Giorgio Gaber
Giorgio Gaber , actually Giorgio Gaberščik (born January 25, 1939 in Milan , † January 1, 2003 in Montemagno di Camaiore ) was an Italian musician, cantautore and actor .
Live and act
Giorgio Gaber grew up in Milan as the son of Guido Gaberščik from Trieste and Carla Mazzoran from Milan. After graduating from college as an accountant in 1958, Gaber enrolled at the Luigi Bocconi University of Economics , but did not graduate. He started his artistic career at an early age, playing the guitar and performing in various clubs. In the 1960s and 1970s Gaber developed into a well-known songwriter. Gaber was usually called Il Signor G by his followers after his album of the same name from 1970.
The beginnings
Giorgio Gaber was born in Via Londonio 28 into a middle-class family. The parents had met in Veneto , where his mother's family came from. The young couple then sought their fortune in Lombardy .
His father Guido Gaberščik (* Trieste , July 18, 1903, † Milan 1978) was an employee, his mother Carla Mazzoran (* Milan, March 11, 1906, † Milan, July 29, 1984) was a housewife. His older brother Marcello studied geometer and played the guitar to pass the time . Giorgio's childhood was marked by serious illnesses, including poliomyelitis twice . He had the first illness when he was eight and nine years old. The left arm was affected, which led to a slight paralysis of the hand. His father gave him a guitar on it, with which moving his fingers should appear to his son as a fun activity and not as a compulsion. It helped that the brother already mastered the instrument. The father's idea turned out to be a blessing from both a medical and an artistic point of view. As an adult, Gaber would later say of himself: "My whole career grew out of this disease."
His early role models were jazz guitarists Barney Kessel , Tal Farlow and Billy Bauer . The young musician saw himself as an instrumentalist, but did not yet consider a career as a singer. For him, music was an attitude towards life and a diversion from everyday school life. He was also enthusiastic about Italian musicians, in particular he followed the frequent appearances of Franco Cerri in the jazz bar Taverna Messicana.
Gaber started as a musician with the group of Ghigo Agosti , who first appeared together at the Hot Club in Milan and also made their debut at the Jazz Festival in 1954. Gaber presented himself to the audience with his real name Gaberscik. After playing light music and jazz in various bars for two years, he became part of Adriano Celentano's Rock Boys formation , whose pianist Enzo Jannacci was. In 1957, the group became known to a wider audience in the television program Voci e volti della fortuna , which broadcast a drawing of the Italian lottery.
Gaber soon developed close cooperation and friendship with Luigi Tenco , who had moved to Milan from Genoa . The two were reinforced by Paolo Tomelleri , who, like Tenco, also played the saxophone , Enzo Jannacci on the piano and Gian Franco Reverberi as the guitarist. The group gave itself the name Rocky Mountains Old Times Stompers and made their first big appearance in the then particularly hip Club Santa Tecla in Milan. In 1957 and 1958 Gaber, Tenco, Jannacci, Tomelleri and Reverberi accompanied the much more successful Adriano Celentano on his tour of Germany.
In 1958 Gaber obtained a diploma in accounting. The following summer he played with Tenco in a group of three (double bass, guitar, piano) in various bars in Genoa. In doing so, he tested his skills as a singer for the first time. In autumn he enrolled at the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi to study, which he financed with his income as a musician. During this time, Nanni Ricordi, the artistic director of a music publisher of the same name, became aware of Gaber and enabled him to make a test recording. This started Gabor's solo career with the newly established record label Dischi Ricordi with the songs Ciao ti dirò and Da te era bello restar, as well as the two American cover versions Be-Bop-A-Lula and Love Me Forever . On the inner label of 45 grooves counted Extended Play - record was printed "Giorgio Gaber e la sua Rolling Crew". For the first time he presented himself with his stage name.
Ciao ti dirò , written by Giorgio Calabrese and Gian Franco Reverberi, was one of the first rock songs in the Italian language. The instrumentalists accompanying Giorgio Gaber were not members of his own group, but the jazz musicians Franco Cerri on guitar and Gianni Basso on saxophone, who were already under contract with Dischi Ricordi . This first record made it possible for Gaber to appear on television on Mario Riva's Il Musichiere program in 1959 .
