Top 100 1019-5: 51-60

51. Ainu throat singing duet "Rehbuhkara"

Two Ainu women performing "Rehbuhkara", oil on canvas, 2018

Rehbuhkara is a vocal style closely related to the Chukchi pic-eine'rkin and the Inuit katajjaq typically performed by two women. Katajjait are performed in the north of America and in Greenland, an area of land that was supposedly isolated from the old world at the end of the last ice age 14,000 years ago. The vocal styles of all three (ethnically related) peoples form yet more striking evidence that there must have been contact between the new and old world. The Ainu, considered the indigenous people of Japan, live on Japan's northernmost large island Hokkaido. The Ainu use their hands as a resonance chamber. The Inuit, as lore has it, use to sing so close together that each others mouths serve as resonance chambers. The source image from the painting is a still from a video uploaded by ainuworld. 

52. Pako Tà Ôi – A'bel, dan k'ni

A'bel performance, oil on canvas, 2018

The painting represents an example of the A'bel, a traditional instrument of the Co Tu and Ta Oi Pako peoples of Hue Province, Vietnam. A rare video of the nearly extinct tradition was uploaded to YouTube in 2013 by angklung eds, using footage from The Vietnamese Institute of Musicology, Hanoi, Vietnam.The tune shows a man playing a one string instrument, a dan k'ni, with a bow and uses his mouth as a resonance chamber. The (anonymous) performer in the painting is the musician in the video.

53. Qiarpa (chorus, Inuit)

Group of Inuit Women, oil on canvas, 2019

Recorded at Eskimo Point by Ramon Pelinski in 1980 from the cd Canada: Jeux Vocaux Des Inuit (Inuit du Caribou, Netsilik et Igloolik (Disques Ocora, 1989). The performers of most of the 90(!) tracks on the cd are credited by name but not this particular recording. The chorus of the heading appears to be class of young students being instructed in the traditional singing styles of the Inuit, demonstrating just how much the culture is alive in contemporary times. The painting shows half of a group of women who performed in Strasbourg, France at the occasion of an exhibition of Inuit sculpture in 1984. A video of this performance was uploaded on a site selling the cd.

54. Sonny Sharrock – Peanut

Sonny and Linda Sharrock, oil on canvas, 2018

Even though Sonny Sharrock is a fairly well known musician and his music seems right up my alley, I had never heard of him until I picked a random title at Ubuweb's Film & Video. The movie Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1996) is a weird video that originally appeared on the Cartoon Network. The soundtrack was also weird enough for me to research the musician Sonny Sharrock (1940-1994.) Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) appears as a cameo. I bought then a digital copy of Sharrock's first solo album Black Woman of 1969. The music can be described as existing somewhere between Alice Coltrane and Yoko Ono. An old Top 100 alumni Milford Graves is the percussionist and drummer. Sharrock's wife Linda is the singer.

55. Maranao lullaby

Maranao woman and child, oil on canvas, 2019

A lullaby recorded by David Blair Stiffler in captivity in 1988 in the Mindanao Province of the Philippines. Stiffler and his travel companions were abducted by an MNLF rebel group at gunpoint. They were taken to a hut in the mountains and were held for more than two weeks before they managed to escape. He was given permission to record a woman who he heard singing a lullaby to her baby but later all his equipment was confiscated. They escaped with only their clothes, their lives, and one single cassette tape. From Music from the Mountain Provinces intended for Folkways but after its founder's passing it remained on the shelves until The Numero Group eventually released it in 2011.

56. Bongili Work Song

André Didier, oil on canvas, 2019

The 1946 Ogooué-Congo Mission is best known for recordings of Babinga Pygmies made by Gilbert Rouget. They were one of the first recordings ever made of Pygmy music, perhaps the most popular of all ethnomusicological recordings. Many recordings made during the expedition landed on Music of Equatorial Africa on Moses Asch's Folkway label that was released in 1947. The recordings on the LP however, weren't made by Rouget but by André Didier. There are various recordings of the Babinga on the record as well as a host from other ethnicity. One such group are the Bongili, whose "Work Song" is part of the Top 100 2019. The work in "Work Song" refers to the labor of beaten out bananas (both fruit and peel) for the purpose of a banana paste. A girls chorus and pestles are heard behind a soloist (the chorus takes turns). The notes on the album were written by Rouget.

57. Tibet: Lament for the Dead

Tibetan Monks, 1903, oil on canvas, 2019

This field recording from the Smithsonian Music of the World’s Peoples series, captures, according to the liner notes, “Lamas chanting in unison with percussion and bells accompaniment.” The deeply resonant baritone voices, combined with the barely audible, overtone-rich bells, create an almost unbearably chilling sound. This is a lament for the dead by the living, but the sound seems more to emanate from somewhere beneath the earth—from the dead themselves. [Jake Romm – A Giacinto Scelsi Playlist: Sacred Soundsand Sacred Syllables, 2017]

58. Luiz Bonfa – Samba de Orfeu

Orfeu Negro, oil on canvas, 2019

Western culture has its roots in the Classical Greek period, whose dramas and tragedies depicted the dramatic and tragic mythologies of their deities, who in turn are metaphors for what human beings essentially are. I tried to paint a loving portrait of three young Brazilian actors, characters in the film Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus). The soundtrack for the 1959 French/Brazilian film came courtesy of the legendary Brazilian musicians Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfá. The story of the movie, of course, based on a screenplay by Vinicius de Moraes is an adaption of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Bonfa's Samba de Orfeu has become a bossa-nova classic.

 59. Cat Power – Nothing Really Matters

Cat Power, oil on canvas, 2019
"When I see your face in the crowd/With a look of obsession" are the opening lines to Cat Power's Nothing Really Matters from 2018s Wanderer. She will be performing at the Ritz in Tampa, close enough for me to go. It'll be the fifth time I see her live beating Townes van Zandt and (Dutch band) The Fatal Flowers for most concerts visited.

60. Princess Constance Magogo KaDinuzulu – Helele! Yiliphi leliyani

Princess Constance Magogo KaDinuzulu, oil on canvas, 2019

The Princess' name is Constance Magogo Sibilile Mantithi Ngangezinye kaDinuzulu (1900-1984). Quite a name indeed but not even close to that of her fellow South African singer Miriam Makeba (1932-2008): Zenzile Makeba Qgwashu Nguvama Yiketheli Nxgowa Bantana Balomzi Xa Ufun Ubajabulisa Ubaphekeli Mbiza Yotshwala Sithi Xa Saku Qgiba Ukutja Sithathe Izitsha Sizi Khabe Singama Lawu Singama Qgwashu Singama Nqamla Nqgithi, who is of Swazi and Xhosa descend. Miriam isn't even part of that name! My name is Lambertus Gerardus Martinus van Boekel and it really falls short in comparison.