Cantos de pilon (worksongs)

Canto Para Pilar Maiz has been in my top 100 twice before. Both in 2013 and in 2018 I used the image that illustrates the song in the liner of the album The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume 9: Venezuelan Folk and Aboriginal Music. Now I used the image as an insert (upper left corner.) In 2018 I knew more about the song and the image as I did in 2013 and now in 2021 the picture concerning the song and image becomes clearer again but also more confusing. I am not exactly sure anymore how to interpret the data provided in the liner notes with the Columbia record (of whom Alan Lomax is the final editor) as there are certain errors in the text. I am not sure if the image provided with the song is indeed Ana Caraballo (or Asuncion Caraballo—who is listed as a collaborator—for that matter.) I'm not sure anymore if the performers of the song are correctly identified. There seems to be some confusion about names involved, of the singers, the recorders, and individuals mentioned in the lyrics. On line I found another song (called Cantos de Pilon, undated but more recent than the 1949 date of Canto Para Pilar Maiz) that has almost identical lyrics (even though the lyrics of Canto Para Pilar Maiz were improvised, according to Juan Liscana, who is credited as writer of the liner notes together with Alan Lomax.) In the lyrics of Cantos de Pilon the taparo tree from Canto Para Pilar Maiz is substituted for a lime tree, and the name Alfred Caraballo, the dedicatee of Canto Para Pilar Maiz, is substituted for Asuncion(!?) One thing is certain: Canto Para Pilar Maiz is a work song. The rhythm of the song follows the rhythm of the pestle beating down on the corn inside a mortar. The job and song are typically performed by two women. The main image in the drawing comes from a photo used in a review of Cantos de Pilon. The source of the information: Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera, an important figure in the history of Venezuelan music, and folklore.

More paintings and drawings have been finished for the Top 100 2020 and 2021. The above image is to illustrate number 79 in the Top 100 2020: Cloud Chant from the album Tribal Music of Australia from 1949 that features recordings by A.P. Enkin. I would have dwelt a bit more on this one were it not that I recently talked about him in the context of a mourning song from the same album. The image is taken from the liner notes in the album. I realized I never forwarded the impression I made of the cover of the album that I used for number 71 on the same list: Djedbang-Ari.

Traveling northwest from Australia you may encounter the island of Java in Indonesia, which is another location on the world map that has seen a good many anthropological and ethnomusicological projects undertaken throughout the twentieth century. From a 1950 album, again on Folkways, comes Udan Iris, a love song by a Sundanese woman coming in at number 81 in the Top 100 2020. The music on the album was recorded by Raden Suwanto and Harold Courlander. The portrait above is of Courlander, whose main focus was on African and Haitian music. Courlander (1908-1996) today, is mostly remembered for a lawsuit in which he charged Alex Haley, the author of Roots, of plagiarism. Several anecdotes that appear in Roots were taken from Courtlanders adventure novel Africa, so he claimed. I find no evidence of Courlander actually traveling to Indonesia so I must assume the recording was made by Suwanto. That Courlander was given credit was probably because he was the main editor for the Ethnic Folkways Library label, a name devised by himself. Folkways itself was the project of Moses Asch. A great number of top 100 entries come from the Ethnic Folkways Library. And so does the next work discussed: It's from the Folkways album An Introduction to the music of Viet Nam. Geographically located about the same distance from Java as Java is from Arnhem Land in Australia, be it on a more northerly track. The 1965 album is a compilation by Stephen Addiss of historic recordings made by the famous Vietnamese composer and folklorist Pham Duy (1921-2013). The track in the Top 100 2021 is Ho Ru Con, which is a lullaby of ancient origin recorded in the north of Vietnam. "Ho" in the title stands for "work song." I have not come across the qualification of a lullaby as a work song before.

The image on the left, next to the portrait of Pham Duy, comes from the cover of the album mentioned the song appears on. The woman may or may not represent the singer of the lullaby. Seeing the painting now reproduced I find the face of the woman too narrow. I will go out later today to my studio to fix it. (This is not the first time it happens—what I need to fix, or hone rather, are my observation skills.) The country of Vietnam (in the 1960 still spelled as Viet Nam) also appears in the Top 100 2020. At number 72 in that list is a recording taken from the other main source of the music in the Top 100 2020, which is Les voix du monde, une anthologie des expressions vocales, a 3-cd set compiled by Hugo Zemp. Xi is yet another Vietnamese work song. This one sung by two boys is about the joys and troubles of daily life. The boys belong to the Nung An tribal people of again northern Vietnam and were recorded by Patrick Kersale in 1993.