Thanks to the discovery of an lp releasd in 1967, I seize this
opportunity to talk about the great arrangers of the Italian RCA which were, in
the sixties, people of the calibre of Ennio Morricone, Luis Enriquez Bacalov,
Franco Pisano, Carlo Pes, Guido Relly.
The record in question is Cantadisco, predecessor of the modern karaoke,
basically a collection of 14 tracks
performed by RCA orchestras which delighted us with the hits of the
time. According to the back
sleeve notes, the basics are the same
as those used for the original records
with an overdubbed organ arrangement so as to facilitate
the vocal performance of the songs.
The track-list is as follows:
La fisarmonica – Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni
Piangi con me – I Rokes (brano non orchestrale)
Piangi con me – I Rokes (brano non orchestrale)
Quando dico che ti amo – Franco Pisano e la sua orchestra
Domani – Guido Relly e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di
A. Alessandroni
Ti vedo uscire – Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra e I Cantori
Moderni di A. Alessandroni
Lui – Luis Enriquez e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A.
Alessandroni
Te lo leggo negli occhi – Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra e I
Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni
Bisogna saper perdere– I Rokes (altro brano non orchestrale)
Il mondo - Ennio
Morricone e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni
Fortissimo - Luis Enriquez e la sua orchestra e I Cantori
Moderni di A. Alessandroni
Se telefonando - Guido Relly e la sua orchestra e I Cantori
Moderni di A. Alessandroni
Vivrò - Guido Relly e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A.
Alessandroni
Pensandoci ogni sera – Carlo Pes e la sua orchestra e I Cantori
Moderni di A. Alessandroni
Se perdo anche te - Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra
For those who are used
to consider Ennio Morricone as an author of movie scores and contemporary
music, it might be strange to find out about his activity as arranger of pop
music .
Ennio arrives at
RCA in 1959 taking over the place
previously occupied by maestro Marcello De Martino. He was awarded with a Diploma at the Music Academy
(Conservatorio) and he was a student of the great Goffredo Petrassi.....The
year before he was employed in RAI (Italian Broadcast Radio-TV) but his experience lasted very briefly because
he handed over his resignations the same day he was employed because he felt
his work in RAI would have been a routine job, his compositions would never
have been performed by the orchestras and soon after he was deployed to other office duties.
One of his first
arrangements was for Il Barattolo of Gianni Meccia for whom he managed, in the
introductory part of the song, to synchronize the noise of some tin-cans with
orchestral rythmics. The modus operandi
of Morricone is very rigid, he is undoubtly an insatiable worker, the change of
sounds and modulations produced by him are very refined and put the designated orchestra through a very
tough challenge in playing them: through his choices and method one can
unequivocally perceive his solid and
classical training.
The sixties were a very
profitable decade, during which jewels such as Sapore di Mare, Il mondo, C’era
un ragazzo che come me che amava i Beatles e i Rolling Stones and Il cielo in
una stanza were released , but the working relationship with the Roman label
was destined to end due to the movie industry’s demands . According to the
Maestro, however, a strange situation came alight: following the music
revolution of those years the requests by the RCA to follow the American
tendencies also became more pressurizing. He returned at RCA in 1978 to arrange the record Bandierine by
Renzo Zenobi, where he used a new experimental technique which consisted in
three different arrangements of the same track which during the mix phase, were
overdubbed and interexchanged. The time of orchestras, however, was coming to
an end and also the RCA was compelled, during the eighties, to shut down.
Luis Enriquez Bacalov
arrived in RCA together with Morricone in 1959; he already was a recognized brilliant arranger who, as soon as arrived in
Italy from Argentina, he had his own way with the Cetra label: he cooperated,
among others, with Claudio Villa (of whom was pianist and supporting musician
up to the end of fifties) as well as Milva. One of his first arrangements was Il Capello which crowned
Edoardo Vianello’s long list of hits. He
continued to get further noticed by taking care of arrangements of other RCA
artists: Nico Fidenco (remarkable the one of “Legata ad un granello di
sabbia”), Sergio Endrigo, Rita Pavone (memorable the work done on the song
Cuore) , Umberto Bindi, Neil Sedaka (his arrangement for La terza luna
contributed to the great success of the song). Then, following contrasts with
the Director Ennio Melis, Bacalov also left the RCA and dedicated the following
years almost exclusively to movie scores.
Statistically, Bacalov
is in net contrast with respect to Ennio Morricone, his style can be
defined simple and direct , more colored
and expressive, with a tendency to produce effect in its most positive sense.
Franco Pisano began his career as musician with his younger
brother Berto with whom, in the fifties, interchanged jazz with the Asternovas Band
of Fred Buscaglione. At the same time,
while working at RCA he was cooperating with the Radio Orchestra of RAI and
this allowed him to count on a well
close-knit group. His training was based on American music, thanks to the
listening of composers and arrangers from overseas.
The
partnership with Tony Renis allowed him to arrange songs such as Nessun’altra
che te, Quando dico che ti amo and many more, as well as other songs written by
the Milanese singer and other artists such as Gianni Morandi with Tenerezza.
Carlo Pes
got noticed in the environment as the lead guitarist of the Armando Trovaioli
Orchestra: the relationship was very strong that when he left the orchestra,
Pes continued to cooperate with the maeestro together with the group Marc 4
(also known with the name I Solisti di Armando Trovajoli) with Maurizio Maiorana on bass, Antonello
Vannucchi on keyboards and Roberto Podio
on drums and percussions.
By the
end of the ‘50s he became part of the Orchestra Rai, but his role at the time
also included that of arranger of RCA, where had the chance to work, among other famous artists, with Patty Pravo (Ragazzo Triste), Josè Feliciano (Que sera),
Jimmy Fontana and Dalida.
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