Boom!

Max Roach/Joe Chambers

A double portrait of the percussionists Max Roach and Joe Chambers, both members of Roach's M'Boom ensemble whom are listed in this this years top 100 list.  In one single painting such as this one, as a microcosm, the whole series of 100 paintings, of all series of a hundred paintings play out. In it, as the subject matter, is the music. It all starts with the music. The music carries that feeling of being carried away into a different state of being, a more timeless and more real sense of being. When hearing the Max Roach M'Boom group for the first time you feel as if you are there, as part of the ensemble, as part of history, as part of a world that is different from the world you encounter when you balance your checkbook or bring your car into the shop for an oil change. The moment you hear the ensemble for the first time the checkbook and car oil are forgotten, they don't exist at that moment in time. It is a little different when you listen to it for a second time and a little more different the third time. You start to distinguish individual details and chance, surprise, and spontaneity cease to exist.

Now the M'Boom recording is not as transformative an experience than hearing, for the first time, the unpretential and spontaneous song a mother gets into when washing her child in the middle of the New Guinean jungle (as recorded by Charles Duvelle in the 1970s) but in a way it's the same sensation be it less removed from my own experience. I have no memory of my mother singing to me and I have no memory of being washed but I do remember seeing jazz concerts. The first shockingly new jazz concert I saw was when I was in my early 20s and saw Han Bennink perform with Mischa Mengelberg. Jazz, perhaps more than other Western type of music, is transformative because it is often improvised and spontaneous. I too have unforgettable experiences of jamming with other musicians right around that time too. These feelings I seek to duplicate in painting now. Painting did become a substitute for music. Painting allows me to transport my being to a different reality, the reality of color and form and creativity. Honestly, as I'm painting this painting representing M'Boom, that delayed conscious state isn't there. Most of the time, making the painting is work. The shift in conscousness is there only in moments, moments of spontenaity and creativity that often occur after lengthy spells of plain work.

Alaci Tulaugak, Paul Hodge/Marvin Green, Nellie Nungak

From: Inuit Throat and Harp Songs: Eskimo Women's Music of Povungnituk recorded in 1979 by Paul Hodge and Marvin Green. The katajjait of Povungnituk in Quebec has characteristics that distinguish them from those of Nunavut (see Nicole Beaudry for example) in that their songs are strictly imitations of the sounds of nature. In Sound of the Wind the sounds of wind blowing through the cracks of an igloo are imitated. Different too is a variation of katajjait that is performed by four women as opposed to the customary two (female) performers standing close to one another.

 

Four Women (and four men as well)

Lisle Atkinson/Nina Simone

Lisle Atkinson was the bass player for Nina Simone during the 1960s. Nina Simone wrote Four Women in 1965 and it first appeared on her Wild is the Wind album from 1966. Some people criticized Simone for using African-American stereotypes but those criticisms clearly missed the point. Simone continued to use the song in her live performances and many versions can be found on-line. I watched quite a few of those. The version in the Top 100 is a live version recorded in France in 1969. Lisle Atkinson had stayed behind. The rather seductive image of Simone comes from a photo by Michael Ochs and was published in Rolling Stone Magazine. I usually stay away from using professional sources but could not resist the temptation to use this beautiful shot by Ochs (Getty Images).

Bearded man from the Oenpelli Mission/Douglass Baglin

While the Australian side (side A) from the LP The Columbia Library of Primitive and Folk Music, Vol. 5: Australia & New Guinea is listed as recorded by E.P. Enkin, tracks 12-15, are actually used courtesy of the Australian Broadcast commission at the Oenpelli Mission east of Darwin (now Gunbalanya). Both the Mourning Call and the Wongga this painting illustrates belong to the Australian Broadcast Corp. and were not recorded by E.P. Enkin. Enkin did write the liner notes for it though and tells us that the Wongga is a "campfire trading and sweetheart song by men of the Djauan tribe." He then informs us that we hear an accompaniment of a didjeridu and clapping sticks. Enkin recorded the other materials in 1949 but no date has been assigned to ABC recordings. The image I chose to paint is from a much reproduced photo by the Australian photographer Douglass Baglin, who published a series of photo books documenting the people of Australia. For the volume on indigenous people Bagnin didn't bother to identify the individuals by name as he had done in other volumes. The individual in this image was simply identified as "Bearded man from the Oenpelli Mission." The photo was taken in 1968. The image of a whistling Douglass Baglin comes from a photo taken by Colin Preese also in 1968.

Jo Johnson/Niki Elliott (Huggy Bear)

The band Huggy Bear formed in Brighton, England in 1991. They're assiociated with the Riot Grrrl movement but there's also two guys in the five-piece band, so they see themselves rather as "girl-boy revolutionaries." When I first painted them some twenty years ago they were only known by their first names and photographs were sparse. They never interviewed and never signed for a major label but produced a string of records between 1991 and 1994. The tune in the Top 100 is a 45 called Her Jazz. That 45 is split with Bikini Kill whom they toured with in 1993. It was because of Bikini Kill I bought the 45 EP and introduced me to the band.

