The color of a frog

Shuar man, woman (after Pierre Allard, Visages de bronze)

Like last year, a number of recording from the LP Jivaro: Indiens Shuar, Cayapa, Otavalo are listed in the Top 100. I still have not been able to find a photo of Philippe Luzuy, who recorded the music on the LP, or Pierre Allard, the photographer who was with him in 1960. And, as I did last year, I used images from the book Visages de bronze [1960] with photographs by Pierre Allard and text by Luzuy. The two portraits here represent a social dance song sung by a man and a woman. I had already commented before on social and gender relations in Shuar communities, and the recording here illustrates further the discrepancy between the written account of archaeologists concerning the separation of genders and their photographs and musical recordings. For a second painting illustrating the Shuar I used the image of Simone Dreyfus-Roche, listed as the editor on the sleeve. In another gender reversal of norms, it is Dreyfus-Roche who is the authority and well known anthropologist. Luzuy, I assume, is working under her guidance. Simone Dreyfus is known for her work and recordings done in the Amazon regions of Brazil. She recorded the Capoeira among others in the mid-1950s.

Capoeira indian with Simone Dreyfus

I did not use the random color selector for the Dreyfus painting. The Shuar painting was the last of a series of works with random colors. I do like the generator though, it makes me use colors I would have never thought of using. Here's an anecdote about random colors from about twenty years ago: While my boss at a museum job was at a meeting I sat down behind his desk. I don't remember if I put my feet on his desk or not, but I did make myself comfortable. With one hand I was playing with pencil sharpener in the shape of a frog and with the other a book of color samples. Then my boss unexpectedly came back early, catching me and asking what the hell I was doing. I told him I was looking up the color of the frog. And when I actually matched the color, its name was "frog green." I chose golden colors for my painting illustrating Kulali singers from Papua New Guinea because I had done the same thing for the Top 100 2018.

Ulahi and Eyo:bo

Ulahi was still a repected and active singer among the Kulali of the Bosavi Rain Forest when Steven Feld revisted them some 25 years later in 1991. Now she was wearing western style clothing and make-up but she hardly looked much older then in 1977 when Feld took the photo I used above. This time Feld took the famed Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart with him. Hart produced a follow up CD with brand new recordings. [Voices of the Rainforest, 1991, Smithsonian] Ulahi is now credited for her performances as modern day pop singers would be credited—Her name comes first.


 

Of Cromagnon man and Kalahari healers

Marjorie Shostak and Nisa

In May of last year I wrote how Margaret de Wys successfully sought the help of an Ecuadorian shaman to heal and recover from breast cancer. It's a romantic idea that healers from indigenous communities have a certain knowledge lacking in the industrialized world. There's some truth in it (it seems to me) that traditional healers know things about the properties of obscure plants and the often mysterious workings of the human body, that are unknown to the western scientific world. But let's not forget that the science of the western world has advanced to such a degree that healing of diseases, especially those of the industrial world, such as cancer, has a very good success rate, perhaps as good, or better, than traditional methods. The American anthropologist Marjorie Shostak, a decade before de Wys, and on different continent, was not as lucky. Shostak sought the help from her friend Nisa, a !Kung San woman from Botswana. Nisa, in 1970, had been the subject of a book by Shostak: Nisa, the Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. [Harvard University Press, 1981] The book gained importance and became a standard of anthropological literature. Sound recordings made during her three year stay among the !Kung appeared on two discs by the Folkways label. The record Instrumental Music of the Kalahari San appeared in 1982. Like last year the tune Sitengena with one man's voice is listed in the top 100. Read here about the recording.

Cromagnon: Austin Grasmere; Brian Elliot; Sal Salgado

The two colors behind Shostak and Nisa are olive green and olive brown, hardly to be called random. The first time I used the Random Color Generator at randomwordgenerator.com a month ago I these three colors behind three members of the 60s garage band Cromagnon. I didn't write down the names of colors then but they do come up with wonderful (but not truly random) colors. I learned about this obscure band from New York City when I was looking into the ESP label that is the home of many free jazz musicians I'm interested in. ESP refers to the language and not psychology. It was founded in 1963 to showcase esperanto-based music, but after its only second release, a disc by Albert Ayler (Spritual Unity, 1965) the label focused on free jazz and other experimental music. The song Caledonia from the album Orgasm of 1969 (later reissued as Cave Rock) is a real tour de force heavy metal song with bagpipes prominently heard with fuzz guitar, bass and drum. Taped sound effects also feature on the recording. More music from ESP will feature in this year's 100 as well as another recording of the !Kung San of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana.

 

Color

Don Cherry, Aluminum grey/Mori Cherry Turquoise blue

Most paintings produced in the top 100 series now have a solid background color. The choice for each color, naturally, is of great concern. At first the colors were decided by the colors used within the two portraits, complementary to the portraits, or by some related symbolism. Later they became independent, applied before the portraits were painted. Sometimes, as I did with the portraits in this post, I used a random color generator. The first time I used it was last year in a portrait of John Cage, who uses chance operations in composition.There are two programs that I use. The first has about 600 colors the second millions of colors. The 600 of the first one consist of colors that are named. There are about 600 named colors. Perhaps the generator is linked to commercial interests, such as paint manufacturers. When I select two colors from this generator they always appear to go together well. This is nice but it questions the randomness of the selection processes. An advantage of this generator over the other one is that its colors tend to be more vibrant. (Vibrant colors are named more often than dull or dirty colors.) The generator that has millions of colors (the eye can distinguish millions of colors) is more random. Every color is made from a random percentage number of the three RGB primaries, red, green, and blue. The resulting color (nearly) always has all three values represented, so that no color is a true color. The color is always poop, but there's warm poop and cool poop. When I materialize the computer color in paint, I do not go by the levels. This would be pointless anyway because green is not a primary paint color. Colors of light are additive, whereas paint colors reductive. But even if I were to convert RGB into CMYK the same problems persist. I don't work with cyan or magenta, I can make these colors putting together others. There really aren't any primary colors in paint, any color can be made using other colors. Certain pigments are hard to recreate though, phthalo or gold for example, but I have yet to come across any difficulty copying any of the random colors in paint. The colors in the above painting of Don and Moki Cherry are aluminum grey and turquoise blue. The photo reproduction doesn't do these named colors any justice. Don Cherry is one of a handful musicians to appear multiple times in this year's top 100. The colors behind Giampiero Pramaggiore and Naná Vasconcelos, collaborators with the Cherrys in the Organic Music Theatre, are pearl mouse grey and graphite black.

Giampiero Pramaggiore/Naná Vasconcelos

Don Cherry started the Organic Music Theater during an extended stay in Sweden. He married Moki Karlsson and they recorded the album Organic Music Society with a score of mostly local musicians. Naná Vasconcelos, the Brazilian percussionist was with him and stayed with him through various tours and albums. When Organic Music toured France and Italy, Vaconcelos and both Cherrys were accompanied by the Italian guitarist Giampiero Pramaggiore. Both tracks by the Organic Music Theater in the Top 100 are from from a video recorded by RAI, the Italian national broadcast station. The Organic Music Theater was truly organic (free and democratic) and well ahead of its time. Musicians contributed whatever they were associated with. The Organic Music Theater blended any traditions in the world of sound they'd come across. A third appearance by Cherry in the Top 100, be it a minor contribution, is behind his stepdaughter Neneh Cherry during a videotaped concert by her band Rip, Rig & Panic. The other singer in Rip, Rig & Panic seen in the video is Andi Oliver, today a celebrity chef and Neneh's longtime friend.

Neneh Cherry/Andi Oliver (Rip, Rig & Panic)