With other rising stars in the music business - among them Mina , Celentano and Little Tony - Gaber gave an evening rock concert in the ice palace (Palazzo del Ghiaccio) in Milan in the spring of 1959. With Enzo Jannacci he also formed the singer duo I Due Corsari from 1959 . The recordings 24 ore / Ehi! Stella and the particularly successful Una fetta di limone (1960). At the end of 1959 Gaber registered with the Italian Society for the Protection of Authors' Rights Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori (SIAE) as a song composer and author of song texts.
The success
In 1960 Gaber made his breakthrough with Non arrossire at the singing event Sei giorni della canzone . With La ballata del Cerutti , which was also released on phonogram that same year, the most famous song from Gber's early creative phase was created with a text by the writer Umberto Simonetta . The author wrote the lyrics of Gaber's most famous songs from the 1960s. Trani a gogò (1962), Goganga and Porta Romana (1963), Gaber often sang on television.
The French chanson , as it found expression in the Paris Rive Gauche at that time, offered Gaber artistic orientation. There he discovered the cultural depth and the right care for dealing with the text, which the upscale light music in Italy lacked. Giorgio Gaber once said of himself: "My teacher, that was Jacques Brel ."
What drove Giorgio Gaber as much as his fellow musicians Gino Paoli , Sergio Endrigo , Umberto Bindi , Bruno Lauzi , Enzo Jannacci and Luigi Tenco was the search for a suitable middle ground between American-influenced rock and jazz and chanson française. All of them found their own way as Italian singer-songwriters . With the exception of the forerunner Domenico Modugno , all representatives of this first generation of Italian songwriters started out during this period. Giorgio Gaber has also played a key role in this development from the very beginning.
After the relationship with the singer and actress Maria Monti (with whom he wrote Non arrossire ) had ended, Giorgio Gaber married Ombretta Colli on April 12, 1965 , who was enrolled in Russian and Chinese studies at the Università degli Studi di Milano . Their only daughter Dalia Debora Gaberščik was born on January 12, 1966.
In the 1960s he took part in four editions of the Sanremo Festival : 1961 Benzina e cerini (co-author: Enzo Jannacci) sung in a duet with Maria Monti; 1964 Così felice (author: Sandro Luporini ), in a duet with Patricia Carli ; 1966 May, May, May (Valentina) with American duo partner Pat Boone ; 1967 ... E allora dài! performed in a duet with Remo Germani .
While Benzina e cerini and Così felice were still published by Dischi Ricordi, Gaber switched to the Ri-Fi label in 1965 . In October 1965, the new publisher brought out a selection of acclaimed songs by Gaber on the record Mina & Gaber: un'ora con loro , half with songs by Giorgio Gabers and half with the singer Mina, who is also popular with Ri-Fi.
In 1966 Gaber sang 'A Pizza at the 14th edition of the Festival di Napoli , with duet partner Aurelio Fierro . The text came from the pen of Alberto Testa and Giordano Bruno Martelli. This song and the Ballata de 'Ballata , which Gaber had taken over from the paroliere Riccardo de Vita, were to remain his only attempts to sing in the style of the Canzone Napoletana .
In 1967 Gaber took part in the 4th edition of the Festival delle rose and appeared on stage with the song Suona chitarra , this time with Pippo Franco . His engagements on television were numerous, especially in the entertainment program Carosello , soon also as a presenter and program manager. On the side, he continued to play in the better-known and lesser-known Milan clubs in the Rocky Mountains formation . He helped the young Franco Battiato to start his career.
In 1968 the album L'asse di equilibrio was released by Ri-Fi, after which Gaber moved to the music label Vedette . In the same year Gaber was seen in the role of Idaho Martin, called il Meticcio , in an Italian-style western musical, a Commedia musicale . The production of the Rai with the Quartetto Cetra was entitled Non cantare, spara and Gaber had the task as a singing mestizo at the beginning of each of the eight episodes to recapitulate the previous events.
