The Murder Party

One more to swing out 2010: The curtains in the background are designed by yours truly, recorded at Skylab 3/14/10, the Top 100 2009 exhibition still going strong, The Murder Party from Columbus, Ohio in their first gig ever, in a memorable performance that at the time I listed in the second top 10 of the year (see post: Skylab, April 8, 2010), the last entry for the Top 100 2010 in 2010. The video posted by their guitarist Royce Icon, makes it that a performance I saw live, can be re-experienced and thus open up the possibility for inclusion in the Top 100 (as it is a personal account from the history of recorded sound), which it did. Mother of Fire was the main act that night and they were, just like me, impressed with what they heard/saw. So much so that upon Mother of Fire's return to Columbus later in the year they requested the Murder Party once more as their opener. So I did see both bands live twice this year, and both bands (in audio format at least) will return to Skylab as part of the Top 100 2010 exhibition and countdown. This will take place in March 2011. The first concert of the Murder Party with Mother of Fire, that also included a great show by Mors Ontologica, was held a day after Time and Temperature performed for the opening reception of the Top 100 2009. Time and Temperature is featured again in the newest edition with the song Havana (at #4 as it stands).

The Alan Lomax Collection (2)

CD jacket for Piedmonte and Valle D'Aosta (from The Alan
 Lomax Collection: Italian Treasury -after a photo by Alan Lomax)
16" x 24"
watercolor on paper, 2010

Right before Christmas I mentioned that the Half Price Books store around the corner from where I live, carried a good many volumes of The Alan Lomax Collection. Nobody got the hint then, so after the Christmas holiday I went there again and bought myself another installment. This time from the Italian Treasury series a volume called Piedmonte and Valle D'Aosta. I was searching for the one that would carry the song Alla Campagnola that I already owned from the original 1958 vinyl edition, a compilation of Lomax's field recordings in Italy, called Music and Song of Italy but they didn't have that one. For lack of an appropriate image for the polyphonic love song in my Top 100 (Alla Campagnola was recorded in the South of Italy), I opted for the CD jacket of the recordings made in Italy's Alpine region. That would be just fine, I thought. I tell you I had a lot of fun with my sumi brush and fancy Arches paper reproducing that black and white photograph. (I couldn't end the year with a bad painting —see previous post, earlier today— could I?)
Happy New Year dear readers.
p.s. The Top 100 year runs until February 23rd —the exact day I started the project, back in 1983.

Japan, at last

Brass band, Japan, early 20th Century
8" x 13"
oil on wood, 2010

This month I've been comparing traditional music from China with that of Japan. The musical games I played (without any purpose, see posts on pipa vs. koto) resulted in victories for Chinese music. Five historical recordings from China made the Top 100 list so far and now finally the first Japanese recording secured a place in the Top 100 2010. And with three consecutive top 10 notations, the Japanese tune Seigaiha, by the Imperial Palace band recorded in 1903, moved straight into number 8 in this year's Top 100, higher than any recording from China. Japanese music had been very well represented in my Top 100 in the last fifteen years but this was mostly due to contemporary avant-garde music made in that country. This historical recording of the Imperial Palace band sounds quite "avant-garde" in its own right, the intro to Seigaiha sounds like In-a-Gadda-da-Vida, the flower-power rock classic by Iron Butterfly, and could have been played by the Acid Mothers Temple (a psychedelic rock band from Japan featured in the Top 100 2009). I was psyched to make the painting for Seigaiha and I worked on this a long time, too long maybe; it's not a very good painting at all. Resolution for 2011: Make better paintings! The image, by the way, is from a photograph without caption from the EMI archives tucked into the album Sprigs of Time that contains the Imperial Palace Band.

Free Jazz!?

