Google's homage to Giorgio Gaber, protagonist of today's doodle.
Gaber would have turned 83 today
Here are two articles taken from the ANSA archives, on the occasion of Gaber's death on January 1st 2003
DEAD GABER: LOVE AND ESCAPE FROM MILAN, HIS MUSA / ANSA
Document: 20030101 01766
ZCZC0397 / SXB
R SPE S0B S41 QBXH
DEAD GABER: LOVE AND ESCAPE FROM MILAN, HIS MUSA / ANSA
(ANSA) - MILAN, 1 JAN - (by Alfonso Neri) - ''
My career as an artist developed on a plot of Milanese circumstances
''. This is how Giorgio Gaber, who was going in a Jaguar
to the State University to take Ombretta Colli, talked about
his work, his life and the birth of a political conscience.
Because they challenged him to the state highway for that "
beautiful car" of his. And he started thinking about it.
A very Milanese plot that of career and life
by Gaber, who the greatest Italian chansonnier loved
to remember how his shows '' without ever giving precise
coordinates of space and time, always refer to
typically metropolitan situations ''.
He was going with the Jaguar to pick up his girlfriend, whom he would later marry in
1965, that boy who was born of a Venetian family
- real surname Gaberscik - not very well-off, in via Londonio, in
the Sempione area. And that at 15 he had started playing to
heal himself and then he will move with the guitar to Santa Tecla,
a place a few steps behind the Duomo. Where he meets Celentano,
Jannacci and Mogol. What will become the mostfamous
Italian lyricist
gets him the contact with Ricordi for the first
record: four songs in all, including 'Hello I'll tell you'.
Jannacci will instead be a friend to deal with constantly.
With the spring, described by Gaber as "a
crazy
young man
", he will do his first shows around Milan, as a
guitarist.
Then came the theater, his true love: reported by
Paolo Grassi and hired by Piccolo to bring Mr. G.
to the Lombard squares.
Then he will be there on television, where, not
surprisingly, he makes himself known with a metropolitan piece: 'How beautiful is
the city'.
He has already sung 'Porta Romana', with which
he describes to all of Italy a neighborhood where you can ''
paints an image from Via Gluck of Celentaniana memory.
The faculty of Economics at the prestigious Bocconi is
forgotten. There is a lot of music and a lot of Milan inside Gaber. '' I have
heard many ballads, that of Tom Dooley and that of Davy
Crocket - sings Giorgio - and I would have liked to
write one too: instead nothing, I did a ballad for someone
who is in Milan at Giambellino (a district of 'extreme
working class suburbs, ed), the Cerutti, Cerutti Gino' '.
But Milan was not America. '' I started
playing the guitar when I was eight or nine - remembered Gaber in an
old interview - and my myths were jazz:I started
listening to American vinyl records that did a
pleasant buzz as they made us hear this very
strange and absolutely shocking music ''.
In the Milanese bars
he tried to play the notes from overseas, '' but then it was enough for
someone to arrive, not that he was an American, but had been ten
minutes in America, who sounded better than me ''.
In Milan he lived there until the 80s, to the intoxication of
Milan to drink.
Then he runs away to the countryside, in Tuscany, where he has
chosen to die.
When he had to go back under the Cathedral for
work, he felt a pang in
his
heart - he confided to his friends -
he found it hard to live there.
'' But I remained tied to
my city
in everything
- he said - I feel that here everything belongs to me,
almost physically ''.
He missed the pool bars.
Like
that of Cerruti, there at Giambellino, where friends
'' called him dragon, they said he was a magician, one evening in a
dark street ... pretending not to be afraid ''.
And Milan wants
to say goodbye to him.
At the Piccolo they prepare the funeral parlor.
Right there, where Mr. G began his timeless journey
.
(HANDLE).
KDP
01-JAN-03 21:13 NNNN
DEAD GABER: THE CONGRESS FOR A GREAT SNOB / ANSA
Document: 20030101 00855
ZCZC0398 / SXB
R SPE S0B S41 QBXB
DEAD
GABER
: THE CONGRESS FOR A GREAT SNOB / ANSA
FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE PERA IN FONER,
ROME
PROIETTI AND LERSA
) , 1 JAN - The death of Giorgio Gaber, who died
today after a long illness, hit the world of
entertainment, of political culture, which considered him a
'' great '' from many points of view.
Like the Nobel laureate Dario Fo, who defines him as a '' great
playwright '' as well as '' a brutal pessimist but never
opportunist even if the politicians never loved him because
he scratched them, or rather bludgeoned them.
Many remember the
the monologator, the singer - adds Fo - but Gaber was
a great playwright and this is hardly remembered ''.
'' A freak phenomenon on the contrary '': this is how
Gad Lerner, his admirer, friend and author of the
preface of '' Words and songs '', book plus cassette
published by Einaudi Stile Libero in May of last year,
remembers him.
.
For Lerner Gaber was the '' king of the stage with Celentano
Mina and after him only Morandi '', as well as '' a true snob ''.
Quality was for Gigi Proietti the
main
characteristic
of Gaber and of his art.
'' We always talk about
quality - says the
it was all quality and therefore in this moment his is an
even more painful loss ''.
For Proietti, he was also a
'' man capable of making choices, not just political ones, of
taste, style and class ''.
"With the loss of him we are poorer, certainly from
an artistic
point
of view", says Shel Shapiro, who met
the Milanese artist 30 years during the Cantagiro.
'' In the last
25 years he has been a great in theater and music - adds
Lui - On these occasions there is a lot of rhetoric, but it is truly a
great loss for music in general ''.
Longtime friend of Gaber and his wife Ombretta Colli,
the latter '' with sadness and affection '' his
personal
condolences
and those of the Senate.
'' With his music,
his voice, his mimicry - says Pera in the message - Giorgio
Gaber has accompanied several generations of Italians and
educated them to a civil spirit combined with a sense of critical irony.
It was a high testimony of commitment and passion ''.
(HANDLE).
MV
01-JAN-03 21:19 NNNN