Happiness is a duet

Eskimo Family, Baker Lake
11 x 14 inches, watercolor, pencil, spray paint on paper, 2020

Many tunes in this year's list end with laughter, not because the music is particularly funny but that it evokes exaltation. Indeed this year's top 100 is the happiest of all 36 editions thus far. In the case of katajjait laughter is actually the true end of a song much like in a staring contest. It simply ends when one breaks into laughter. The other individual is then the winner of the game. Jean-Jaques Nattiez, one of the foremost authorities on the subject, is hesitant to call the Inuit katajjait tradition music as he regards the activity as games. The Inuit themselves do not consider these games music either. To me though, these games are key in my lifelong search into the essence and origin of music. The laughter and the game are both biological feats of humanity (which also extends much further into the animal kingdom) while music and art can be considered a cultural heritage. Music is played (as opposed to work) for the sake of happiness (and elation, exhilaration, etc.) Games, for a great part, is the property of children. In games children act out the stimulation of perceived reality, often the behaviors of adults. Games can also be nonsensical, games for games sake, for fun and laughter. The laughter at the end of songs in this top 100 isn't limited to katajjait only but it is limited to the format of two performers only, and only when the duet is of women or children. There are plenty of children's duets in the list. The one I found on The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska [Folkways, 1955] is truly amazing. Heard are two 15-year old girls who whisper words into a kettle-resonater placed on the ground. The rhythmic breathing then contributes to a feedback loop that only gets interrupted when one starts to laugh. We have names too, rare for field recordings that old; one girl is called Angutnak and the other Matee. The recording was made by Laura Boulton at Baker Lake, Hudson Bay, in what is today Nunavut, an enormous semi-autonomous region in Canada. The photograph that I used as source for this drawing was also taken by Laura Boulton at Baker Lake. Perhaps one of the children of the Inuit family depicted in it is either Angutnak or Matee, I wouldn't know. There are currently no cases of COVID-19 in Nunavut. 

A contemporary analogy of the elation evoked by duet singing can also be found in popular music. A good example of this is a duet I recently saw on YouTube by Bonnie Raitt and John Prine performing Angel From Montgomery. The laughs exchanged by the two at the end of the song speak pure happiness. Think also of the laughs exchanged between Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton in their many duets. Yes, both of these I watched because of the passing of yet another pop icon. Besides Prine and Rogers the list also includes Little Richard, David Olney, Millie Small, Betty Wright, Manu Dibango, and Bob Andy, to name just a few. Some died, like Manu Dibango, whose best known song Soul Makossa once scored high in a previous top 100, from the Coronavirus. I saw Manu Dibango perform live maybe fifteen years ago or so.