| Jazz |
Tiroatrè: Franco Boggero and the Art of the Italian Song, Woven with Jazz and Poetry.
In a cultural landscape often dominated by flash and immediacy, Tiroatrè, a quietly luminous trio of Italian musicians led by the Genoese singer Franco Boggero, offers a project of rare depth and integrity. This new album, while formally a group effort, is also a deeply personal statement from Boggero himself, a man whose voice carries the weight of literature, history, and lived experience. Known for his scholarly background and impeccable musical instincts, Boggero has already released three albums as a solo artist on the same label since 1997. With Tiroatrè, he opens a new chapter, one that honors the tradition of canzone d’autore, Italy’s refined form of poetic songwriting, and does so with a light jazz sensibility that feels timeless yet alive.
The album features carefully curated reinterpretations of songs by a variety of Italian songwriters, both celebrated and lesser-known. Paolo Conte, the most internationally recognized among them, makes a natural appearance in the repertoire. But listeners will also discover original compositions by Boggero himself and fellow collaborator Cogorno, works that blend seamlessly into the collection, testifying to their authors’ deep understanding of this literary-musical tradition.
Italy has long nurtured a unique strain of songwriting that hovers gracefully between literature and music. The late Gianmaria Testa, who passed away in 2016, remains one of its most poignant voices. Franco Boggero continues in this lineage with an emotional palette that is broad yet precise. On this album, he sings not merely with his vocal cords but with his intellect, his wit, and his heart. Whether playful or contemplative, amused or deeply moved, he savors every word, giving the impression that each line has been lived before being sung. For non-Italian speakers, much of the lyrical nuance may slip by, but the intention, Boggero’s musical and emotional articulation, is unmistakable. One need not understand every word to feel its resonance.
Franco Boggero’s journey into music has never been one of rapid ascension or headline moments. Rather, it is the story of a life steeped in the arts, told with patience and conviction. A graduate in literature from the University of Genoa, with a specialization in medieval and modern art history, Boggero has served since 1981 as an art historian for Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage. Music has always been part of his life’s fabric, beginning in 1960 when he joined a local beat group called The Pixilated Cooks. By the late 1970s, he recorded an album with high school friend Antonio Bottero, an effort ultimately shelved due to disputes with the production team. This disappointment did not extinguish his artistic drive; instead, it redirected him toward solo composition and occasional performances.
It was around 1990 that Boggero’s quiet perseverance bore fruit. A pivotal encounter with Giorgio Conte (Paolo Conte’s brother and a respected songwriter in his own right) proved instrumental. Conte encouraged Boggero to formally register his work with the SIAE, Italy’s equivalent of ASCAP, and to take a more structured approach to presenting his music. In 1997, Boggero connected with D’s Band, a group based in Taggia. Together, they mounted a memorable concert at the Genoese venue La Madeleine, an event that brought Boggero into contact with pianist (and physician) Marco Spiccio and photographer-songwriter Augusto Forin. The three would go on to form the ensemble Operazione Arcivernice, a creative alliance committed not just to music but to civic and cultural engagement.
On April 4, 1998, this collective performed at the Sanremo Casino Theatre in support of Legambiente’s Chernobyl Project, marking the beginning of a series of benefit concerts and regional initiatives. In the summer of 1999, Operazione Arcivernice assembled a formal band and launched a Liguria-wide concert series under the initiative Insieme in Liguria. And on January 18, 2000, the Boggero-Spiccio-Forin trio participated in Concerto per un amico poeta, Piero Ciampi, sharing the stage with iconic figures like Nada and Pino Pavone.
Franco Boggero is not, nor has he ever sought to be, a pop star. What he pursues instead is something rarer and more enduring: the quiet recognition of a life lived in service of art, literature, and cultural memory. This album, though borne of a trio, is unmistakably one more carefully placed stone in the growing edifice of his artistic legacy.
It is a work for those who believe that art is not a spectacle but a shared commitment; that beauty lies in nuance, and that respect, for language, music, and each other, is not a footnote but the foundation of all worthwhile expression.
For listeners attuned to these values, Tiroatrè offers more than melodies and harmonies. It offers an ethos. Whether you speak Italian or not, what you will hear is sincerity, and in today’s musical world, that may be the rarest gift of all.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, June 5th 2025
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Musicians :
Franco Boggero (voce, piano)
Michele Cogorno (chitarra acustica)
Franco Piccolo (fisarmonica)
Ospiti: Ludovica Pesce (cori) nei brani n. 5/9; Vera Vittoria Rossa (cori) nei brani n. 5/7/9/11
Tracklist :
01) Una giornata al mare (Giorgio Conte)
02) Quasi un’abitudine (Franco Boggero)
03) Passaggio a livello (Enzo Jannacci)
04) Angelo (Giovanni Peirone)
05) Mario (F.Boggero)
06) Psicotango (Michele Cogorno)
07) Ma tu, ma tu (F.Boggero, M.Cogorno, Marco Spiccio)
08) Nottegiorno (Paolo Conte)
09) I colori del vento (M.Cogorno)
10) Bonhomme (F.Boggero, M.Spiccio)
11) Lampi del ’71 (F.Boggero, M.Cogorno, Gianni Priano)
12) Cosa sono le nuvole (Domenico Modugno, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
13) We Are Right in the Middle (F.Boggero, M.Cogorno, Franco Piccolo)
Registrato e missato da Alessandro Paolini presso il Bagoon Studio di Genova
Masterizzato da Bruno Cimenti
Produzione esecutiva di Primigenia Produzioni (2024)