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 February 13, in Paris, at the age of 91. , announced his wife to Agence France-Presse.
Any lover of French song inevitably came across these mentions in the liner notes: "arrangements by Alain Goraguer" or "with Alain Goraguer and his orchestra". “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 thus left his mark on songs as famous as La Montagne by Jean Ferrat, Le Métèque by Georges Moustaki or Wax Doll, Sound Doll, performed by France Gall. and Grand Prix of Eurovision 1965.
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.
Most of his arranger work will be done with Jean Ferrat
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. But most of his work as arranger and orchestrator will be done with Jean Ferrat, for whom he will color, reharmonize, enrich titles as emblematic as Potemkine, Ma France, Raconte-moi la mer or La femme est l future of man. "He sang his songs to me on the guitar, I didn't write the melody, only the arrangements. »
Alain Goraguer also composed the music for many films in the 1960s and 1970s, including La Planète sauvage by René Laloux. In the 1970s and 1980s, and often under a pseudonym, he was also the author of the music for dozens of pornographic films. Alain Goraguer had finally signed the credits of Véronique and Davina's successful TV show, "Gym tonic" (1982), and collaborated on the album Dante (2008) by rapper Abd al Malik.
