Alain Goraguer, arranger for Boris Vian, Serge Gainsbourg or Bobby Lapointe, has just passed away at the age of 91.
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 Monday evening in Paris at the age of 91, announced his wife to AFP.
“My job, he explained to the World in January 2019, consists in rectifying a melody written with awkwardness 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 The mountain by Jean Ferrat the metic by Georges Moustaki or Wax doll, sound dollinterpreted by France Gall and grand prize of Eurovision 65.
First accompanying the singer Simone Alma, he met Boris Vian with whom he wrote I drink, The Java of the Atomic Bombs, Hurt me, Johnny then composes the soundtrack of the film I’ll go spit on your graves (1959).
Music from pornographic films
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 (“The Puncher of the Lilacs, Intoxicated Man, etc). With Gainsbourg, he signs several film scores.
In 1960, another long collaboration was born with Boby Lapointe (Aragon and Castile, The mother of fishetc).
Alain Goraguer then worked for Brigitte Bardot, Salvatore Adamo, Brigitte Fontaine, Juliette Gréco, Joe Dassin, Nana Mouskouri or Régine.
But most of his work as arranger and orchestrator will be done with Jean Ferrat, coloring, reharmonizing, enriching titles as emblematic as Potemkin, My France, Tell me about the sea Or Women are men’s future.
Alain Goraguer, author of the music for dozens of pornographic films in the 70s and 80s (often under a pseudonym), had finally signed the credits of the successful TV show by Véronique and Davina, Gym tonic (1982) and collaborated on the album Dante (2008) by rapper Abd al Malik.
