this thing coming on me and again I remain with the eye wide open at night, I find myself not falling asleep until eight in the morning to overcome this shock of the clash ". At the end of the exhausting tour, Gaber decides to get off the stage. He disbands the company and stays for two years.

On the occasion of the Feast of Sant'Ambrogio, on 7 December 1978, the Municipality of Milan awards a Gold Medal to 25 worthy citizens and institutions. Giorgio Gaber is one of them. On January 25, 1979, Gaber turns forty. In the summer he buys a house in Montemagno di Camaiore, on the hills overlooking the Versilia coast. From then on, the summer meetings with Luporini will take place in the new house in Montemagno instead of in a Viareggio hotel.

In this year Gaber signs the music for the theatrical comedy C'era a lot di gente, especially young people, by Umberto Simonetta. At the end of 1979 Gaber returns to the recording studio and in 1980 he publishes the album Pressure low. In the same year the disruptive Io se fossi Dio was released, a song lasting 14 minutes, published by the F1 Team (for the refusal of the Carosello) on a 12-inch disc engraved only on one side. The song was written in 1978, after the killing of Aldo Moro, but was released two years later "because the record companies were afraid to expose themselves ... they were afraid of lawsuits".

«[I if I were God] is a personal outburst of one who is fed up with politics, which is entering into all sectors of our existence, of the great presence of politicians […]. [A] politics that entered everywhere and emerged strengthened by the Moro crime, instead of being hit by it. The white and red flags in Piazza San Giovanni were the moment of the affirmation of the parties, which from that point have spread to every sector of our life. "

Gaber definitively assumes the role of free thinker, fighting against any political party: the song is a personal outlet that embodies the discomforts of many Italians, disillusioned but angry, and expresses the distrust of the man that Gaber, on the literary models of Céline and Giacomo Leopardi, applies to his art.

Between May and June 1980 Gaber performs live at the Teatro Lirico in Milan. Rai records two shows and produces a special, which airs in four episodes in the late evening on Monday, respectively entitled Quasi chegramente la dolce illusione (10 and 17 November) and Quasi fatalmente la dolce equality (24 November and 1 December). It is Gaber's first reappearance on television (as far as RAI is concerned): the last time was in 1972. The television version contains six cuts compared to live shows.

The shows of the eighties

«Until 1976 I found many stimuli, then the rest seemed to me a repetition […]. There was, in the last part of the decade, an involution of all the ideas that had characterized him since the end of the Sixties, from Marcuse to the Frankfurt School onwards, to the most striking and violent movements, and perhaps of greater resonance. "

On 4 March 1981 at the PalaLido Gaber participated, together with Francesco Guccini and Franco Battiato, in a fundraising concert for the newspaper «Lotta Continua». He releases the album Crowded Years. In the same year he directed the musical comedy Gulliver's Last Travels; the score is co-signed by Guccini-Alloisio-Colli (Ombretta) -Gaber-Luporini. He takes part in Sergio Citti's film Il minestrone, playing the character of the "prophet".

1981-82 season

The show "Crowded Years" is a more concise and cultured recital, but no less cutting edge. Already from the opening piece, Crowded Years, it is possible to perceive the gap that has now been created between the fervour of the seventies and the current social condition; almost all the monologues take their cue from extremely amusing and irreverent details ("The masturbation", "The anarchist") to reach terrible and desperate conclusions ("The pig"). Finally, when the unsustainable weight of hypocrisy seems to have overflowed the camel's back, all the hatred towards the idiocy and baseness of the world is poured into the ruthless and apocalyptic invective of the now famous I if I were God.

Gaber states: “I inserted 'I if I were God' in the show with some perplexity. Of course, I'm not pacified even today. I still don't read the newspapers and don't vote. It seemed so theatrical to me, so born for the stage ”. The disc version was recorded between 9 and 12 February 1982 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan and was published by Carosello with the title Il teatro di Giorgio Gaber.

Season 1982-83

Gaber is in his second test as a playwright. He signs a comedy in two acts with the inseparable Luporini: The case of Alessandro and Maria. In this show Gaber is also an actor, covering the role of male lead. The female protagonist is Mariangela Melato, one of the most requested and appreciated actresses of those years. The theme is that of the couple relationship, even if there is no lack of references to the social reality of the eighties. The piece made its debut on 22 October 1982 in Parma.

