A great musician, a story of the past: the Rome of the dolce vita, RCA, Morricone and the first singer-songwriters, cinema made with a few lire. We went to the composer's studio and asked him to tell us about his life. He has scored everything, the films of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, the police, the cartoons. He has written library music and finished songs on rappers' records. The real horror, he says, is silence
The Rolling Stone
By Inti Caroni & Luca Barcellona
June 4, 2024
Franco Micalizzi is one of the leading composers of soundtracks of the 70s and 80s. A generation after Morricone and Piccioni, his work is linked to the films of Bruno Corbucci and Umberto Lenzi, authors of the spaghetti westerns and poliziotteschi that have characterized Italian genre cinema. His music, however, has more lives, it has been used in Quentin Tarantino's films, in the music of important American rappers, in contemporary TV series such as Curb Your Enthusiasm.
He was born in Rome in 1939. In the immediate post-war period, the country was battered by bombings, families decimated by fighting and deportations.
"I was born when the war broke out, I still feel the bad taste of it, the deadly feeling it brings. In the immediate post-war period, I saw those documentaries about the concentration camps with thousands of bodies taken with a shovel and piled one on top of the other. Images that you never take out of your eyes, your head, your brain. I feel that there are still some who say "But when he was there...", but how can you say that he did something good? He made Italian, unfortunately the degenerate one. But it's not true that the bad guy always wins. Not only in western movies, but also in life the one who is smart, the one who has the brain and who manages to have mercy on others, wins. War is total lack of mercy. Thousands of American boys landed at Anzio when the Germans were still there, and died. They saved us, they gave us the Marshall Plan, the chance to come out of the dictatorship and start again. They have brought democracy, which is the main good. How can you not be grateful? After the war they won over the world, for music, for cinema, for everything that was art. Wonderful cinema, wonderful music."
Martin Scorsese, who suffered severely from asthma as a child, was inspired by the reality he saw from the window of his room where he was confined, for most of his films. As with many other artists, Micalizzi's creative vein stems from a serious childhood illness.
"As a child I had measles that turned into pneumonia, fever at 43, the only thing that could save me was penicillin. A syringe made of glass and steel with a long, wide needle. The liquid came in and burned, terrible pain. It was torture, but it was also progress that saved my life. I was at home for a year, I missed a year of school, fifth grade, I was supposed to go to sixth grade and I stayed there. I looked out of the window and saw the chimney of the Polyclinic, a large tower from which a lot of smoke came out in the morning."
"Until then I was not a very happy child, I saw so many problems, I felt a little inferior, I still remember it. But the healing was as if it had healed everything for me. All the fears, those bad things I didn't feel on me anymore. I felt that I could take possession of life, I was the master of it. I finally went back to school, took the entrance exams and did great. I remember writing an essay, realizing that I had written some good things. It opened like a poetic door inside me, something I didn't know until that moment. In school, I got great grades for the essays. Two days after the Italian class test, those protocol sheets that folded in two, with the comments next to them. The teacher said: "Dear boys, today is a very special day, I want to tell you that among you there is a character who I am sure will have a beautiful career". Naturally, I felt pride. It was the first time in my life that I felt I had a future."
"I wanted to be a writer, a journalist, but I loved music. I locked myself in the living room where I turned on the radio... The living room in families was kept in the dark, because otherwise things would be ruined... I stood there in the dark, alone listening to the music and especially the radio dramas. I had a classmate who was a bit of a burino, one who didn't study much, who played the guitar, and I went to visit him at home. It was nice to see how it sounded, "do you mind if you tell me the position?", and before long I got hold of that guitar, fuck how nice! That's when I realized that you can make music. I told my mother, "Once I've done this exam, I don't want to go back to school. They are already seriously late. Tomorrow I want to schedule my first music lesson." My parents, although scared, were great and supported me, and from the next day I started studying music. It was a bit of a pain in the ass because with music up to that point it was just an enjoyment. There was work to be done: the intervals, the solfeggio...
Micalizzi began to play at tea dances in the clubs of Rome of the dolce vita together with musicians who would shape Italian music.
"We used to play at the Grotte del Piccione, in Via della Vite, a very central club, where half of Rome passed, at the Capriccio and at the Piccione. That Rome at night was beautiful, the city of the jet-set. It was full of these venues. We used to go to dance parties on Saturday afternoons, with the group I played with we would get 1500 lire. At one of these parties, I saw my wife, who was a young girl. A fabulous girl, I must admit. There was a picture here on the wall of my studio, but he took it away from me. We argue, and she takes away my photos. Then after we make up, I find the photo and shout: "You are beautiful!". She danced which was wonderful, the South American pieces that had very demanding steps were going, but I never learned because musicians are denied to dance, everyone knows that. They play because they know they don't know how to dance. I noticed her, I saw this shoulder pad falling and her putting it back in place. She wore a dress with a balloon skirt, which was used at the time. I immediately fell in love with it."
Micalizzi began playing with the orchestra of Robby Poitevin, a French who worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman and who also composed film music (Inspector Sterling's Carrion and Technique of a Murder).
