Peters and Pans

 

Pan Flute Player (Quechua)

9.5" x 7.5"

oil on wood, 2011

The next two into the hundred are Jimmy Peters with the Ring Dance Singers and Bolivian Indians both mentioned in the previous post. The only change is that the track listed from Bolivia is not by the Aymara Indians but a recording of Quechua Indians in stead. The Quechua recording, called Ceremonial on the LP Instruments and Music of Bolivia, is a bolero, a primitive version of that Spanish dance forever linked to the composer Maurice Ravel and the music Bo Derek likes to make love to. It is played on four sicus (Bolivian panflutes) and two drums. Panflutes and bagpipes used to be my two most hated instruments but I've warmed up to both. Both instruments have been in my Top 100 and I've painted several bagpipes before but while working on the Bolivian painting I realized I had never painted panflutes before. Such is the nature of numbers, records, and stats that no matter what you do it's always a first of something or a record of something or a milestone of some kind. It's also the first time I painted that funny Bolivian ceremonial hat with feathers and it's probably the first time I've painted a Bolivian in the first place.

It was however not the first time I've painted Jimmy Peters (I should say: painted an illustration for Jimmy Peters, for there is no image of Jimmy Peters.) Not able to find Peters' image I used the 2001 Jimmy Peters painting as a model for the new one. About halfway into it I realized that the model for the 2001 painting was this cartoon character, who may or may not represent an actual musician,  donning the CD J'ai ete au Bal (on which Peters' Zydeco Sont Pas Saler is featured.) Jimmy Peters and the Ring Dance Singers recorded in the mid-thirties. J'ai Fait Tous le Tour du Pays was recorded by Alan Lomax.

J'ai Ete au Bal
11" x 5.5"
oil on wood, 2011

Top 100 2001: The 
Jimmy Peters illustration

11" x 6"

ink, charcoal on wood, 2002