At the end of the tour Gaber records a record with Enzo Jannacci. The two meet to recall the songs of the sixties of the couple I Due Corsari with a revised and corrected look in "The Blues Brothers" style. The album, or rather the Q Disc, is called "Ja-Ga Brothers".

In the same year Gaber directed the play Dolci promesse di guerra by the songwriters Alloisio-Lolli. Gaber is also the producer of the show.

1983-84 season

Gaber takes a break from the stage. He signs the direction of the musical comedy A woman completely wrong, with Ombretta Colli in the role of sole protagonist. He founds his own production label: «GO Igest», with which he publishes the album «Gaber», to remember at least for Benvenuto the place where eye, heart, brain is. Gaber is invited on television by Gianni Minà, who hosts him in his show. He appears in three episodes, two in 1983 (in which he sings The Elections and What Loses the Pieces) and one in 1984, in which he presents Benvenuto il posto dove.

1984-85 season

He returns to the scene with "Me if I were Gaber". The theme is the flattening, the standardization. The show debuted on October 18, 1984 in Turin. Among the novelties is the return of the group that plays live behind the singer. The songs: The others, The mass, Something that grows, The desert. Gaber declares: "Io se fossi Gaber arises from the controversy over the mysterious term" mass ", about those who have succumbed to the logic of the market, about the drop in resistance even by the last who cheered for taste".

The disc version was recorded between 4 and 10 March 1985 at the Giulio Cesare Theatre in Rome and is still published by Carosello with the title Io se fossi Gaber. It is a double album with anthological characteristics: the new songs and the new monologues alternate with material from previous shows such as The Elections, The Dilemma or The Gun.

Gaber appears at the Tenco Award, where he performs in the recital “… Where everything is irony”, then in the television program Fantastico, the top broadcast of Rai 1 presented by Pippo Baudo and Heather Parisi, in which he performs Oh mamma andPressure low.

1985-86 season

"Io se fossi Gaber" is re-proposed for the second season. In the same year Gaber directs the musical comedy Help… I'm a successful woman, with Ombretta Colli in the role of sole protagonist.

1986-87 season

Gaber brings on stage "Talk to me of love Mariù", in which he re-proposes the theme of the couple relationship. Gaber declares: “My protagonist is a man who tries to clarify that little discernible malaise that accompanies life. And he does it through an investigation into feelings ”[56]. The show debuted on October 25, 1986 in San Marino. Gaber wins the Agis-BNL «Golden Ticket» for the highest average of spectators of the season.

The disc version was recorded between 7 and 9 May 1987 at the Teatro Smeraldo in Milan and is published by Carosello. Gaber also releases the studio album Little Shifts of the Heart. In the summer Gaber appears in Taormina Arte, where he sings I soli.

«Luporini and I work in a curious way. See you in the summer in Viareggio, where he is a painter, and we talk about what interests us and what happens around us: there can be the most varied topics, I know, the fear of war or the need to have fun, the problem of pollution ... This year I told him that I notice an ever stronger attention to one's feelings, to listening to oneself. So we decided to talk about it. "

1987-88 season

Gaber writes together with Gian Piero Alloisio and Arturo Brachetti In the beginning Arturo, a theatrical play interpreted by Brachetti. In the summer of 1988, Gaber curated and directed the theatrical review «Professione comico», an event that continued in the following years in Venice, until 1991.

1988-89 season

The decade ends with Gaber's return to a prose show, the second after The Case of Alessandro and Maria: it is «Il Grigio», a long monologue also published on disc. It is the story of a man “who withdraws from a world he does not like, goes to live in an isolated house: and there he is assaulted for his whole life, all his anxieties return to him, he is forced to a continuous self-analysis. " The antagonist of man is a mouse. The protagonist enters into himself “to look at himself, to take stock. […] When man sinks into self-observation, then, he slowly emerges. It's like the calm after the storm, he accepts himself. That's all. Accept yourself. "

This show differs from the previous ones for two elements: a) the scene is not an abstract structure, but a realistic environment in which there are real objects (guitar, video recorder); b) it is not a theatre-song show, but a real prose show, with a single protagonist on stage.

The show debuts on October 19th in Belluno. Gaber wins the "Curcio Prize" for Theatre and the "Ascot Brun Prize" for best actor. The disc version was recorded between 6 and 9 April 1989 at the Politeama of Genoa and is published by Carosello. In some theatres afternoon meetings and debates are organized with the public.

