Token Dutch Music Personality; Happy New Year

Annette Apon/Louis Andriessen

Because of the time difference New Year in the Netherlands is six hours earlier than here in Florida. It means that the time leading up to tonight's midnight hour comes sooner for someone who was born at the same time and at the same place than for me. I often go back to the Netherlands and this year I went back a lot. Every visit to the Netherlands comes with a shopping extravaganza at record stores. Vinylarchief in Nijmegen is my favorite place to go shopping. This time around, at the Vinylarchief, I browsed through a section labeled "Dutch Avant-Garde" (yes, there is such a thing.) I selected a handful of records from that section but ended up buying only two. One I did misidentify (by remembering a different first name) and, even though it was quite good, I left it behind because it dissatisfied my expectations. The other one I took with me, and I did find that one quite beautiful, Golven (Waves,) soundtrack to a film by Annette Apon by Louis Andriessen. Some musicians on the record were part of the Willem Breuker Kollektief, last year's token Dutch musician, and the record belongs the one of the most played vinyl on my player this past year. There are quite a few tunes from films in this year's list. Music, to me, seems to make a greater impression when it's accompanied by visuals. Golven doesn't belong in this category because I never seen the film. Sound!!! on the other hand, is a on a repeated watching loop on my computer. The film by Dick Fontaine, features the music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and is narrated by John Cage. Cage himself is not in the Top 100 this year but is associated with a handful of recordings as is elaborated in this post from a few months ago.

Dick Fontaine/Rahsaan Roland Kirk

There are still a number of paintings that are finished but not discussed yet. I'll forward one more and wait till next year for the others. I set myself the goal of getting half way with the Top 100 paintings and that's precisely where I'm at right now. The last painting I share here then is a double portrait of the Italian (Sicilian) singer Rosa Balistreri and the Portuguese singer Amalia Rodrigues. The two were friends. Balistreri is the in Top 100 with a song called Mirrina, while Rodrigues almost made it in this year after I was given two wonderful live records of hers. I have now eight records of Amalia Rodrigues, I had yet to make a painting. Both Balistreri (d. 1990) and Rodrigues (d. 1999) are (were) heroes of their respected communities, and both championed a communist/socialist cause.

Rosa Balistreri/Amalia Rodrigues

 

The nature of photography

Charlotte Heth/Aileen Figueroa

Photography provides our culture with ongoing snippets of reality. The instantaneous nature of these snippets are not being questioned because, after all, they are photographs. The camera is a machine and it objectively records reality accurately. It records reality unbiased and we ignore, or forget, the subjectivity of the photographer, who, by selecting which instant to share, already interpreted reality for us. Painting, contrary to this, is not instantaneous, and will not be considered as objective reality. The subjectivity of a painting is an automatic integral aspect in our reading of it, how we interpret what we see. In the same manner objectivity is an aspect of how we see a photograph. While painting from a photograph, which is what I do with these Top 100 portraits, the two different realities overlap, or rather the second (painting) is superimposed on the first Photography.) Certain aspects of instantaneous reality, taken for granted in a photograph, can look rather out of place in a painting. A photo of a figure in mid-motion, for example, could look awkwardly out of balance in a painting. Our mind simply recognizes the continuous motion in the photo but fails to so in a painting. The instantaneous moment is extended in the painting and the figure looks hopelessly unbalanced. You can easily tell the difference between a portrait painting from a photograph from a painting using a live model, a sitter. A big smile in the face is a first and easy giveaway. A big smile can be captured by a camera because its instantaneity, those photographed in fact, often do smile. While painting the smile it can not succeed in capturing the emotion, expression, of the instant. When looking at a painting of a person with a big smile, you will see certain wrinkles, individual teeth, but not a happy joyful expression. When I occupy this place between the instantaneous and the extended, I consider all these aspects of representation. I will remove evidence of the instance, and try to capture a person in an extended viewing, to show a broader view of a person's character as if this person were viewed over time. In the case of my Top 100 paintings this constitutes the viewing of many different photos, or videos.

