Top 10 #42

Top 100 2010, top 10 #42, 10/24/10, 10:06 PM, Columbus, OH.

1. Zhou Xuan – Song of the Seasons    -––I'm into listening to everything labeled traditional Chinese since I saw this wonderful concert in a park in Chinatown this summer. My latest focus is Cantonese Opera. The interest brought me to the blog: Soft Film (see link below). It is amazing to me that whatever subcategory of music I fancy at a particular moment there is an accompanying website with tons of historical facts and films and sound, and any sort of background you can wish for. Hail to the makers of Soft Film.
2. Marion Brown – Centering (w/Leo Smith)   -––In my last blog entry I wrote about finding Marion Brown's LP Duets in a thrift store. I was only vaguely familiar with the saxophonist but now he scores his first points to go into the Top 100 archive. When somebody new enters into that archive I add biographical data and when I did so for Marion Brown I found out he had died just a few days ago, the exact day I bought Duets!
3. Elfrieda Haese and Heidi Schlei - Steierischen Jodler   -––When German music comes into a top 10 it's usually somewhere between Ludwig van Beethoven and Einsturzende Neubauten but not the hoom-pah-pah, yodeling, beer drinking schlager parade. Until now! Ach Ya! Traditional German-American Music from Wisconsin is the name of the double album to add to the ever growing sub-collection of American immigrant music. I've got a ton: Norwegian, Ukrainian, Cuban, Mexican, Slovenian, Irish, you name it.
4. Chun Siu-lei – The New Lady Tan Kei   ––-The painting below actually meant to accompany an old Cantonese Opera from the Sprigs of Time: 78s From The EMI Archive record but since I've found on softfilm.blogspot.com the model for it singing and dancing in Hong Kong made films, the painting can now represent the one portrayed, and I have to find something else to paint for the Cantonese Opera tune.
5. Time and Temperature – I Know the Caves are Deep   ––-A new EP is out by Val Glen's project Time and Temperature. It's called Cream of the Low Tide and it's good. Listen to it and/or buy it at: timeandtemperature.bandcamp.com  Read more about her in an entry on this blog from April or in Top 100 2009, available at Iconoclast http://www.iconoclasteditions.com/
   
6. Devil Music Ensemble – Red Heroine   -––This one I found at the blog Soft Film as well. The musicians are Americans though from Boston who recorded a soundtrack for a Chinese silent film.  Red Heroine from 1929 is the oldest known full length Kong Fu movie.
7. Neila Miller – Mean Old World   -––After the initial thrill of discovering the roots of a well loved song (Hey Joe) it was due time to listen to the rest of the album Songs of Leaving. It is really beautiful, her voice reminds me a little of John Jacob Niles'.
8. John Jacob Niles – The Maid Freed from the Gallows Pole   -––As with Neila Miller: After the excitement of hearing the original to Go 'Way from My Window, due time to listen to some of his other works.
9. Aster Aweke –Track 8   -––After a while I also started to listen to the rest of the Aster Aweke cassette (see blog entry, Oct. 22: Aster Aweke). Track 8 (titles are in Arabic script) is a beautiful mixture of the vocals of track 1 and the rhythm (like Egyptian Reggae) of track 4.
10. Gopal Chunder Singh Roy – Beggar Song   -––Access to older and older recordings! 1910, India, from the album Sprigs of Time, a new chapter in compilations of old 78s that started with the amazing series The Secret History of Mankind: Ethnic Music Classics, 1925-1948.

 
Chun Siu-lei
10" x 8"
oil and acrylic enamel on wood, 2010