During the tour of the Grigio Giorgio, he warns the first signs of the disease that has struck him. After a treatment in the clinic, which ended with a positive result, he resumes working hard. He writes the original music for A che serve men?, A musical comedy directed by Pietro Garinei and performed at the Sistina Theatre in Rome. Interpreters: Ombretta Colli, Massimo Ghini and Stefano Santospago.

1989-90 season

“Il Grigio” is re-proposed for the second season. Gaber and Ombretta Colli co-sign the screenplay for Una donna tutto errata, four TV films of an hour and a half each, with independent stories. The films were broadcast in October 1989 on Rai 2. The protagonist is Ombretta Colli, with the extraordinary participation of Gaber. From 1989 to 1992 Gaber was artistic director of the Goldoni Theater in Venice and of the Toniolo in Mestre.

On 25 May 1990, the Gaberian staging of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952) made its debut at the Teatro Comunale in Venice. The Italian translation by Fruttero & Lucentini is adopted. Interpreters: the same Gaber (Vladimiro), Enzo Jannacci (Estragone), Paolo Rossi (Lucky) and Felice Andreasi (Pozzo). For the first time, Gaber recites a play not written by him. He finds the time to take care of the direction of Beppe Grillo's play “Buone Notizie”, written with the collaboration of Michele Serra. In the same year Gaber repeats "Il Grigio" in Rome. It is a triumph: the show exceeds the number of spectators reached the previous year.

The nineties

«I look a lot inside myself. It is not anger: it is self-analysis. It serves to make others understand me, but it also serves me to resist the prevailing homologation. "

“I'm not a Catholic. But the mystery is there, and how, and I am a man of faith. Faith, a priest once told me, is a wound that we carry within us and that we must try to heal, knowing that this will never happen. I agree with this."

1990-91 season

“Il Grigio” is re-proposed for the third season. During a rerun in Urbino, at the Sanzio Theatre, on March 13, 1990, on the occasion of the awarding of the Orizzonti Theatre Award for Dramaturgy, a festival directed by Massimo Puliani, Gaber is challenged by the student "panther". The artist appeases the students' protests by letting them enter the theatre.

As artistic director of the Goldoni Theatre, Gaber organizes a series of public meetings with the protagonists of the Italian theatre. The series «Incontro con l'Attore» sees the participation of, among others, Luca Ronconi, Mariangela Melato, Gabriele Lavia, Giorgio Strehler and Dario Fo.

In 1991 Gaber took part in the film Rossini! Rossini! by Mario Monicelli in the role of the impresario Domenico Barbaja.

The interpretation will earn him a nomination for the David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actor.

In the summer he is invited for the first time to the La Versiliana Festival, where he performs a series of recitals throughout the song theatre. The appointment becomes habitual and will have a continuation in the following years.

From 1991-92 to 1993-94

Gaber returns to singing in the theatre. Together with Luporini he puts on an anthological show, entitled «Il Teatro Canzone», which traces the entire history of the previous twenty years. The only unpublished is the monologue Someone was a communist, a lucid analysis of what communism had meant for so many people, in terms of hopes but also of illusions, and of what the end of that experience meant for many:

"[Someone was a communist] because he needed a push towards something new, because he felt the need for a different morality, because it was just a force, a dream, a flight, it was just an impulse, a desire to change things, to change your life. "

At the end of the show Gaber does not disdain, in the inevitable encores, to fish out some songs from the sixties, such as Porta romana (accompanied in the refrain by the choruses of the audience) and Non arrossire. Moreover, as he usually does, he also creates new versions of historical pieces, as Io if I were God. On stage Gaber is accompanied by a band. The musicians are: Gianni Martini on guitar, Luigi Campoccia on piano, Claudio De Mattei on bass, Enrico Spigno on drums, Corrado Sezzi on percussion and Luca Ravagni on keyboards. This training will accompany him until the last year of activity.

The recital debuts November 5, 1991 in Pesaro. The disc version was recorded in January 1992 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan and is published by Carosello.

In the summer Gaber is back in Versiliana. Between July and August he records his first home video: “Stories of Mr. G” at the Municipal Theatre of Pietrasanta.

Regarding the sales of his records, Gaber states: “Meanwhile [mine] were anomalous records: live, with the public, then they were doubles and at special prices, in the sense that they cost as a single. The most conspicuous source was the sales in theatres [on the night of the show], and consequently not recorded in the charts, because the charts are [based] on the measurements made in the shops.

"The song theatre" is staged for three consecutive seasons, until spring 1994. Gaber wins for the second time the Agis-BNL "Golden Ticket" for the most viewed show.