Rahsaan Roland Kirk
35" x 19"
oil on wood, 2010

When I think about 'jazz paintings' I cringe. I suddenly feel my gums recede and become aware of arthritis in my knuckles. You've seen 'em, everybody's seen 'em, I saw 'em too many times, those paintings, gestural, with swirly lines, smoking audiences, and negro female dancers with exaggerated buttocks. Those paintings made in an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a jazz combo improvisation onto a canvas. I'm not calling any artist's names (not that I could think of one from the top of my head anyway, but there are many, professionals and amateurs) because I know as a matter of fact what it feels like to make those paintings (and I don't want to discard any type of painting for the type it is). For a moment the painter can identify with the spirituality caused by a crazy high note, the moment when a combo miraculously slips in and out of time in unison as if weightless, or the essence of the ancient sorcerer or shaman in higher contact with the animalistic creator of the universe. Commercially speaking the portraits of jazz musicians have been my most successful but I have been able, I think, to stay away from making the quintessential jazz painting. I have painted well over one hundred jazz musicians so far, none of them with the intention to mimic the spirit of a jazz performance, but with a focus on the human characteristics of a person or the formal composition of a musician figure in a spacial context. Until now! I never made a jazz painting as large as I did with this one of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. I never focused on a jazz cliche (such as the super large cheeks when blowing a horn) either; combine this with the for me uncharacteristic black primer on the surface as if it were a black velvet painting and there you have the ingredients of a 'jazz painting'. OMG, I made a "JAZZ PAINTING!"

The Stars of the Top 100

John Lee Hooker
25" x 14"
oil on wood, 2010

Just when I congratulated myself earlier this month for my oblivion towards musical stars, a few more established names enter the fray. Both John Lee Hooker and Rahsaan Roland Kirk are legends of American music and mainstays in my Top 100. With respectively the purchase of another album and the viewing of a film both make once again the yearly list of one hundred. In my archive over 28 years Hooker and Kirk are #27 and #28 when it comes to points gathered by musicians; 434 for John Lee Hooker, 432 for Roland Kirk. Those ranks make Hooker the highest ranked blues musician but Kirk only the fifth jazz artist. With a bit of free time around the holidays I primed a few surfaces a little bigger than usual and the biggest stars of the Top 100 can now be painted on appropriate sizes. First up is John Lee Hooker, the Mississippi blues man who died a decade ago at age 88. His output is such that to collect all his recordings is a task so epic that it isn't even worth a consideration. I have no ambition towards such an achievement but I will occasionally add to my substantial representation of John Lee Hooker in my record collection. The latest addition is a handsome original LP on a label from Los Angeles called The Great Blues Sounds of John Lee Hooker and my song of choice from it is She Left Me.

The Alan Lomax Collection

Arantza Goikoetxea
12.25" x 7.75"
oil on wood, 2010

Good news is that a series of cds containing field recordings from Spain and Italy have become available as part of The Alan Lomax Collection. Bad news is that there are suddenly a whole bunch of cds out there I want to buy. Good news is that they have them at Half Price Books, right around the corner, for only $8.99 each. Bad news is that you'd spend 90 bucks to get 10. Good news is that it's almost Christmas. Bad news is that some vinyl I've treasured so dearly have become pretty much obsolete because the cds contain so much more music, pictures, and text than the LPs did.
I bought one from The Spanish Recording series, one from the Basque Country: Biscay and Guipuzcoa. Looking through the series I searched for Vascona because my favorite tune from a great 4 record set I have called Anthology of Spanish Folklore Music is from there; Ariñ-Ariñ is an anonymous recording from Viscaya, Vascona. I couldn't find either the title or the region so I settled for the Basque Cd. Little did I know but my intuition was rewarded because as it turns out Vascona is the same as Basconia, which is in turn the same as Basque while Viscaya is the very same place as Biscay. Lo and behold the liner notes state that the track Porrusalda is also known as Ariñ-Ariñ.  the tune is not anonymous, it is sung and played by Arantza and Andoni Goikoetxea. And better yet: The booklet to the Cd contains a picture of Arantza Goikoetxea, I started painting right away!

