Fito Páez was presented at the Colon Theater within the framework of Focus Gandinipart of a cycle of tributes ten years after the composer’s death.
“We work together with Gerardo’s daughters, Alina and Alejandra, Pablo Gianera, Jorge Telerman and Enrique Avogadro, so that Gerardo’s music ten years after his death is playing in the city of Buenos Aires, like a light that illuminates these days so unfortunate, here and around the world,” said Páez at the beginning of the concert, dressed in a cape like the Little Prince, all in furious red.
Gerardo Gandini (1936-2013) was an essential musician, he crossed all the borders of music: composer and classical pianist, he did jazz, tango with Piazzolla and also, with Fito Páez, he tried rock.
Gandini’s collaboration with Páez was first as arranger and director of a concert by Miguel Ángel Estrella and the Camerata Bariloche at the Luna Park and then at the Colón, in 1996, which included some songs by the Rosario musician, and then he continued with the arrangements for the string nonet on the thirteenth album Fashion and people (2005).
Soon after came more concerts, recordings and tours, and an intense friendship.
The concert had the biographical format of that musically virtuous friendship, with what was shared and what was enjoyed, a precious testimony of the crossing between two worlds – the classical and the popular – with two luxury interlocutors.
Páez gave himself body and soul to the tour, in a more stripped-down format – also of vocal excesses – the musician did not hide his vulnerability and found a vocal register in which, perhaps, he had never been heard so comfortable.
The powerful alchemy that existed between Gandini/Páez over the years was heard throughout the entire concert, which opened with the first song of Fashion and people, Romance of black sorrowwith text by García Lorca.
Fito played the piano, and there were violins, violas and cellos.In Gandini’s arrangements you hear the dialogue with an interlocutor and a genre with which, although it was far from being his favorite, he managed to connect, discuss and enjoy it. His writing is never redundant, it is a counterpoint that does not aim to “fix” or “improve”, rather to navigate the harmonic, lyrical and rhythmic tensions of a genre that Páez handles with mastery as in Violet amber, Caravels from nowhere o I come to offer my hearta song that sounded like a powerful litany with Páez’s voice a cappella in the introduction, performed with an open heart.
Something similar happened in the nudity of the dream Night falls in Okinawaonly piano and voice.
“Let’s go with this that was made in the center of the City of Buenos Aires, among the buildings, one morning when the Troilo and Piazzolla bellows appeared,” Páez introduced his Caravels from nowhere. It was one of the songs that Gerardo liked the most – it moves away from the modal to unexpected areas, he once reflected – his approach captured the spirit of the song so well. It opens with a cello solo that projects its melancholic tone, very well played by Melina Kyrkiris. In dialogue with the vocal line, another melodic line of the strings, harsh and heavy, drags the line of force of the song. In the middle, Otero’s powerful bass line was added to the spicy rhythm of Páez’s piano.
Fabiana Cantilo sang “It will relieve you.”Long applauded, Fabi Cantilo put her voice and heart into It will relieve youalso with the participation of Otero and a soft lyric of the strings that console, without sugarcoating, the words that try to mitigate a deep pain.
Quite the opposite in the rage nature bloodthe strings carry forward the energy of a song that brought the rocker kid.
“We liked tango with Gerardo. So, we put everything into him,” said Páez before entering the The dizzy and then My parents’ houseaccompanied by Ernesto Jodos on piano, who masterfully played Gandini’s arrangements with his jazzy harmonies, and his piano virtuosity shone in each solo.
In addition to tango, they also shared a taste for Brazilian music, in particular Jobim-Buarque, and a beautiful arrangement of the iconic song was heard. Black and white portrait.
“From the soul” was the encore, and the applause thundered.When the concert was halfway through, Páez made an interlude with solo piano, Gerardo’s sea, moved away from tonal or modal harmonies and what sounded was somehow reminiscent of Schöenberg, a composer that Gandini played and taught. From the dissonances emerged the consonant harmony of It is to give.
And in this tribute there was no shortage of artistic godfathers of the Rosario musician: Luis Alberto Spinetta, Litto Nebbia and Charly García – “the Argentine Brancaleone”, as Páez said – were present with the songs. The other change, those who left, Paper eyes girl with a delicate bass line by Otero, and an emotional version of song for my deathfor which Gandini wrote a classically beautiful string introduction. Mariposa technicolor closed the tour, an ascending glissando marked the end of the song and a concert that was constantly ascending.
Fito was accompanied by the Gandini/Paéz Ensemble made up of musicians from the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra. Everyone together carried out the concert without any problems, although sometimes there were imbalances, such as Tombs of glory -“one of the most difficult intros that Gerardo wrote,” Páez acknowledged-, a director who marked the entrances might have avoided the erratic beginning or some other mismatches in the bass line in I come to offer my heart.
With Gerardo’s face projected on the backdrop and a very long ovation, the From the soul as an encore and the night had a more than emotional close.
TOKEN
Gandini/Páez From the soul
Gandini/Páez Ensemble. string ensemble Concertino: Elijah Gurevich. First violins: Serdar Geldymuradov, Matías Grande, Lucía Herrera, Manuel Quiroga. Guest artists: Fabiana Cantilo, Ernesto Jodos, Mariano Otero. Room: Teatro Colón