“And there is nothing sadder on days like these than remember happiness. Hello Ornella”. With these poignant words, entrusted to a post on Facebook, the jazz trumpeter and composer Paolo Fresu pay tribute to Ornella Vanoniartists with whom he shared a deep and unrepeatable artistic and humanitarian partnership, spanning more than thirty years. The Sardinian musician doesn’t just express his pain; has confirmed that he will play at his funeral personal agreement details and about the friendship that united his country, Sardinia, with the world of the brash and cultured “mistresses” of Italian music.
Ornella Vanoni’s last will was addressed to him. Fresu recounts the moment the singer contacted him with an extraordinary request: viz playing at his funeral. “He called me one morning six years ago. I was in Bologna, I accompanied my son to school”, he said. “He expressed his wishes to me, tell me what to play”. The moment where Fresu, despite knowing his eccentric nature, was faced with irony: “For years I had this fear and I jokingly told him: ‘If I die first, you have to come and sing‘” The request, although made lightly, was serious.
The friendship between the two was born at Tangram in Milan in the early nineties and strengthened in respect and intimacy. Fresu remembers the most hidden side of Vanoni: his fragility before going on stage. “The paddled like a leaf before taking the stage which he then faced like a lioness.” But also his human closeness, which consisted of weekly phone calls that always started with “how are you?” and often also involved Fresu’s wife, Sonia, or Fresu’s mother.
Their artistic collaboration, which culminated in the album “Argilla” (“a difficult and sophisticated record” that rewarded her in “creativity and self-respect”), was a perfect synthesis of her thoughts: Ornella was a woman who “hated the obvious and the superficial” and who had “destroyed the delicate balance between art and life”. For Fresu, the loss of the singer was decisive “A soul that is never afraid to show itself is true, intense, unrepeatable“, this is not a definite loss. Remembering the separation, the trumpeter reflects: “Ornella has flown all her life. Sometimes his wings burned but they always rose and soared higher”. Today he knows that, despite the pain, his job is to give continuity to that flight. The final consolation is that his “unique voice” responds to one name, such as “Raphael, Miles and Vinicius”, and that he will continue “flying between the words and reminiscing about the music.”
Paolo Fresu’s farewell letter
Write something, I asked myself on this empty November morning.
And here I am throwing scattered thoughts onto a word sheet thinking about our first meeting at Tangram in Milan in the early nineties and how many times we laughed, cried, sang and played over these thirty years.
It’s almost impossible to talk about Ornella.
It is impossible to describe a rich life consisting of successes and triumphs, falls, ascents and passions.
Write something, but what?
Perhaps the best way is to find adjectives.
A present-day screenshot capable of translating that image into a collective imagination of herself as a woman and artist that, she always knew, belonged to all of us.
Ornella is the emotion of life. His and ours.
Capable of placing solitude and passion at the center of the world, love for oneself and others, sadness and poetry that (perhaps) will save the world.
An elusive woman who hates the obvious and the superficial. An artist who destroys the delicate balance between art and life and makes the stage his home where he accommodates and channels human feelings.
The clock announced that it was time to leave for Milan.
I filed away some of these thoughts and turned off the computer with the realization that I hadn’t been able to write what I wanted.
For example she trembles like a leaf before going on stage which she then faces like a lioness. Or the weekly phone call with his distinctive voice that always starts with
And again he undresses with his eyes those he doesn’t like thereby giving them trouble, the concert held in solidarity in the Pavese school yard where my son goes to elementary school or the concert in the yard of Fabrizio de André’s house at six in the afternoon where he, barefoot, said
In May 2020, in front of the same school as my son, he asked me to call him to call at his funeral.
On that sunny morning, our friendship became even closer until some time ago he asked me to accompany him when he was awarded an Honorary Degree.
Now I was on the Frecciarossa racing through the mist of the Po Valley. I opened the computer again and realized that I should write more but my mind was too busy.
Perhaps we should fly between his words and musical memories between Brecht and Vinicius, Tenco, Fossati and Paoli.
Ornella has been flying all her life. Sometimes his wings burn but they always rise again and soar higher. Just like we do every time we listen to her beautiful, unmistakable voice.
The last time was in Bologna in March when, in “The Man I Love” arranged by Celso Valli, she sounded like Billie Holiday.
As I entered the Centrale di Milan, the city, I put the computer in my backpack convinced that my aim was unsuccessful.
I only know that the world has lost a unique voice that responded, like Raphael, Miles and Vinicius, to one name: Ornella.