In that year the album, recorded live, Io come persona was released.

Seasons 1994-95 and 1995-96

In the two seasons "And to think that there was thought" is staged: Gaber resumes analyzing social reality with new songs like Right-Left, When I will be able to love and the world hurts me and new monologues like The chair to be moved, L'equazione e Sogno in two times, but also taking up and updating old passages such as Reality is a bird and The Church is renewed (1969), originally conceived for the Second Vatican Council, and now adapted to the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

From "And to think that there was thought" a live album was released in 1994 and another in 1995: the first was recorded at the Teatro Alfieri in Turin in November 1994; the second was recorded at the Teatro Regio di Parma in October 1995.

In 1996 Gaber became a grandfather: Lorenzo, the first son of Dalia, was born. In 1999, the second grandson will arrive, Luca.

From 1997-98 to 1999-2000

In 1997 Giorgio began to have serious health problems. In August and September he is forced to a long hospitalization. Once discharged, he sets to work to prepare the new show, which debuts in Lucca on January 2, 1998. A hard-won idiocy, also repeated for two seasons, sees the termination of the songwriter's relationship with Carosello, the 'label that has produced his records for more than twenty years; for some time Gaber self-produced the CDs (on sale only after the shows) with Giom, created ad hoc, and then in 2000 he moved to CGD Eastwest.

Artistically, the strong theme of the show is the criticism of the society of the nineties, evident in songs like The power of the most good and in Il conformista, a song of which Adriano Celentano will perform a version of him.

"A hard-won idiocy" goes on stage for three years. But the last season has an early conclusion: in February 2000 Gaber is forced to suspend the tour due to the worsening of his health conditions. It is the last show created with Sandro Luporini. From “Il Signor G” to “An idiocy conquered with difficulty”, the Gaber-Luporini couple has signed eleven shows, in a thirty-year collaboration.

The last years

On April 13, 2001, Gaber released a new album made in the studio, at the age of 14 from Little Shifts of the Heart: My generation has lost. The new work, on the one hand, features some songs from the previous re-recorded shows ("Destra-Sinistra" and "When I will be able to love"), on the other hand it contains some unreleased songs, of which the most significant is "The race in extinction ", the track that contains the phrase that gives the disc its title.

Already marked by the disease, Gaber appears in the same year in two episodes of the 125 million caz. Program by and with his old friend Adriano Celentano, together with Antonio Albanese, Dario Fo, Enzo Jannacci and Celentano himself in a surreal match cards: the five sing together I saw a king. The success of those evenings pushed him to get to work for a new album, just six months after the release of the last work.

I do not feel Italian, but it is published posthumously: for a long time suffering from lung cancer, Giorgio Gaber dies in the afternoon of New Year's Day 2003, just before turning 64, in his country house in Montemagno di Camaiore, in the near Lucca. The funeral takes place in the place where he was married, the abbey of Chiaravalle, with a Catholic rite, despite the fact that the singer-songwriter was not affiliated with a traditional religious denomination. The body rests in the Crypt of the Famedio in the Monumental Cemetery of Milan.

After the disappearance

The Giorgio Gaber Foundation in 2004 created the Giorgio Gaber Song Theatre Festival in his honour. Some of the most important Italian artists took part in this event, re-proposing pieces by Giorgio Gaber in the various editions. Among the various dedications, in 2004, the renovated underground auditorium of the Pirelli Skyscraper in Milan was named after Giorgio Gaber.

On November 13, 2012 the tribute album Per Gaber ... io ci sono was released, a box set consisting of 3 CDs containing the artist's songs interpreted by 50 Italian artists.

On 21 January 2013, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death and a few days after what would have been the artist's 74th birthday, Fabio Fazio conducted a special of Che tempo che fa entitled G di Gaber, a tribute-tribute in which old friends of the musician - and not - have remembered him interpreting his most famous songs. Among others, Enzo Iacchetti, Claudio Bisio (who duet with Paolo Jannacci), Sandro Luporini himself, Roberto Vecchioni, Patti Smith, Paolo Rossi, Luca and Paolo, Rossana Casale, the widow Ombretta Colli and many others took part.

On 2 October 2019, a commemorative stamp is issued by the Ministry of Economic Development, together with those dedicated to Pino Daniele and Lucio Dalla.

On 7 November 2019 the Municipality of Arezzo dedicates a square to Giorgio Gaber.

External link

Giorgio Gaber on Wikipedia

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