Vedette brought Gaber's success Torpedo blu and the socially critical Com'è bella la città to the shops. Riccardo followed in 1969 and Barbera e champagne in 1970 . A friendship developed between him and the songwriter Claudio Chieffo, who is anchored in the Roman Catholic faith . Gaber, who was an atheist , said he thought a lot about his beliefs.
In 1970 Sexus et politica appeared , on which Gaber could be heard with Antonio Virgilio Savona and the Quartetto Cetra. Gaber now also wrote songs based on ancient literature. After hosting a television program for the last time with E noi qui , he decided, encouraged by his success as a stage artist, to give up the medium of television from now on.
New ways
“[…] The end of the 1960s was an extraordinary time, full of tension, wanting in politics and beyond, which we remember well, and working for television had become devalued. Its formulaic nature almost made me sick, its censorship specifications narrowed me down; Censorship in language, in expression, and so I said to myself, ok, I did this job and I was successful with it, but from now on I want to attach conditions to the success. The theater work seemed to me to give renewed meaning to the denial of this certain narcissism. "
"[...] And then I asked myself whether I should subordinate my life, my decisions, to the success, popularity and money it brought me. The answer seemed clear to me: I had discovered that the theater was more like my nature, that I enjoyed it more, that it allowed me to express myself directly without a record being used or without a camera standing between the artist and his audience . The admissions were certainly less than the income from selling the records, but they brought in enough for me not to suffer from my choice of direction. [...] As far as money is concerned, I think that anyone who manages to earn a lire more than is necessary to live discreetly is rich. "
Gaber made his first stage experiences in 1959 at the Teatro Girolamo with his then fiancée Maria Monti. The recital was announced with the title Il Giorgio e la Maria . Monti performed speaking pieces about Milan, in which Gaber brought his songs. He also chose this format of song and spoken word in 1960 for the extended play recording ll mio amico Aldo with the writer and dramaturge Dario Fo . Gaber was passionately interested in his work.
With his oeuvre, now completely dedicated to the theater, Giorgio Gaber worked on the invention of a new art form, the Teatro canzone , which he initially named la canzone a teatro . After he had escaped the “golden cage” of television, he redefined himself, just as he was, without superimposed roles or false masks.
His alter ego "Signor G" was born: a figure who doesn't play a role but speaks from itself and is consequently "a person full of contradictions and pain", a Signor like everyone else; "Signor G, that's a Mr. Gaber, and he is me, and Luporini - that is, we - try to break away from ourselves somehow and find ourselves in the others". This resulted in an independent genre consisting of a thematic spectacle, songs to deepen it, and monologues and stories as background music. Live recordings and studio albums have been released on his new label Carosello Records .
After Il signor G had been recorded at Regson in Milan on October 6, 1970 , the program started on October 21 in the Teatro San Rocco in Seregno . Beppe Recchia was in the direction and Giorgio Casellato as musical director. They brought the program to several stages in Lombardy in a tour. At the end of 1970 Gaber decided to make his only television appearance that year; he sang Il signor G in the lottery program Canzonissima .
“I understood that I could live like this and that I had found my way. I lived better. [...] At first I was a little afraid, because after the "rush" with Mina, it was quiet around me. But despite this shock, I felt that I was doing the right thing. "
Gabor's producer in those years was Paolo Grassi , who was then head of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano . At the end of the first season, Gaber took stock and spoke to Grassi about the doubts that nagged him, but Grassi succeeded in encouraging Gaber and with significant financial assurances to win him for the next season. With Sandro Luporini, further songs and spoken pieces for Storie vecchie e nuove del signor G were created , in which the existing program was expanded and deepened. From 1971 the two friends spent every summer in Viareggio , where they worked out the content of the new season. The versions of the linguistic inserts were created together, and Gaber composed his music alone to match.
