Jazz composer and pianist Alain Goraguer died Monday at the age of 91. He was particularly known for his many collaborations with Serge Gainsbourg, Jean Ferrat and Boby Lapointe.
Man in the shadows, the composer and jazz pianist Alain Goraguer, who was the musical arranger of several greats of French song, such as Serge Gainsbourg or Jean Ferrat, died on Monday February 13, 2023 in Paris at the age of 91, announced his wife to AFP.
“My job, he explained to Le Monde in January 2019, consists of rectifying a clumsily written melody so that it is elegant. It can be a harmonic passage, a change of tone…” Curious about all kinds of music, with a prediction for jazz, he has left his mark on songs as famous as La montagne by Jean Ferrat, Le métèque by Georges Moustaki or Wax doll, doll of sound, interpreted by France Gall and Grand Prix of Eurovision 65.
A collaboration with Boby Lapointe
First accompanying the singer Simone Alma, he met Boris Vian with whom he wrote Je bois, La Java des bombes atomics, Do me badly, Johnny then composed the soundtrack of the film I will go spit on your graves (1959) . At the end of the 1950s, he began a collaboration with a beginner named Serge Gainsbourg, for whom he created jazz and exotic arrangements until 1964 (Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, Intoxicated Man, etc.). With Gainsbourg, he signs several film scores. In 1960, another long collaboration was born with Boby Lapointe (Aragon and Castile, La Maman des Poissons, etc.). Alain Goraguer then worked for Brigitte Bardot, Salvatore Adamo, Brigitte Fontaine, Juliette Gréco, Joe Dassin, Nana Mouskouri or Régine.
Arranger and orchestrator will be done with Jean Ferrat
But most of his work as arranger and orchestrator will be done with Jean Ferrat, coloring, reharmonizing, enriching titles as emblematic as Potemkine, Ma France, Raconte-moi la mer or La femme est l’avenir de l’ ‘male. Alain Goraguer, author of the music for several dozen pornographic films in the 70s and 80s (often under a pseudonym), had finally written the credits for Véronique and Davina’s hit TV show, Gym tonic (1982) and collaborated on the album Dante (2008) by rapper Abd al Malik.
