In the end it was all Frank Kramer’s fault, that great cyclist of the early 1900s. A sprint expert, and a participant at the Sei giorni (that six day race that really was a six day race, day and night, with athletes that slept as they pedalled), Kramer won the gold medal for sprints in the category for professionals. The year was 1912. Francesco Gorni, a giant of a man, ribald, an ace cyclist, but above all a very able accordionist who played under the stage name of Gallo, imposed upon his firstborn that name that came from so far away. Kramer, in the sense of Gorni, was born the year after, at Rivarolo Mantovano, where his father was already a celebrity. He was immediately embraced by maternal rather than paternal love, thanks to that saintly woman Teresa Marchio, who had followed the parents to the United States, even if the stay then proved to be brief. Young Kramer started studying the accordion at a very early age, under his father’s guidance, who meantime continued to run a fortunate band specialised in Italian country dance music, a genre that was very popular in the whole of the area around Mantova. He could have been a cyclist or a miner, a farmer or an emigrant, this is the future that the parents in the village hoped for their children. Instead Kramer studied at the Lyceum in Mantova and then at the music conservatory in Parma, where he got a diploma for the contrabass. It was with this instrument that he began playing in a symphonic orchestra, however very soon going over to the accordion and setting up his first bands for the local dance halls. From the very beginning of his career – more or less since when he had the original and brilliant idea of putting his surname in front of his name – he had the incontestable merit of always choosing his musicians with care and of giving all his exhibitions a jazz-like imprint. The pre-war recordings together with his soloists (Fonit and Columbia, this last under the pseudonym of “Orchestra del Circolo dell’Ambasciata” or Embassy Club Orchestra) were taken as examples of national jazz. He began to draw the attention of Milanese jazz fans with the band with which he played at the ‘Embassy’ Club in Milan: Romero Alvaro on violin and piano, Armando Camera on the guitar, Ubaldo Beduschi on the contrabass, and Giuseppe Redaelli on drums (who was later to achieve considerable personal notoriety as singer and entertainer with the stage name of Pippo Starnazza) and he himself on the accordion. These were memorable recordings with a strong bent towards jazz, carried out until the late 40s, which contained some small gems. One should note the autarchic climate and the Italianised titles, strongly imposed by the fascist regime, which greatly struck Kramer, as of the first recording in 1935, Anime gemelle (Twin Souls), which was none other than I Wish I Were Twins, to then continue with Una spagnola di Nola (She’s A Latin From Manhattan), Tu sei il mio brivido (You’re My Thrill), Ricordi del passato (It’s Been So Long), Con l’amore mi puoi scaldare (I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm). In 1948 he went on tour to England together with another great accordionist, Wolmer Beltrami, and together they did some recordings for Decca, accompanied by a rhythmic section (that of Ted Heath’s orchestra) composed by Malcolm Mitchell on guitar, Joe Nussbaum on contrabass and Jack Parnell on drums. Gorni Kramer for many years continued to be a point of reference for Italian jazz both as an accordionist and orchestra director, but as a ‘militant’ his activity virtually ended in 1952. After that date he only did radio, TV, musical comedies and songs. But before that he managed to take part in a memorable edition of the Paris Jazz Festival, that of 1949, which hosted among others Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. A fortuitous participation, we should perhaps say, but one of great historic interest. The organisers had invited Armando Trovajoli, certainly our most representative jazzman, as Italian guest. Trovajoli decided to perform with a trio, choosing to take Carlo Loffredo on contrabass and Gil Cuppini on drums. They were to go on stage on 15th May at 3 in the afternoon, at the Salle Pleyel. Cuppini arrived from Milan, whilst Trovajoli and Loffredo left by car, in a FIAT Topolino with the contrabass sticking out of the roof. In the dressing rooms at the theatre the young Loffredo met Kramer, who had gone there for personal reasons. It took just a moment. Loffredo handed over his instrument to the master and with tears in his eyes turned spectator. Also thanks to Kramer’s participation, the concert went very well despite some initial problems, as is made evident by what Arrigo Polillo wrote on the pages of ‘Musica Jazz’: “this was, for us Italians, the most exciting moment of the Festival, and with good reason. It was the prestige of Italian jazz to be on the line! Ours imposed themselves with the calmness of the strong, despite the somewhat hostile greetings received by our musicians from the Parisian public, part of which began, with their usual manners, to whistle as soon as they heard the word Italy. And it was truly touching, you can believe me, when we realised that the whistlers who, we might say, were ‘politically’ motivated, were reduced to silence by the music, which obviously convinced them to the point that it won the warmest of applause and calls for an encore!” If 1952 can be called the year of changeover, it is not by chance that our discourse indeed begins in 1953, with a notable version of La vie en rose, and with an excellent Domino executed by Jula De Palma with the Kramer Orchestra. To the same year – drawn from Nati per la musica (Born for Music) – belongs a most pleasant medley executed together with Lelio Luttazzi’s orchestra. It is from here on that we see the consecration of Kramer the musician and personality. Thanks to radio and TV, and the long period of cooperation with Garinei and Giovannini, here was Kramer the celebrity, by then an affable entertainer but essentially a man of swing, capable of producing this peculiarity of jazz also in the most unlikely situations. Swing – from the English verb ‘to swing’ – is the indispensable element for an execution to belong to the world of jazz. To play with swing means to give the execution of a piece of music a certain rhythmic state that determines the superimposition of a tension and a distension. Kramer has always had the ability to make rhythm live, and he used this ability with singers who sometimes looked like a ‘mission impossible’. If, for example, we listen to the voice of Jula De Palma or that of Teddy Reno, the tension of Kramer’s orchestra has nothing to do with the warmth or expressionism of an execution, but rather with the succession of the entries and the intensity, manifesting itself through the emotive quality of the music; a distension achieved through a very particular rhythmic oscillation. This is, in synthesis, Gorni Kramer’s great secret, and his ability to make also those lacking in talent sing well; essentially the ability, this, of putting singers (or presumed such) at their ease by creating with swing that particular state of abandonment, a sort of relaxation, a thrust of vitality that pushes the musician ahead of himself. “No piece of music is swing”, used to say Duke Ellington, “one can’t write swing because swing is what excites the auditorium and there is no swing until the note has resounded. Swing is a fluid and even if an orchestra has played a piece fourteen times it may be that it will play it with swing only the fifteenth time”. The CD presents a very chatty Kramer, all smiles, and perennially good humoured, ready to talk about his colleagues, also those more famous, including Louis Armstrong. We have Kramer the ‘opinion leader’ (even if the term had not yet been coined) and the singer(Ai tempi che Gallo correva, È vero signor Strauss che il valzer non le piace? ), but above all it is the arranger that towers over all else, the orchestrator capable of going from the popular themes of Di Lazzaro (Reginella campagnola and Rosabella del Molise) through to the pure vital impulse of the two bonus tracks. Gorni Kramer is a man of pure musicality, who had his preferences, starting with Garinei and Giovannini’s repertoire, through to the Cetras, who were perhaps always his ideal interpreters. Also singularly. All one has to do is listen to Felice Chiusano singing Vecchie Mura in 1954 or Paolo Bacilieri singing Op op trotta cavallino, a song Kramer had written for Lucia Mannucci before she became one of the Cetras. An extremely enjoyable record, in which, once again, the ‘Kramer Method’ is highlighted, his skill at writing music so quickly, the way he could compose anywhere, without having to ponder for even a moment, the capability he had of grasping melodies in whatever place he happened to be in and committing them to the pentagram then and there, with a pencil, or a pen, leaning against a wall or travelling on a train. With insuperable mastery.