Goodbye Marcelo Colasurdo, Tamurata from factory to street

The death of Marcelo Colasordo truly marks the end of an era: an era that has seen, and shattered in four decades, the discovery and re-evaluation of music and popular culture previously ignored or marginalized, its resounding success, the inevitable “rebound of the” phenomenon in a society now leaning towards other directions and the inevitable corollary of socialization. Their legendary heroes were, in any case, an important page of postwar Southern culture. And all this in a difficult and painful relationship with modernization processes, labor struggles, and the risk of slipping into the most pernicious of folklore, when those who came into contact with them felt part of the “other” Italy that in traditional cultures sought moments of solidarity HT.

colasurdo He was born by chance in Campobasso, but since he was a child he finds himself in that painful anthropological boom that transforms the farmland of Pomegliano d’Arco into an industrial area in a few years with the installation of Alfa Sud, which, in 1968, joins the factories of Alfa Romeo (1939) and Airfer (1949) the least “volume” intended for aviation production. A painful boom because Alfasud was a car factory that housed a crowd of impatient and hard-to-discipline workers, almost always coming from agricultural jobs and who, with their calmness and composure, went on to replace those “labor aristocracies” of the previous era. Their iron work ethic. It is the grafting of a “piece” of the country on the infernal fassoud rhythms of the ford that stimulates a reaction based on the solid foundation of a folk tradition brought to the fore thanks to the success of Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare: in fact, in 1974 the Gruppo Operaio of Pomigliano d’Arco ‘E Zezi, a group of workers, unemployed and intellectuals, willing to make their contribution to trade union struggles but also to demand the use of traditions that were internal to industrial reality and not just a memory of a pre-modern world, as in the NCCP.

Zizi began to act in the region, not only in street demonstrations, bringing their copious ‘pass’, but also in the inner villages, restoring the proposal of pieces of folk theater such as the Song of Ziza and the Representation of the Twelve Months. , thus having the dual purpose of revitalizing and reinvigorating places that were under the pressure of an increasingly diffuse and detached mass culture and of providing the members of the group (which has seen dozens and dozens of people participate over the years) with a creativity of activity that was not yet tedious with institutional work. In Zezi, Marcelo is immediately in the center of the scene. Of enormous build, endowed with a very particular voice that will become more refined with time, and above all with an incredible audio-visual memory, he is the keeper of traditions: “voices”, proverbs, ritual verses, then gestures, expressive postures and routine and theatrical skills have also matured due to his constant presence in Popular festivals in Campania where it is known as a kind of landmark.

Marcelo Colasurdo

I Witness the Shifts: From the Rhythms of the Earth to the Assembly Line. But it’s always better ‘na tammurriata, ca’ na guerra…

in 1976In a full-fledged folk revival, the Workers group records debut album: Alfasud Tamurata For I Dischi del Sole. The songs are mostly acting, i.e. long peasant songs to the beat of a big drum with rattles, but are set in a factory world that appears as a moloch, a human meat grinder, which exploits the mythological imagery-rituals of folk lore by transforming them into current contents. It would take eighteen years for a new record, thanks to the renewed interest in popular music of the nineties: in the last decade, in fact, while Alfasud was being sold to Fiat and political tension subsided, Obraio devoted himself above all to theatrical activity, mostly far from National lights, with performances brought to the squares in the endless province of Campania. Meanwhile, Marcello was noticed, and in 1986, he worked with Federico Fellini in the movie the interview.

Auciello ro mio pose ‘e deafReleased in 1994 for Tide Records, it is a beautiful album and finds Colasurdo in his full maturity: from this moment, above all, the journey to fame begins for him. These were the years of the rebirth of the committed song (albeit in the form of rap), thanks to Berlusconi’s descent into politics and the need for a strong opposition, and the birth of the alternative circle of occupied social centers. Auciello ro mio posa ‘e sorde was a success and the Gruppo Operaio played in Italy and abroad, especially in France where the reception was triumphant.

immediately afterHowever, Marcello, impatiently, leaves the Zizienes and resides alone and continues his work. In 2000 he joined Spaccanapoli, the last of the innumerable divisions that the Ziziones have gone through over time: with the CD Lost Soul Anime BearsColasurdo, published by Peter Gabriel’s Real World, has achieved worldwide fame above all through Womad, the ethnic music festivals promoted by the English musician himself. Then, in recent years, a long and sad illness closes the curtain on an artist profile that would be virtually impossible to find, as the existential coordinates in which he trained disappeared completely and forever.

Marcello Colazurdo’s funeral will take place today at 4 pm in the Church of San Felice in Pomeliano d’Arco.