"One day someone with a strong French accent calls me: 'Franco? Hi, I'm Robby. You know, I've seen you at tea dances, and since we're forming a group, I wanted to know if you want to come with us on tour." I said yes, without even thinking. I felt it was destiny, life told me it was the right thing to do. I went to play with them. With us was Flavio Carraresi, who at the time was a very prominent drummer, a serious Milanese jazz musician, very generous. At the time there was the screaming singer, Tony Dallara, and other big names such as Modugno, Jimmy Fontana. There was the fake bass, that is, not knowing how to play the bass they made "pum, pum pum", they gave this blow and gave the idea that they played. We had fake bass, drums, guitar, piano and it was very good, even with requests from abroad that we had to refuse. We were boys, two of them were pariolini, I still remember them, with slits behind their jackets, with ties and English shoes, very big. Robby was a good pianist, who reminded me of Petrucciani. He had perfect pitch. I'd say, "Look, this Robby, what's that?" B-do-D flat, and he nailed it, punching the wall! And we had to study."
"To show how we were combined, when we arrived in Milan it wasn't that we had money in our pockets, we had change. We had to make do with eating. Once we walked into a restaurant, sat down and had dinner. At the time of the bill, we said: "Look, we have a contract with Ricordi and they will give us an advance shortly". And they gave us credit until we could pay off the debt. Who would do that today? They trusted these guys who were a bit like that... The word, the human relationship, counted. Now you don't trust me anymore."
«Nanni Ricordi was the first to start dealing with the so-called new music. We heard this song saying "once upon a time there was a cat..." in this soft voice, at first it was a bit strange, because we came from Sinatra and the great crooners. On the other hand, I recognize Gino Paoli for having made some very, very beautiful pieces. Then I remember that once, while I was playing, I saw Sergio Endrigo underneath who, on a makeshift support, signed the contract with Ricordi. There was a high level, I think of a song like Io che amo solo te. It's about being perfect, with precise agreements on one simple thing: if you can do it, you can reach anyone. If you find the right proportions, you realize that the piece transports you, it says "let's go!" and you never stop. And when you make a piece that can last, for me you've achieved perfection."
His first child was born and Micalizzi found a job at RCA.
“I met Gianni Meccia on a crazy evening when ten people were playing at a New Year's Eve party. All you had to do was have a guitar and they would take you and you would earn 10 thousand lire. They were unknown people, they all became producers and songwriters of famous singers. Among them there was a madman called Gianni Meccia: he played the guitar, with an incredible smile, and sang I hate all the old ladies, or Il tarlo, and it was really a novelty. He was the first Italian singer-songwriter, in the sense that the term singer-songwriter did not exist before, it was invented to define him. He made these pieces with two chords, The Jar or The Pullover. Ennio Melis, the general manager of RCA, decided to release Meccia as the company's first Italian record. They had beautiful studios on the Tiburtina, a cathedral in the desert, a musician's dream, a place to make a record, from the audition to the press where they press it: a paradise. And I managed, by breaking the boxes, to get hired as a musical assistant. Musically, mine was the lowest task."
"I met Morricone there for the first time, on the first day, fresh out of the job. There was him making a base for Pavone and Gianni Morandi, for a piece that they would later do in the studio. Many musicians had the intelligence to understand that they were in contact with someone of his stature. People like Luis Bacalov, another remarkable musician, pianist, if I think of the arrangement of Endrigo's Io che amo solo te, look, it takes a taste... It was a moment of great invention. They worked from the heart, they just wanted to make music. Perhaps Ennio more than anyone. So suddenly you find yourself in contact with personalities like Morricone and Bacalov, and then every day there were musicians, directors... I met Angelo Lavagnino, he did the music for Totò's films. He became a great friend, he told me everything, he gave me the right advice, he told me: 'Franco, in cinema music is like air: you only notice it when it's missing and when it's bad'".
"Morricone and I became friends. In the beginning I was the musical assistant on his films, I tried to fix the best recording, if it needed to be redone or if there were any errors in the execution. I always liked what he wrote. Some musicians were better as composers and others as arrangers, Ennio both. And I was amused by his handwriting, I recognize all of Morricone's scores. We had a good relationship. But he was very self-centered, when we went out during the breaks he looked at me with a cigarette and these thick glasses with crazy eyes: "Franco, who do you like the most? Me or Pigeons?" And I said, "Ah Ennio, come on!" And then he'd come back the next day: "So?! Have you decided?" He wanted to put me in trouble. He was already a big name, I was the musical assistant who took the salary. If Morricone had spoken badly of me, maybe they would have fired me, I was just a subordinate. He wanted to know what kind of person I was, whether I was a licker or not, but I was sincere. This rivalry between him and Piero Piccioni was a bit felt. But in the end, they have nothing to do with each other. Piccioni has made important films with Sordi, great successes, he has done very nice things, some of them even well written."
In 1970 he was commissioned to compose his first film score. It is a spaghetti western but in a comic version, with two actors who were almost unknown at the time, Bud Spencer and Terence Hill.
"The producer was a big guy who came from boxing, he had also been an Italian champion. I liked him a lot and we often went to lunch together. I broke his boxes for weeks: "It's a small film, do me the pleasure", and in the end, between a pasta and half a liter of wine, I convinced him. It was a small film. "What's in fashion now, the western? Let's do one with horseback riding at the Magliana, let's ride along the Tiber, etc...". As Hitchcock said, people only see what you frame. All you have to do is frame narrowly, avoiding the palaces of Rome, and there are two walking along a river in the West, the Mormon camp in Abruzzo, the saloons are the ones built where ten western films have already been made, they only change a little bit of furniture."
[To be continued
tomorrow]
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