Pino rucher
Pino Rucher | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | January 1, 1924 Manfredonia, Italy |
| Died | August 16, 1996 (aged 72) San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Guitarist, arranger |
| Instrument | Guitar |
| Years active | from 1946 to 1983 |
Endowed with an extraordinary musical talent, Pino Rucher started playing the guitar at an early age, when his father came back from the USA in 1933 and presented him with a guitar. The eager boy soon learnt how to play it. So his parents decided that he should take private music lessons.
Biographical notes and musical career
The beginning
After a few years’ study, he started playing in public in his hometown and even in such important cities as Naples and Bari, where he was able to obtain records, guitar scores and other musical material which was not easy to find elsewhere.
The presence of American troops in the province of Foggia (and particularly in the area of Manfredonia, Rucher’s hometown), between 1943 and 1946, represented a fundamental step for Pino Rucher’s musical career. In fact, he joined a few Allied Army’s orchestras, some members of which were talented musicians, thanks to whom he came into contact with American musical atmosphere and jazz.
In 1946 he entered the Carlo Vitale orchestra after coming first in a competition for the position of guitarist at Radio Bari (several candidates from everywhere in Italy participated in that competition).
After the dissolution of the Vitale orchestra, which had become famous thanks to Radio Bari (a broadcasting station that played a relevant role in the post-war years), Pino Rucher went to work for Radio Milano as a member of the Carlo Zeme orchestra. In the Fifties and the early Sixties he also had the opportunity to work with two forerunners of Italian swing (borrowed from American style), Pippo Barzizza and Cinico Angelini. The latter selected Rucher as a permanent member of his new orchestra.
Pino Rucher Collaborations
In those years he took part in a great number of musical events and radio and television broadcasts (San Remo Festivals, Naples Festivals, Festival delle Rose, Mostra Internazionale di Musica Leggera in Venice, Canzonissima, Gran Varietà, Studio Uno, etc.) playing in a number of orchestras and, at the same time, went on cultivating his passion for American music, as can be seen from hundreds of his transcriptions, with his own arrangements, which he made after listening to the records of such famous guitarists as Barney Kessel, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, Joe Pass. He devoted himself to jazz and performed in live concerts or in studios under the direction of well-known conductors, among whom Wolmer Beltrami, Mario Bertolazzi, Bruno Biriaco, Claude Bolling, Giorgio Gaslini, Albert Mangelsdorff, Roberto Pregadio, Berto Pisano, Enrico Rava, Franco Riva, Marcello Rosa. The relevant influence of American music can be noticed even from his performance of some famous Italian songs, among which E se domani and Una zebra a pois (sung by Mina), or Amore Twist (sung by Rita Pavone), which are noticeably spiced with some jazz flavour.
He also worked for orchestra conductor and composer Elvio Monti, who asked him to play in a number of his recordings; for example, it is Rucher who plays the guitar in L’Estasi (lyrics by Armando Stula) a composition written by Monti for Andrea Giordana and Marina Solinas.
From the second half of the Seventies to December 1983 Pino Rucher was particularly engaged in playing in concerts as a guitarist in the RAI orchestra Ritmi moderni, which came to be known as the RAI Big Band. In 1984, owing to health problems, he stopped working for RAI, left Rome and retired. Guitarist Pino Rucher is included in The Jazz Discography by Tom Lord, a relevant work of music history, also published in CD-ROM and enjoyable on line. Having worked for RCA, he also appears in C´era una volta la RCA, the prestigious work by Maurizio Becker.
Other activities
Another relevant aspect of Pino Rucher’s musical activity consists in his performances in film soundtracks from the late Fifties to the mid Seventies: at least two hundred performances deserve a mention, especially those under the direction of such orchestra conductors as Luis Enriquez Bacalov, Gianni Ferrio, Elvio Monti, Ennio Morricone, Riz Ortolani.
Pino Rucher was the first guitarist to play the electric guitar in Italian westerns, following Master Ennio Morricone’s genial inspiration, performing as Electric Guitar Soloist in A Fistful of Dollars.
It is worth mentioning that Pino Rucher also appears in some shots from San Remo la grande sfida, a 1960 movie including scenes from the San Remo Festival.
During his career he distinguished himself in various artistic experiences, being at ease in every musical genre he tried, as is proved by his brilliant performance in such musicals as Alleluja brava gente (which was also published in vinyl records) or by his skilful guitar ideas present in so many Italian songs, such as Casetta in Canadà (sung by Carla Boni), Flamenco Rock (Milva), Se non ci fossi tu (Mina), Andavo a cento all’ora (Gianni Morandi), Che m’importa del mondo (Rita Pavone), L’edera (Nilla Pizzi), Adesso no (Neil Sedaka), Corde della mia chitarra (Claudio Villa).
During his forty-year career Pino Rucher played not only the electric guitar, but also the folk (or acoustic), the classical, the bass and the twelve-string guitar, and then the banjo, the mandolin and the double bass, participating in thousands of musical events and recordings.