Sherine Fatima Balti/David Lewiston

Desperate for an image of either Sonam Chungjung or Sonam Lamo, two itinerant singers from Ladakh, India, I came across an image of the singer Sherine Fatima Balti. Nicknamed the Balti Nightingale, she lives in Turtuk, the second northernmost village in India in a disputed region with Pakistan. Fatima Balti considers herself a Balti from Pakistani region of Baltistan, directly across the border from Ladakh. Neither Sonam was among the the images that come with Davis Lewiston's Ladakh: Songs & Dances from the Highlands of Western Tibet. [Nonesuch, 1977] Pala nyima zangmo is an "old song of social comment."

For Boxer (and for Lil' BUB)

Kimya Dawson/Aesop Rock

 

Kimya Dawson is known for a string of lo-fi homemade albums released after the Moldy Peaches broke up. For Boxer comes from Knock Knock, Who? from 2004. The song is a heart-rending account of the death of her dear cat. I only found out later the song was about a cat and not a friend. Together with her often-collaborator Aesop Rock she also recorded an ode to Lil' BUB, a celebrity cat known for her unique physical appearance. 

 

Hugo Zemp/Il'aresi (or Aresi)

Aaresi and Il'aresi appear several times in the 1994 ethnographic documentary film 'Are'are Music by Hugo Zemp. Footage from the film was recorded mostly in 1974 and 1975 in Malaita, the largest of the Solomon Islands, the performers in the film belong the the 'Are'are ethnic group. The song illustrated here is an example of the Aamamata genre of funerary songs performed as a duo. The two singers are also seen in the film as part of a trio performing bamboo stamping tubes as well as part of a larger group of women performing several kiro ni karusi songs, which are water games. I finally found an image of Zemp that fits in between him as a young man and and old man (I think I might have used every image of Hugo Zemp available on Google Image. The photo I used was taken by Marianne Zemp.)

 

Lots of Grey Hair

Aleksander Gabrys/Iannis Xenakis

For classical music, as I did with John Cage last week, I juxtapose performer and composer for the double portrait series. I can't believe how much grey hair I painted for these series. I too, for that matter, am getting grey. Aleksander Gabrys, a cellist from Poland, has still color on top but the beard hairs are grey. The hairs on top have thinned out compared to earlier photos. Iannis Xenakis, the storied Greek/French composer, died in 2001 in Paris. The composition Theraps for Double Bass was composed in 1976 and peformed by Gabrys in Bern in 2013.

Terrie Ex/Jon Langford

When Jon Langford produced, and the Ex recorded, Bouquet of Barbed Wire for the album Tumult in 1983, neither of them had gone grey yet, but I chose 21st century images for both Terrie Ex (Terrie Hessels), a founding member of the Dutch punk band The Ex, and Jon Langford, member of the British (post) punk band the Mekons. The Ex were formed in 1979 in Amsterdam and are still active today. Jon Langford too, is till active with the Mekons who formed in Leeds, England in 1977. Langford is also an accomplished artist.

 

Wolf Eyes

Zeek Sheck/Nate Young

The Top 100 list entry Speach Joe by Zeek Sheck is yet another tune suggested by the facebook group No Wave. I had not heard of Zeek Sheck before but I was familiar with Nate Young as his later band Wolf Eyes was in the Top 100 of 2009. Nate Young plays organ on the 1998 album Zeek Sheck Rules the Cloud People (But Not for Long), Zeek Sheck herself plays drums and is the main vocalist on the album. The video to Speach Joe as well as some other videos of her are quite sensational. Like the music they would be tagged as noise, avant garde, and experimental. The costumes in her videos are fantastic and her face paint is gorgeous. I tried to paint an image with face paint but was not succesfull in capturing her likeness, so I settled for a photo in which the face paint was mostly removed and repainted the portrait. Her eyes are stretched far open in most photos of her.

