Paolo Conte

Una verde frontiera

As the calendar turns the corner from the Seventies into the Eighties, Paolo Conte makes the decisive turn in his career. The shy songwriter, the reluctant performer of his own material who spends over five years in a steady crescendo of style and self-confidence, blossoms completely at the dawn of the new decade. To borrow one of those cycling metaphors on which the lawyer from Asti has built entire epics, in 1981 Conte is the still-untested champion who suddenly - though perhaps not so suddenly after all - decides to reveal the full force and talent that set him apart, shifting gears at the foot of the most important climb, the one where everything is decided, and setting a pace no one else can match, until he finds himself alone at the summit, first over the mountain. That climb can only be the Tourmalet, and then comes the descent, greeted by a sea of people.

In truth, as is almost always the case, things are different from how they get summed up after the fact. When "Paris Milonga" came out in 1981, Paolo Conte was certainly no novice. He had already written several hit songs for other artists, alone and in collaboration (including with his brother Giorgio, another undeniable talent). Songs in which one can already spot the first signs of a talent working at an angle to any other songwriter, in style and language, yet still shaped by the demands of Italy's thriving record industry. The two self-titled albums, the ones that "broke the ice", are of undoubted worth but still seem to bear the marks of that climate; already with 1979's "Un gelato al limon", though, the Asti bard's need to head toward broader horizons and an "autonomous" imagination still waiting to be invented begins to make itself felt. "Paris Milonga" is the moment when Paolo Conte's musical vision and literary style finally come fully into the open, taking on a form and substance that has no equal, and could have none.

La vera musica

"Paris Milonga": if the controversial album cover tells us absolutely nothing about what's inside, the title, for its part, couldn't be more fitting. It's as if Paolo Conte wanted to measure out the new borders of his music-making, until then largely confined to a regional/Italian outlook: on one side, South America, with its irresistible allure, already partly paid tribute two years earlier with songs like "Sud America" (fittingly) and "Blue Tangos"; on the other, a refined and demanding France, of which Piedmont, for the songwriter, is perhaps just one of many provinces. What lies in between is discovered along the way, meaning across the whole arc of his artistic career.

It's also worth stressing, and it's anything but a trivial point, that this album wouldn't be what it is without the people who stood alongside Conte in the endeavour. The return of Lilli Greco at the production helm puts the lawyer at ease, because for Greco what matters is the performance as it is, even when it falls short of the perfection of a standard studio take. Hence more than one song on "Paris Milonga" comes straight from the demo sessions, embracing the spirit of "first take's the charm".

At RCA's studios in Rome, moreover, Conte is surrounded by musicians who, from that point on, would partly accompany him along the way. Alongside the trusty Claudio Dadone, this is the first appearance of guitarist Jimmy Villotti, organist Felice "Happy" Ruggiero, and drummer Lele Melotti, just to name a few. With an orchestra at his disposal, the Asti songwriter's imagination finds even more fertile ground.

Un'altra vita

Among the vast songbook that flowed from Paolo Conte's pen, "Via con me" is - alongside "Azzurro" - in all likelihood his most celebrated song, and for good reason. Chiefly because it beautifully embodies and sums up the lawyer's whole way of being and making art: elegant and sly, light-hearted yet disenchanted, dreamy yet irreverent, with the almost revolutionary introduction of the onomatopoeic refrain ("du du du du du/ ci bum/ ci bum bum") that softens and, in a way, universalises the whole thing - a piano march/vaudeville tune that takes almost no time to lodge itself in your head.

Far more solemn in tone is the arc of "Alle prese con una verde milonga". A song that grips you with its irresistible languor, but also, and above all, an act of love toward South American music, made explicit not only in its metre but also in its lyrical references, and in particular in the open tribute to Atahualpa Yupanqui, the outstanding Argentine guitarist Conte had admired at the Premio Tenco in 1980. If "Un gelato al Limon" had already enriched his language with images, metaphors and devices, with the "verde milonga" he reaches new heights of lyricism: "La sua origine d'Africa/ la sua eleganza di zebra/ il suo essere di frontiera/ una verde frontiera/ una verde frontiera/ tra il suonare e l'amare/ verde spettacolo in corsa da inseguire/ da inseguire sempre/ da inseguire ancora/ fino ai laghi bianchi del silenzio/ finché Athaualpa/ o qualche altro Dio/ non ti dica: 'descansate niño che continuo io'".

This back-and-forth sees Conte move from one habitat (real, yet reinvented) to another, with that fluidity of images and words that became his trademark. "La vera musica" wears a suit of great class, paying tribute to the art of composing music in its most far-flung, admirable forms. The melancholy of "Blue Haways" is actually a thoroughly private and hardly exotic affair, despite the title and a chorus delivered in an improbable English. It feels like being in one of those smoky old-school piano bars, which is also the territory staked out by "Boogie", a hybrid of blues and jazz in which, for the first time, the Asti songwriter delights in being backed by his brand-new big band.

"L'ultima donna" sits halfway between South America and France, with swing accents and a cabaret spirit, but in truth it's simply a tribute to the master above all masters, Georges Brassens, and his "La première fille".

And so, France. "Madeleine" unfolds around piano progressions driven by a marching snare drum, blowing on the embers of a melancholy that is perhaps Proustian, undoubtedly transalpine in its musical and poetic undertones ("Allons, Madeleine/ certain cats or certain men/ vanished into a fog or into a tapestry/ farewell farewell, they'll never return, we know/ with time and wind everything blows away"). Equally poetic is perhaps the least celebrated track on the album, "Un'altra vita", opened by one of the most beautiful piano themes among the countless ones written by Conte. Who, in the end, cannot help but pay tribute to the city above all cities, Paris, the very Paris that would go on to throw open the doors of its theatres to him. A twofold declaration of love, to a woman and a place that end up merging into one ("while all around is rain, rain, rain and France").

As for "Pretend Pretend Pretend", it would in itself be an alien chapter within the context, but it serves a functional purpose. In his own way, Paolo Conte turns the spotlight back on and lets us sense that we've entered his little theatre, in which we are the audience and he himself is the protagonist. The decade changes, the perspectives change. There are no more masks to wear, only legions of audiences to win over.

Ride the wave of great music

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28/04/2019