The Top 100 started as a hobby; a fan adoring his musical heroes and paying tribute by making portraits of them. The hobby became obsession and the project went from the boy’s room into the art world. But I'm still that fan, it's about them in the end, their music, and not about me.
Another image from the vaults to keep the blog occupied. This time back to 2006 when the song Shimmy Shimmy Ya by Ol' Dirty Bastard and the Wu Tang Clan appeared in the list. "I like it raw" raps ODB in the song, and that's precisely when I like hip-hop the best. 2006 was the only time the Wu Tang Clan appeared in the list but the song Shimmy Shimmy Ya has been gathering points since I first heard it in 2004, so much so that it has entered the list of 500 songs counted over the 31 years of top 100 list making. Much of this is due to this wonderful video of this song that is on YouTube. It's a classic!
It's a watercolor, what can I say? I've done watercolors before but not like this... I mean like a textbook kinda watercolor. The kind you see for sale at art festivals and gift shops at a cultural arts center. The watercolor depicts, beside the landscape of my backyard, the musician Exuma, which is an alias of Macfarlane Gregory Anthony Mackey (1942-1997). Exuma (also the name of his 7-piece band) is from the Bahamas, he grew up in Cat Island. Exuma, the name, refers to a district of the Bahamas. Now the Bahamas may sound very exotic, but it is in fact not all that far away from where I am at in South Florida. I've never visited the Bahamas but music from the Bahamas, from the great Joseph Spence, has been in my Top 100 many times before. The music of Exuma is pretty exotic, with elements of calypso, reggae, junkanoo, and an African type of spirituality. I found Exuma while searching for Count Ossie (also in this year's list), and that'll give you an idea about the direction of the music. As the list for 2013 slowly takes shape, it is clear that there will be a good amount of Caribbean music in it. Due, no doubt, to what I've been referring to as the 'great reggae haul'. This is a link to Exuma's Wikipedia page, it's a good read!
Top 100 2009: Milford Graves
±12" x 9", oil on wood, 2010
The complete Top 100 2012 series continues to be on view at the WDNA Jazz Gallery in Miami, FL through July 13. The gallery is located at 2921 Coral Way in Coral Gables and is open during regular business hours. The opening took place on May 25th during which the Carl Allen Quartet performed live. Right before the concert started I was invited to speak a few words. The video below is a registration of those minutes. I am introduced by Howard Duperly, the public relations director at the radio station.
For the occasion I published a small 22 page book that I titled OMG, I Made a Jazz Painting! in an edition of 25. The title I took from a page at this blog that was posted in 2010. The book is a freebie with the purchase of any work in the exhibition but can also be purchased for $14. Just send me a mail if you're interested. The books features texts and images of Jazz musicians compiled from my large Top 100 archive. One of the images in that book is the one of Milford Graves depicted above. It also appeared in Top 100 2009 (74p., Iconoclast Editions & Berry van Boekel, 2010) which can be purchased through the Iconoclast Editions website. The following is the text that accompanied Milford Graves in Top 100 2009: 20. Milford Graves/John Zorn – Calling in Proceed
This past summer my wife Maria and I visited the Netherlands and stayed at the home of my oldest and best friend Wim van Vonderen. He was present at the very first Top 100 played in 1984, and since I moved to the US I send him every year religiously a copy of the images, texts, and music of the Top 100. He made a bunch of top 100 lists himself. Our tastes have a lot in common and every year he influences the contents of my list. The differences in our tastes however, are as striking as the similarities. His taste is more formal than mine. For him lyrics are literature, and the music has to live up to the standards of art. Ascension through music is a path I abandoned a long time ago, replaced by a descent into chaos. As I go deeper and deeper into the abyss of human existance, I still meet my friend at points where the two paths miraculously meet.
Here are two more images from OMG, I Made a Jazz Painting!
Top 100 2007: Charles Mingus
charcoal on paper, 8" x 10"
Anita 'Marguerita' Mahfood
9" x 12", oil on canvas board, 2013
Marguerita is the stage name of the Jamaican exotic rhumba dancer and singer Anita Mahfood. She was the long time girlfriend of the famous trombonist and Skatalites member Don Drummond. On new year's day of 1965, in a fit of rage inspired by his mental illness, Drummond stabbed her to death. Anita Mahfood was only twenty-one years old. The author Klive Walker in his Dubwise: Reasoning from the Reggae Underground, sketches a portrait of Mahfood and argues that she was a lot more than just a footnote in the annals of reggae music. At her young age Mahfood had already established herself as a dancer, was instrumental in the launching of the career of Count Ossie, and had shown a talent for writing poetic lyrics. She wrote the lyrics for Woman a Come, recorded with the Skatalites in 1963 or 1964. It's a love song but it reflects Rastafaria consciousness, and is deeply rooted in African cosmology. I recently acquired a copy of the recording as it is featured on the LP Intensified: Original Ska, 1963-67, in a big thrift store reggae haul. Listen to Woman a Come and read about the haul on my blog Musical Thrift Store Treasures. Don Drummond died under mysterious circumstances locked up in a mental hospital in 1969. As a footnote perhaps, I should mention that his tune Green Island was the number one in my Top 100 of 1991, and therefore part of The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever that I compiled last Summer. This link will lead you to that page. The painting of Anita Mahfood above was superimposed on a seascape painting done as a demo for a class on landscapes that I'm currently teaching. If the painting were a song I would call it a ditty. I waddle along as I remain undecided about the scope and future of the Top 100 project. If I decide to make the full scale series of 100 paintings as I have been doing, Mahfood certainly will receive a do-over. Woman a Come is much more than that ditty.