Wolf Eyes

I figured I'd also show the small painting that I did in 2009 of Wolf Eyes. It appeared in the book Top 100 2009 published by Country Club editions in 2010. The following is the text I wrote for it:

Wolf Eyes – We Multiply

What would you be if you were asked what type of animal you were? I am a chicken Seriously, I shared this with Johnny Cash, he was a chicken too! It's pretty easy to answer this question with musicians because they sing about what they feel like, look like, what they eat, or what they hunt. They even, often, name themselves an animal. And there's no value judgement here; some countries worship beetles, some elephants. So Kleex of PRE [at #100 in the same top 100] when asked the question first replied with "ant" but later decided (after reconvening with the band) they were otters. Iggy Pop is a dog, Paul McCartney a walrus, Cat Power a cat, Zappa a weasel, and so on. Last year [the Top 100 2008] I had a lot of chickens in my top 100 but this year is the year of the wolf. Michael Hurley's alter ego is a wolf, as are, of course, Wolf Eyes and Aids Wolf. Other rock 'n' roll wolves include Howlin' Wolf, Jesse Mae Hemphill, who's alter ego is the she-wolf, and Howlin' Wilf. Peter Wolf is one by default, then there is Peter and the Wolves, radio deejay Wolfman Jack, We Are Wolves, Los Lobos, Steppenwolf. The list goes on. Many adapted the wolf as an alter ego.

 

Switched

Walter Carlos (1970)/Wendy Carlos (1979)

Wendy Carlos (Am., b. Walter Carlos, 1939) came to prominence in 1968, when her debut album Switched on Bach, became an instant classic of electronic music, it won her three Grammy Awards. The album popularized the Moog synthesizer, a craze of the 1970s. More importantly she helped to raise awareness of transgender issues when she revealed she was living as a woman since 1968 and had reassignment surgery in 1972. The tune in the Top 100 is Dialogue for Piano and Two Loudspeakers from her 1975 album (still as Walter Carlos) By Request. The album was less of a commercial success than some other that followed Switched on Bach, but contains a bit more experimentation. I feel a bit self-conscious about this painting as I wonder if Ms. Carlos would approve. 

Doàn Van Chop Và Kän Xua/Dan Tao

If I understand the Vietnamese words in a video from the Vietnamese Institute of Musicology in Hanoi correctly, Doàn Van Chop Và Kän Xua and Dan Tao are the performers of the A'bel. They belong to an ethnic group called Pako Tà Ôi, while the type of song is called A'bel. The instrument used, a simple bamboo flute with one finger hole, is an A'reng. The location is the Huong Läm community in the Loui district of the Thua Thien Hue province. A'reng is a simple reed instrument played by two players, one blows into the mouth of the second (who features as the resonace chamber) and is traditionally performed by a mixed couple. The tradition may be extinct. The painting shows the two performers who, in the video, stand very close together, they touch. They are separated in the painting.

Kiyo Kurokawa/Kazuyuki Tanimoto

Ihumke is a lullaby (nursery song) performed by Kiyo Kurokawa. The song features a strange vocal technique that involves a high-pitched trill and a rolling tongue. It comes from the UNESCO album Japan: Ainu Songs, which was recorded by Jean-Jacques Nattiez and Kazuyuki Tanimoto in Hokkaido, Japan in 1978. Tanimoto is like Kurokawa from Hokkaido.

New Paintings

John Cage/David Skidmore (Third Coast Percussion)

I took some time deliberating what image to use for John Cage's portrait and who to pair him with. I had access to photos of Cage not readily available on line, and listened to some suggestions of a friend who's a big fan of everything Cage. For the Cage portrait I opted for the same photo as author Kay Larsen used for the cover of Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists. She obviously chose the image, a reversal of traditional portraiture, with great purpose. And I chose to adopt this purpose: We, the audience, have the same vantage point as Cage has, we are looking at the same shade of orange as he does. We are invited to see the world as Cage does as it were. For the pairing I opted for the most obvious: the performer of The Works for Percussion 2, the work in the top 100 list. The performers are Third Coast Percussion, a Grammy winning ensemble from Chicago. Of the four members Davis Skidmore, the most prolific in composing materials for the group. The other members are Sean Collins, Robert Dillon, and Peter Martin. Once I selected the two images I planned the painting process in great detail. In good Cagean fashion I had the computer select at random the four customary base colors I have been starting most paintings with lately. 

Budai Ilona/Péter Éri

Kék ibolya, ha leszakajtanálak is a lyrical song fromthe album Hungarian Folk Music [Hungaraton, 1964.] No performer or recorder are listed on the album but the location is: Great Plain. The liner notes tell us that the song belongs to the traditional style. The notes further reark that the old songs are hardly remembered. Perhaps because of this important LP the song Kék ibolya, ha leszakajtanálak (which translates as Blue Violet, if I picked You) is remembered as recordings of it are plentiful on YouTube. Thirteen years after the release of the LP by the communist government, the ethnographer Péter Éri recorded it for an album called Élö Népzene II, in a series called Living Hungarian Folk Music. The singer on this album is the well known Hungarian singer Budai Lilona. The vocal version of Kék ibolya on Hungarian Folk Music is followed by short instrumental versions of it, first on a zither, then on a hurdy gurdy.

Eddie Kirkland/John Lee Hooker

Tsitano Muburunyara/Ton van der Lee

Nanang Marin, Dumagat representative/David Blair Stiffler