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!
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