And it didn't take long... The recording, by the way, was recorded by Alan Lomax in 1952, four years before football player Andoni Goikoetxea was born (in Biscay), and thirteen before Barcelona player from the Dream Team years Andoni Goikoetxea was born. Wonder if any one of them is related to Andoni, the 'alboka' player on the recording, and/or his sister Arantza.

Fela Kuti

Fela Kuti
16" x 8.75"
oil on wood, 2010

A few weeks ago I mentioned that it was 25 years ago that Fela Kuti was last represented in my annual Top 100. A bit surprising maybe, considering my ever increasing infatuation with music from the African continent, and with jazz, to leave out its biggest star. Maybe not so surprising considering my ever increasing oblivion towards musical stardom. When in 1986 maybe half the musicians could be tagged as star, now I could maybe tag only one out of five as such. What constitutes a star then? A question as subjective in popular culture as it is objective in astronomy. The cutoff for me is somewhere between Beth Orton and Odetta, or John Jacob Niles and David Allen Coe. These are the thirteen stars in the Top 100 2010 so far (in order of stardom according to my subjective criteria):
Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Nina Simone, M.I.A., Ornette Coleman, Fela Kuti, Joni Mitchell, Cat Power, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Townes Van Zandt, Burzum, David Allen Coe, Odetta
Unconsciously or not, a star is painted differently, as a star I guess, an icon. So here's my painting of Fela Kuti, could easily be used as the cover for a The Best Of... album or something. (Darn, the image already was just that.)

Pipa 2 – 0 Koto

Pipa player (Janet Hsieh)
15" x 6"
oil on plexi-glass, 2010

Another goal for pipa. Pipa is up two now against koto. After a musical comparison the pipa was also ahead when it came to  comparing visuals. I believe this is largely due to the introduction of the pipa into pop culture whereas the koto is still reminiscent of an old rigid tradition. Indeed, the picture I chose to paint from, as an illustration to the melody Xiang Yu, The Conqueror Removing His Armour by the pipaist Chen Yin (whose picture I could not find), is an image of a present day celebrity named Janet Hsieh, a Taiwanese-American model/musician appearing in a video by fellow Taiwanese-American superstar Wang LeeHom playing pipa. As a guitar-like string instrument the pipa has the advantage over the koto in that one can play it like a rock star. Its real Japanese equivalent is not the koto but the biwa, while the koto finds its relative in the Chinese guzheng. The pipa melody is the fifth recording from China in the Top 100 so far while Japan, a traditional Top 100 heavyweight, is not represented yet. It is not all gloom for Japan though, there is hope on the horizon as I re-discovered a recording made by the Imperial Palace Band in 1903! With its In-a-Gadda-da-Vida like intro it could beat all Chinese competition and will certainly find its place high up the ranks of this year's Top 100.

About a painting depicting Janet Hsieh

Within the larger tradition of painting every year one hundred musicians, exists the tradition of painting one of the musicians on top of the palette used for the other paintings. It used to be the very last painting I did for a Top 100 (often #100) but the timing changed to the moment a palette was worn out and I was in need of a new one. That moment arrived a few days ago. Paint was piled so thick on the palette that it became too hard to use it again. I turned this dirty palette around and around and again, comparing various source materials, until the image of Hsieh and her pipa started to form itself on my retina. I used the paint still malleable on the palette to shape the image and used fresh, clean paint from a fresh, clean, and new palette to finish it.

Physiognomy

6 x Mishka Ziganoff
4.25" x 5.5" each
marker on colored paper, 2010

The photo of Mishka Ziganoff, apparently the only one in existence, appears on Google Images either cropped at the top or cropped at the bottom, none showed the full photo. The character of Ziganoff in the images of which the chin was cut off appeared more sympathetic than those in which the forehead was cut off. In these images Ziganoff also appears leaner than with the reverse crop. Intrigued and puzzled by why I interpreted the same image so differently I did a little experiment: I drew the face several times, starting with one or the other cropped variety, and investigate how it would influence my act of drawing it. I would investigate the physiognomy of Ziganoff's face. I soon found out that beside the different croppings that influence the interpretation of his face several other elements contribute to the assessment of the character Mishka Ziganoff as well. Some interpretations are subjective, some objective, others are plain old stereotypes. Knowing a bit about the cultural history of Mishka Ziganoff certainly influences how I depicted the person. This is what I know: He was Russian, born in the late 19th Century in Odessa, Ukraine. Immigrated to the United States (possibly via Italy) in the early 20th Century, recorded his Koilen in New York City in 1919. His heritage is either Gypsy or Jewish, or both. Now, at the risk of being a biased jackass:

