Aluar Horns

Aluar Horns
14 x 9 inches,  acrylic and oil on canvas, 2019

The record Africa: Drums Chants and Instrumental Music introduced me more than thirty years ago to the field of ethnomusicology that became my main focus in collecting music. My favorite track from the record Aluar Horns was the first ever in the field that was listed in a Top 100, this was in the late 1980s. The tune reemerged in a number of top 100s since and on the "continued count list" that has run since 1983 it entered the top 20, between luminaries such as John Coltrane, Igor Stravinsky, and The Velvet Underground. About sixty horn players in the royal court of the Arua in Uganda comprise the cacophony heard in the recording. Each horn is able to play one note and one note only. A photograph I found recently show eight of them, three of which feature in the painting. This painting on a silver ground is the first of six previous illustrations that show the actual musicians.

Horns of Plenty

Aluar Horns (Uganda)
8.5 x 11 inches, oil and pastel on paper, 2016

30 years ago I was introduced to traditional African music. A friend, Esther, had a record from the Nonesuch Explorer Series dedicated to ceremonial and folk music from Africa. I taped the record and still have that audio cassette. A recording made in Uganda near the border with Zaire (DR Congo) of about 60 horns, drummers, and singers, was one of the first tunes played by anonymous musicians to be listed in my Top 100. Last week I found the original vinyl and had to buy it. Ethnomusicographic records like the Nonesuch Series used to be plentiful but you don't see them much anymore. I hadn't heard the tune, called Aluar Horns, in twenty years.