Their subjects are the objects

Võ Vân Ánh (or Vanessa Vo) is a California based Vietnamese musician best known for her work on the đàn tranh zither. [Wikipedia] After some considerations I opted to use an image of her playing the đàn tranh zither to illustrate a Cai Luong, an instrumental played on a đàn tranh zither. Cai Luong is the most popular genre within the Vong Cô form in traditional Vietnamese folk music. The recording in the Top 100 comes from the album Music of North and South Vietnam: Sung Poetry of the North, Theater Music of the South which was recorded by Stephen Addiss and released by Folkways in 1971. Stephen Addiss is a Professor of Humanities and Art at the University of Richmond in Virginia. His art is greatly influenced by Eastern Zen painting and among books he published is The Art of Zen. [1989] Lacking an image of the performer in the liner notes (no name either, the only information given is that it was performed by a woman) it seemed that a portrait of Addiss would make most sense. While learning about Addiss via Google I wasn't inspired though and kept on searching for an alternative, and settled on this specific image of Vo. I had difficulty in capturing her likeness, which is unusual, so I kept trying, and trying, and trying. Gradually what I perceived as her essence announced itself on the paper. Cai Luong is number 92 in the Top 100 of 2020.

 

Jean-Pierre Estival/Asurini et Arara (cover)

 

The next two paintings I completed for the Top 100 2021 pair two European anthropologists with their exotically themed subjects. The word exotic is cringe worthy as it assumes white Eurocentric western culture as norm and different realities as other. The anthropologists, or ethnologists, or musicologists who have been recording the bulk of the Top 100 2021 materials are often musicians themselves but as musician it would be very unlikely tor them to enter the list. Jean-Pierre Estival, who recorded the Brazilian Asurini do Trocara,  apparently plays the trombone. He is coupled with an individual from a group depicted on the cover of Brésil: Asurini et Arara. [Ocora, 1995] The Asurini used to roam about stark naked but when Estival recorded them and took the pictures in the late 1980s they were wearing baseball caps and soccer shirts (among other modern dresses.) The Eipo people of West Papua (the Indonesian side, formerly Irian Jaya) still go around without clothes but they did give up their cannibal ways. Paired with the German musicologist Prof. Dr. Arthur Simon is the same Eipo individual I used to illustrate the same Dit song in last year's list. The recording was originally part of an enormous research project and 6-CD set Musik aus dem Bergland west-Neuguineas, Irian Jaya. The CD was released in 1993 but the recordings were made in 1976.

Eipo woman/Arthur Simon

Nordic Cultures

V.G. Bogoraz/Chukchi folk tale narrator

The CD series Voyage en URSS (Anthologie de la Musiques Instrumentale et Vocale des Peuples de l'URSS) consist of Russian recordings and was issued by the Le Chant du Monde label in 1990. I borrowed the CD from the Columbus Public Library sometime in 1999 or 2000. I was using cassette tapes back then and I recorded all volumes in the series. The last in the series: 6 - Caucase du Nord, Volga-Oural, Sibérie, Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Nord has been my favorite and I still occasionally play the tape. Back in the early 2000s it was my introduction to shamanic recordings and established my interest in shamanic culture. There are liner notes that I regret not copying back then but these do not contain images of the performers or the musicologists who recorded them. The musicologists aren't even listed and the information in the liner notes mostly deals with the instruments used, and the history of Russian folk music. All music was recorded between 1922 and 1983 and first appeared on the Soviet Melodiya label. The musicians are credited but in the twenty-odd years of looking, I have yet to find images of any of the musicians that have been featured in the Top 100. I have always used Russian folkloric images to illustrate these songs. My most current search to illustrate the song La Petite Poule (Danse Khantyl) by L. Tebetov brought me to pdf files of this wonderful Canadian magazine Inuktitut, published in three languages. An issue from 1988 is dedicated to the collaborations between (related) Siberian peoples and Canadian Inuits. The magazine has 124 pages full with photos, research, and travel documentation. I got excited by a photo published in this magazine of a Russian anthropologists in a boat interviewing a Chukchi folk tale narrator. That the song illustrated is not by a Chukchi but by a Khantyl didn't deter me. The little chicken of the title is not a folk tale either (as the title suggests), the vocals by Tebetov are echoic. The instrument used is a nars-loukh, a stringed instrument that sounds like a guitar. This is the first painting in the series of double portraits where the source image is also a double portrait. I decided, at the end of painting, to use transparent washes to separate the right half of the image from the left half. 

The Russian song stands at a provisional number 29 at the Top 100 2021. I'm still finishing up the Top 100 2020 and I'll move forward one at a time on each list. In the 2020 list I have arrived at number 91 and the song I illustrated at the same time as the Russian song has a strong cultural connection to it. Chikap Upopo, performed by Kiyo Kurokawa and Teru Nishizima was recorded by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, a Canadian ethnomusicologist who specializes in the related vocal expressions of the Canadian Inuit, Russian Chukchi, and Japanese Ainu people. I painted Kiyo Kurokawa before and I always enjoyed to portray the Ainu with traditional face tattoos. Chikap Upopo comes from the UNESCO album Japan: Ainu Songs.