Discography
Albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
 IT
|
|||
| 1974 | Far finta di essere sani |
IT24 (1 week) IT |
Carosello
|
| 2001 | La mia generazione ha perso |
IT2 (26 weeks) IT |
Warner
|
| 2003 | Gaber Studio Collection |
IT56 (3 weeks) IT |
EMI
|
| Io non mi sento italiano |
IT1 (18 weeks) IT |
Warner
|
|
| Giorgio Gaber |
IT81 (1 week) IT |
BMG Ricordi
Original published in 1961 |
|
| 2004 | Rock'n'Roll, amore e storie metropolitane |
IT52 (5 weeks) IT |
BMG Ricordi
|
| 2006 | Con tutta la rabbia, con tutto l'amore |
IT53 (7 weeks) IT |
Carosello
|
| 2018 | Le donne di ora |
IT16 (4 weeks) IT |
Artist first
|
More albums
- 1964: Questo & Quello
- 1965: Mina & Gaber: Un'Ora Con Loro
- 1968: L'asse d'equilibrio
- 1968: Sai com'è
- 1970: Sexus et Politica
- 1970: Il Signor G
- 1971: I Borghesi
- 1972: Dialogo Tra Un Impegnato E Un Non So
- 1974: Anche per oggi non si vola
- 1976: Libertà obbligatoria
- 1980: Pressione bassa
- 1980: Gaber Al Piccolo (5 × LP box)
- 1981: Anni affollati
- 1982: Il Teatro Di Giorgio Gaber (edizione integrale dal vivo dello spettacolo 'Anni Affollati')
- 1984: Gaber
- 1985: Io se fossi Gaber
- 1987: Parliaments d'amore Mariù
- 1987: Piccoli Spostamenti Del Cuore
- 1989: Il Grigio
- 1992: Il teatro canzone
- 1994: E pensare che c'era il pensiero
- 1994: Io come persona
- 1998: Un'Idiozia Conquistata A Fatica
- 2000: I grandi successi originali
- 2005: Le più belle canzoni di
- 2006: Con tutta la rabbia, con tutto l'amore
- 2011: Io Mi Chiamo G
- 2012: Le canzoni di Giorgio Gaber
- 2013: Storie Del Signor G Canzoni E Monologhi - Speciale Decennale 2003–2013
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
|
IT
|
|||
| 1960 | Geneviève |
IT16 (2 weeks) IT |
Dischi Ricordi
|
| 1961 | Non arrossire |
IT8 (14 weeks) IT |
Dischi Ricordi
|
| La ballata del Cerutti |
IT14 (2 weeks) IT |
Dischi Ricordi
|
|
| Le strade di notte |
IT10 (5 weeks) IT |
Dischi Ricordi
|
|
| Quei capelli spettinati |
IT13 (1 week) IT |
Dischi Ricordi
|
|
| 1962 | Trani a go-go |
IT11 (5 weeks) IT |
Dischi Ricordi
|
| 1966 | May May May Valentina |
IT8 (2 weeks) IT |
RiFi
|
| 1967 | … E allora dai! |
IT15 (1 week) IT |
RiFi
|
Duets
- 1960: Giorgio Gaber & Enzo Janacci: Una fetta di limone
- 1962: Dario Fo e Giorgio Gaber: Il mio amico aldo
- 1962: Dario Fo e Giorgio Gaber: Tre storie di gatti (Una triste, una allegra, una media)
- 1993: Anna Oxa & Giorgio Gaber: Si può
- Ombretta Colli & Giorgio Gaber: Il Sapore Della Vita In Due (on È Il Mio Uomo )
- 1959:
- Canta
- 1960:
- La ninfetta
- 1961:
- Benzina e cerini
- La conchiglia
- 1963
- Goganga
- La ballata del pedone
- Le nostre serate
- Porta romana
- 1964:
- Il sospetto
- Noi due stupidi
- Grace aunt
- C'è una cosa che non sai
- So felice
- Domani ci vediamo
- 1965
- Dopo la prima sera
- 1966:
- A pizza
- Ballata de 'suonne
- The ragazzo della Via Gluck
- Te lo leggo negli tatting
- Le ore e le stelle
- 1967:
- La libertà di ridere
- O bella ciao
- Snoopy contro il barone rosso
- Suona chitarra
- Al bar del corso
- 1968:
- La balilla
- La vita dell'uomo
- C'era una volta un clan
- Lo sai che tu sei bella
- L'orologio
- Parole parole
- Eppure sembra un uomo
- Torpedo blu
- 1969:
- Com'è bella la città
- Il Riccardo
- Donna donna donna
- 2000:
- Amore mio
- Desiderote
- La maglietta
- La Mamma del Gino
- Povera gente
still without year:
- Barbera e Champagne
- Be Bop a Lula
- Chiedo scusa se parlo di Maria
- Ciao baby ciao
- Come ti amavo ieri
- Far finta di essere sani
- Gli amici
- Gulp gulp
- Il barattolo
- Il gatto si murders la coda
- Il nostro giorno (1 ° maggio)
- Il signor G
- La chiesa si rinnova
- L'amico
- Lo shampoo
- L'ultima bestia
- Ma pensa te
- Oh Madonnina dei dolori
- Pieni di sonno
- Do no
literature
- Paolo Jachia: Giorgio Gaber. 1958-2003. Il teatro e le canzoni , Editori Riuniti, Roma 2003. ISBN 88-359-5446-0 .
