10 More miniatures

June Tyson from the Akestra

The miniature painting of June Tyson is probably my favorite of the 65 I've done this past month. Tyson sings on the Sun Ra epic Space is the Place and was a member of the Akestra. The following nine are some other of my favorite miniatures, embedded in the 100 Faces from the Top 100 2022 painting I haven't shared with you yet. Each of the paintings is about 3 inches tall.

David Blair Stiffler

Last year I couldn't find a decent image to paint of the American ethnomusicologist David Blair Stiffler and used the only (blurry) image that a Google image search yielded. Stiffler recorded more than just the Music from the Mountain Provinces he recorded in the Philippines and I had known him for. The Top 100 2022 features recordings of Indians from Costa Rica he recorded. I found a recent interview with Stiffler on-line which means I have all access to many images of him, be it as an aged man.

Iannis Xenakis

The most exciting thrift store haul of 2022 was a collection of modern classical records including three discs with compositions by Iannis Xenakis. His works had just previously, in 2021, debuted in my Top 100. The painting I did then is one of my favorite from last year's series. Thus far three compositions by Xenakis have entered the list.

Cuna Indian from a vintage photo

This individual stood right next to the one I used last year (in a vintage photo) to illustrate a song of a Cuna medicine man from Colombia. The same track is in the list again and now much higher (at #2 for the time being). Some of the miniature paintings, like this one, only took 10-15 minutes to complete. The quick ones are also the best ones.

Esma Redzepova

This one was perhaps even less than 10 minutes and honestly, I'm not even sure if her song Jalandi Coban will make it into the list of the Top 100 2022. I painted her because of the context of how the single came to me. I revived my old Musical Thrift Store Treasures just for this one. Here's that post: http://musicalthriftstoretreasures.blogspot.com/2022/05/nine-years-later.html

From the cover of  Music of the Indians of Panama

 

 

A great impulse for the selections for the Top 100 2022 was supplied by the record store Vinylarchive in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Due to unfortunate circumstances I had to spend a lot of time in this city whre I had grown up. Every visit to the city included a visit to this record store, the only one I know of with an excellent collection of ethnomusicological recordings. Music of the Indians of Panama: The Cuna (Tule) and Chocoe (Embera) Tribes is only one of a dozen records to be featured multiple times.

Rung-Shun Wu

The Taiwanese musicologist Rung Shun Wu recorded the Vunun tribe in Taiwan. Pasi But But is becoming a regular in the Top 100.

Music of Thailand (cover)

Howard Kaufman

The record Music of Thailand from Folkways has been with me for many years. I've painted bot the cover for it, and a portrait of the recorder before. This year the opening track Suksanaen makes the list. The tune is played on an instrument called can.

Sun Ra

Last, but not least, is a portrait of Sun Ra. A number of his recordings will feature in the Top 100 2022!