• The person appears heavier in the pictures in which his full chin is shown. It changes the smile into a full laugh. In Russia heavy means healthy, in America the opposite. In my native Holland a big person epitomizes the (hard to translate) term 'gezellig' (joyous, cozy). The drawing center right looks like a 'gezellige dikkert'.
• I noticed that when I had either "Jewish" or "Gypsy" in my mind when I was drawing, I indeed managed to bring out the stereotypical characteristics of each. (I wouldn't be able to tell you what these are exactly save for the "Jewish nose".)
• Seeing all six quick little drawings in a row the differences are obvious while at the time of drawing them I thought each time I was drawing the proportions right and captured Zigonoff's likeness. Even in the first one, the most awkward portrait drawing, center left, appeared fine to me at the moment I drew it...

Apparently the awkwardness lies in its relationship with its neighbor...
That's a good enough assessment in a discussion on character interpretation for right now...

Pipa–Koto, 1-0

Ornette Coleman (2nd Version)
10.75" x 7.5"
acrylic on paper, 2010

This watercolor of Ornette Coleman will substitute the oil painting of him for the track Free Jazz  in the Top 100 2010 exhibition in March 2011 at Skylab. The original (see Free Jazz!, September 6) is not with me anymore. I didn't lose it, it didn't burn, it wasn't stolen. White Columns, the gallery that has been showing these paintings, sold it at the NADA art fair in Miami Beach this weekend. I was there to enjoy the sun, the beach, the food, and to promote these paintings. Coleman's was the first one to sell. Jazz musicians always sell the best, the first, and the most. I brought ten of this year's Top 100 paintings and returned with none. The other Coleman is gone too, the only two Jazz paintings so far. The ten paintings that were sold will be represented in the Top 100 2010 exhibition by either a color reproduction or, as in this case of Ornette Coleman, a second version.

In the beautiful week of art fairs and palm lined beaches, I didn't paint, didn't pay attention to any music, and didn't blog, leaving my schedule is in a state of disarray. The next two months must harvest forty more songs in order to arrive at a list of one hundred. I was thinking to help matters a bit by revisiting those musics just a point or two short from being in it. It's a good way of playing music, enjoyable, playful, and purposeful. To make it even more of a game I decided to play songs against each other: the winner being granted the chance to be in the Top 100, the loser back into the archives for maybe another chance next year. As with cup football the draws result in some interesting match-ups, Fela Kuti, a Top 100 veteran from 1988, just beat Alem Kebede (never before in the Top 100), Mishka Ziganoff (with Koilen) was the winner of a Bella Ciao play-off against Giovanni Daffini, and 'pipa' defeated 'koto'. The last of these was a match-up between arch rivals China and Japan. China represented by Chen Yin playing an ancient traditional Chinese melody on the pipa, while two of Japan's parallel string instrument, the koto, in a tune also of considerable antiquity, were played by Keiko Nosaka and Sachiko Miyamoto. An interesting detail surrounding the East Asian match is that both the long string instrument numbers (both the pipa and koto tunes are about 10 minutes in duration) are followed on their respective records by a short piece for a large bamboo flute. The Chinese flute is called 'dizi' while the Japanese equivalent is called 'shakuhachi'.
Misha Ziganoff, Fela Kuti, and Chen Yin, are the newest arrivals in the Top 100 2010.

Oogjes dicht en snaveltjes toe: Welterusten lieve kijkbuis kinderen.

Bella ciao!