"Jivaro"

 

As it stands today five songs from the record "Jivaro" are listed in this year's top 100. The recordings on it were made by Philippe Luzuy. I have not been able to locate an image on which Luzuy appears which makes it a challenge to stick with my concept of painting the recorder next to the musician. This painting is the second one of the five that I will have to do. On the first one I used the image on the record cover for the musician and the cover of the book Visages de bronze as a substitute for Luzuy who recorded the Jivaro in Ecuador in 1956. Visages de bronze is a collaboration between Luzuy and the photographer Pierre Allard and since the book and the recordings were made at the same time I figured the record sleeve photo was also by Allard. I have not been able to find a photo of Allard either but for this second painting illustrating songs from "Jivaro" I did find out about a documentary film that was made at the same time and is also called Visages de bronze. I did find an image of the filmmaker and he is the one portrayed in this painting. His name is Bernard Taisant. I could not find any info on him either but the documentary did win an Award at the Cannes film festival in 1958. Geneviève Vaury is credited as to appear in this film. Of her I find plenty of images but I have no idea if and how she relates to Luzuy or to the Jivaro Indians. (The Jivaro Indians are today identified as Shuar people.) The film isn't even listed in Vaury's filmography. The song this painting illustrates is the first on the album and is called Danse et chœur des hommes auteur d'une tête réduite which translates as a male choir engaged in a dance ritual surrounding a shrunken head. The image on the left is of a Jivaro Indian holding a shrunken head. It is the very same individual who appears on the record sleeve. The photo I used here, to my surprise, was not by Allard and is a older too. The photographer is credited as Bettmann and was apperently taken during the Lewis Cotlow Amazon Expedition. Getty images, who owns the photo, lists 1967 as the date but this can't be right as the last of three expeditions by Lewis Cotlow to the Amazon took place in 1952. The record "Jivaro"is from 1956. A 1951 photograph shows Cotlow together with the very same Jivaro warrior I've now painted twice. A few weeks ago, in Properly Identifying the Music of the Top 100, I discussed the problem of inaccurate data used in publishing before 1970, especially when it concerns items for a larger or popular audience. I have now ordered the book Visages de bronze by Luzuy and Allard and I'll get to the bottom of this confusion of data and credits (even though my French will not nbe good enough to properly interpret the text.) I need the book because I have to paint three more paintings of recordings by Luzuy. (The book is richly illustrated and I'm hoping there's an image of the author included too, if not I will use Geneviève Vaury  for the next Jivaro painting which will be to illustrate a woman's love song.)