Alaci Tulaugak;Nellie Nungak/Mary Sivarapik

Lately, I've become interested in reversing this relationship. To paint precisely those things that make a photograph a photograph, aspects of reality that are the unique property of photography. I paint the broad smile, the mid-motion depiction of a figure in motion, the out-of-focus face, or background, the disproportionate view that results from an odd vantage point (like being real close to a person for example.) In a video I recorded last week, I hold a record sleeve of a randomly selected disc. The person depicted on that cover seems up-side down, but she isn't. It's just that she is laying down on the ground and the photographer hovers over her with a (his) camera. In a painting, I thought, the image of the woman would look for sure up-side down. While I was recording the video I was in the process of painting certain Canadian Inuits from Nunavut that are part of the Top 100 2022. The video, shown below the second Inuit painting, became about that record sleeve, rather than about the current painting I was working on at that moment.

Two singers from Canada: Inuit Games and Songs

Even though the record, A Stereo Visit to Italian Movies, is not at all a part of the Top 100 2022 list, far from it, I had to paint it as if it were. I was reinforced doing so because of another random pick from my record shelves. This was a record of the Argentinian singer Ramona Galarza, the cover of which shows a background upside down as trees are reflected in the body of water directly behind Galarza. The painting then is a double portrait of the model featured on the Italian movie record together with Ramona Galarza, as she appears on the cover of the self titled record. At this moment I feel this painting is part of the current Top 100 series but I'm not 100% yet on this issue. This is the painting in question (below.)

Ramona Galarza/Cover of Italian Movies

Jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz

Sunny Murray/Albert Ayler

Jazz music's been coming to me from many angles. From the "No Wave" facebook group, spending time with my best friend—and jazz aficionado—in Holland, to my own not too shabby jazz collection on vinyl. I became acquainted with a host of musicians from the past I had never listened to before and I re-listened to lot a familiar ones as well. All of the numerous jazz tunes in the Top 100 2022 are free jazz (or New wave in jazz, avant-garde, fusion, etc.) The double portrait format, moreover, results in many portraits of jazz musicians I never painted before. Sunny Murray, drummer with Albert Ayler is one of those musicians. Albert Ayler, and the song Ghosts, had been listed multiple times in the past, but never did I paint Sunny Murray, or bass player Gary Peacock before. Ghosts was recorded a week before I was born in New York City. It comes from the LP Spiritual Unity on the ESP (Esperanto) label. I bought the LP The ESP Sampler earlier this year that includes abridged versions of numerous outstanding jazz recordings, introducing me to a whole new clique of jazz men (they're all men, all 50 of them,save for Patty Waters.) Spiritual Unity is one of a handful of discs I already had in my collection from ESP (I own Spiritual Unity on CD rather than on vinyl.) 

Cecil Taylor/Jimmy Lyons

The Cecil Taylor track in the list is called Mirror and Water Gazing from the LP For Olim. [Soul Note 1987] The LP, that I've had for a long time but never featured in the Top 100, is a solo piano concert recorded 1986 in Berlin. The recording took place while Jimmy Lyons, his long-term collaborator, was on his dying bed due to cancer. The LP is dedicated to the "living spirit of Jimmy Lyons."

Miles Davis/Teo Macero

The remaining two new jazz paintings concern tracks that were also listed in 2021. Rated X by Miles Davis and Anthropology by Jon Ibragon are again both high in the Top 100. Last year I paired the Miles Davis portrait with that of the percussionist James Mtume. Mtume passed away in January this year. Teo Macero is a componist and sax player but is best known for his production work at Columbia Records. He worked extensively with Miles Davis and contributed greatly to the groundbreaking early 1970s records such as Bitches Brew and On the Corner. Rated X comes from Get Up With It that contains unreleased recordings from both Bitches Brew and On the Corner.

Jon Ibragon/Charlie Parker

Like last year I coupled Jon Ibragon with Charlie Parker as the LP Bird With Streams [Irabbagast, 2021] contains solo improvisations by the saxophonist Jon Ibragon on themes by Charlie Parker. Click here to read more on last year's painting. The Charlie Parker portrait comes from the LP The Happy "Bird" [1951, Charlie Parker Records] one of a handful LP's I have of his and that I all played while in my studio painting the portraits. Charlie Parker almost single-handedly started modern jazz in the 1940s.