Hugo Zemp (cont.)

Aamamata, funerary chant
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2014

I left the previous post on Hugo Zemp with a question that I now have the answer to: Indeed panpipes are in the repertoire of traditional Solomon Islanders music. However...this is not because Hugo Zemp imported the flutes from South America but the islanders themselves invented their own pan flute and they make it out of bamboo. And I learned that the Koleo (funerary chant) that I so treasure and is at #3 in the Top 100, is a rather recent development, a synthesis of the previous weaping tradition at a funeral and the vocal imitation of bamboo panpipes. The photograph that was the source for the above painting features in a lengthy paper on bamboo flutes by Hugo Zemp. He probably took the picture. Depicted are two women performing the funerary chant Aamamata, a different recording than the Koleo that is featured on Iles Salomon: Musique de Guadalcanal (Ocora/Radio France, 1970.) Hugo Zemp now is becoming the most important ethnomusicologist in this year's top 100 as he is the producer of Les voix du monde, une anthologie des expressions vocale, a three cd-set compiling all these recordings I have been collecting (and mimicking in my own compilation The Origins of Music.) All the stuff I've been gathering over many years I suddenly find in one instant compiled on these three cds. The collection is all I have been listening to.