- Sandro Neri: Gaber. La vita, le canzoni, il teatro , Giunti, Firenze 2007. ISBN 978-88-09-05061-7 .
- Andrea Pedrinelli (Eds.): Gaber, Giorgio, il signor G. Raccontato da intellettuali, amici, artisti , Kowalski, Milano 2008. ISBN 978-88-7496-754-4 .
Web links
- Giorgio Gaber at Discogs (English)
- Stefano Pivato: Gaber, Giorgio. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI).
- Fondazione Giorgio Gaber {Italian}
- German translation of "Io non mi sento italiano"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Guido Gaberščik's parents were Francesco Gaberščik and Luigia Destradi. The name is of Slovenian origin ( Slovenes in Friuli-Venezia Giulia ) and is derived from the Slavic word gaber , which means beech. The suffix -scek denotes a geographical origin, the ancestor of this name may therefore have come from an area in which these trees grew frequently or which was named after these trees.
- ↑ Luciano Ceri, G. Martini: Il signor G suona la chitarra . In: Chitarre . No. 51 , June 1990.
- ↑ Luciano Ceri, G. Martini: Il signor G suona la chitarra . In: Chitarre . No. 51 , June 1990.
- ↑ Luciano Ceri, G. Martini: Il signor G suona la chitarra . In: Chitarre . No. 153 , November 1998.
- ^ F. Poletti: Giorgio Gaber: i miei cattivi pensieri . In: Specchio de La Stampa . Torino April 21, 2001.
- ^ G. Harari: Giorgio Gaber . In: Rockstar . January 2013.
- ^ Fabio Trevisan: La Fede di Claudio Chieffo. In: Vita Nuova Trieste. Diocesi di Trieste CF, September 24, 2013, accessed April 16, 2020 (Italian).
- ↑ E. Vaime: Giorgio Gaber: cento storie che coinvolgono . In: Tullio Kezich (Ed.): Sipario . Roma 1972.
- ^ Giorgio Gaber: Gaber-fluxus . In: ML Straniero (ed.): Il signor Gaber . Gammalibri, Milano 1979.
- ^ Gianluca Veltri: Giorgio Gaber La poetica del Signor G. In: Onda Rock. Retrieved April 17, 2020 (Italian).
-
↑ Chart sources (albums):
- Guido Racca: M&D Borsa Album 1964-2019 . Self-published, 2019, ISBN 978-1-09-470500-2 , pp. 175 .
- Guido Racca & Chartitalia: Top 100 FIMI album . Lulu , 2013, p. 110 f .
- Albums by Giorgio Gaber. In: Italiancharts.com. Hung Medien , accessed August 2, 2019 .
- ↑ Guido Racca: M&D Borsa Singoli 1960-2019 . Self-published, 2019, ISBN 978-1-09-326490-6 , pp. 220 .
- ^ Giorgio Gaber Singles Discography on ItalianCharts.com
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gaber, Giorgio |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gaberščik, Giorgio (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian musician, Cantautore and actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 25, 1939 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Milan |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 1, 2003 |
| Place of death | Montemagno di Camaiore |