Kiyo Kurokawa

 

The Architecture and Ceremonies of the Abelam

Cover image of: The Abelam/Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin

Nggwal Mindsha, antiphony to the ancestral spirits is a ceremonial song by the Abelam of Papua New Guinea to be sung in the context of the building of a new ceremonial house. In the commentaries it is argued that songs like these should not be considered music because there is no entertainment value and that songs like these can't be separated from, in this case, the architecture they are dedicated to. The song is an integral part of the architectural process. (The architecture, b.t.w., is spectacular.) A description of the song (in the liner notes) mentions alternating voices of a man and a woman, but I really only hear one (I think it's a man's voice.) Beside the recordings found on the CD, Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin also wrote a monograph on the architecture of the Abelam and the larger Sepik River area in Papua New Guinea.

Hum

Fiona Apple

Alanis Morissette

Fiona Apple was 19 when Tidal came out in 1996 and Alanis Morissette 21 in 1995 when her Jagged Little Pill was released. Both albums sold millions of copies and are classics in the genre (what is the genre? Alt-Rock? Angst? Singer-Songwriter?)  Both songs in the top 100 were hits and are now considered classics: listening to Apple's Criminal and Morissette's Ironic for sure will make you hum along (if you happen to not know the words by heart.) The songs follow one another  at numbers 89 and 90 in the Top 100 2020. Both drawings were made using photographs taken much later in their careers by professional photographers.

The Kora Player Remains Anonymous

Kora harp-lute (Senegal)/Francis Bebey, 14x11 inches, oil, 2021

I was delighted when I found the book African Music: A People's Art by Francis Bebey at a thrift store last year. I cost me a dollar and I've read through most of the book since. Francis Bebey is a Cameroonian author and musician who had been in my top 100 twice about a decade ago so I anticipated an account of African Music from the inside (as opposed to the account of western musicologists.) but I have to say I was a little disappointed by the content of the book. Bebey in his texts, fell into the same traps of western academic chauvinism as he is railing against. An example: While the author dutifully credits western musicologists when credit is due he fails to identify by name many of the musicians he discusses. The images in the book (I don't think they're Bebey's) are not identified. Thus the kora player on the left in the painting is unnamed (the same kora player appears on the cover.) Reading the book did make pull me out the Akwaaba cassette tape that I have and the title song made it into this year's list. The instrument is not a kora but a sanza (similar to the better known Rhodesian mbira.) Bebey is playing a sanza in the portrait on the right. Akwaaba: Music for Sanza is from 1985 and was recorded by John Storm Roberts. Francis Bebey play all instruments himself and sings too. Akwaaba is part of the continued top 100, a list that adds the points of all entries since I started the project in 1983.

Daniel Johnston too played all instruments and sings on his LP 1990 (except that Kramer, who produced the LP, appears on the song Some Things Last a Long Time, which is also the song that appears in the Top 100 2020, his second.) I had just started to make my first lists for the Top 100 2020 when the news broke that Daniel Johnston had died. Daniel Johnston had appeared in many top 100s many many times in the late 1990s and early 2000s but he had not been in the list since 2009. Needless to say Daniel Johnston's passing made quite an impact on me and and as a result I played many of his records.

Daniel Johnston, charcoal, ink, 14x11 inches, 2021

 

Numbers

Tuurnagaaluk (6009) and Eunice Kunuk Arreak (6010)

Number 87 of the Top 100 2020 is track from the CD Canada: Inuit Games and Songs on the UNESCO label. The track is labelled Two Katajjait and it, as the title implies, consists of two recordings of a katajjaq, the Inuit style of throat singing in the form of a game. Both recordings are short and are from two different locations with different singers, recorded by different musicologists in the mid-1970s. The first one, recorded by Nicole Beaudy, features Elijah Pudloo Mageeta and Teemegeak Pitaulassie. This was recorded at Cape Dorset. The second one was recorded by Denise Harvey and is a duet by Maggie Grey and Jessie Tomassie at Payne Bay. There have been so many recordings of katajjait in the Top 100 and so few of the singers have been photographed for the albums (or at all on-line for that matter) that I have been forced in being creative when it comes to selecting individuals to illustrate the songs. For this one I stumbled on a very interesting article from the Library Archives Canada Blog titled Inuit: Disc Numbers and Surname Project that chars the history of attempts by the Canadian government to maintain a inventory of the Inuit people. I had never heard that Inuits were given numbers that then were printed on a small plaque (disc) that they had to carry with them at all times. The practice was abandoned in the 1970s. The images I drew in this work are from two photos that were taken directly after one another and did appear in that article. 

While working on the Inuit drawing I also worked on a painting for the Top 100 2021 simultaneously (as I have been doing the past months). Depicted are the Swiss/French photographer Barbara Brandli and one of her subjects who appeared on the cover of the album Music of the Venezuelan Yekuana Indians. [Folkways, 1975] Brandli (1932-2011) is a world renown photographer who, after a successful career as a photographer of the Parisian society, went on to live in Venezuela. She is best known for her work with the Yanomami Indians. The song illustrated is called Edanaka hani amöde and makes the list for the third successive year.

Barbara Brandli and a Yekuana Indian