Rio Piraparaná

Cristo and Bosco, Tukano elders, Piraparaná, River, Colombia

The second painting for the Top 100 2022 consists of portraits of the two main performers on the Elders chanting origin myths recording made by Brian Moser and Donald Tayler in 1960 during an expedition along the remote Piraparaná river in Colombia. They were recorded in 1960 and filmed, by Moser, ten years later (War of the Gods, 1970) on a consequent visit. The initial expedition was a joint Colombian geological survey and a sound recording mission organized by the BBC. All the recordings, in their raw original state, made by Moser and Tayler are available on the British Library Sound Archive. Highlights from these recordings, now edited for popular consumption, appear on Music of the Tukano and Cuna Peoples of Colombia. [Rogue, 1987] The above image is from a photograph by Moser appears in an on-line essay written by the anthropologists Christine and Stephen Hugh-Jones for the British Library. Below is the finished version of the first painting of Tayler and Moser, who were adventurers in their twenties when they first visited, and recorded, the Tukano peoples. Donald Tayler died in 2012.

Donald Tayler (l), Brian Moser (r). 11x14 inches, 2022

Beside the Elder's chanting origin myths, the likely number 1, three other recordings by Tayler and Moser appear in the Top 100 2022: Music at a Harvest Festival, Paired tortoise shell (goo) and panpipe, by the Tukono people and Kantule medicine man plays eagle-bone flutes by a Makuna Indian. The three individuals seen in the next painting perform a Harvest Festival ceremony in the same War of the Gods film by Moser of 1970. A similar performance was filmed by the Dutch participant on the 1960 expedition Niels Halbertsma. The ceremony continues to be performed annually by the Tukano People. In 2016, after an absence of nearly 40 years Brian Moser revisited the region and some of the same people he had met during previous expeditions. Stephen and Christine Hugh-Jones, as well as his son Titus Moser accompanied him on this reunion trip. Titus Moser documented this trip and made the film Ignacio's Legacy. [Pira Productions, 2017] All the elements of the ceremony are the same except the clothing: Men don't wear their traditional g-strings anymore and women covered up as well. 

Tukano Harvest Ceremony

The fourth and final painting illustrating the four Tayler/Moser recordings in the top 100 portray Niels Halbertsma, the filmmaker who accompanied Tayler and Moser in 1960, and Dr. Christine Hugh-Jones, an anthropologist fluent in the Tukano language. Hugh-Jones had accompanied Tayler and Moser in 1970 and on several consequent trips, as well as the 2016 reunion expedition. The image of Halbertsma comes from the same photo I had used for the initial Tayler/Moser painting. The Hugh-Jones image, like those of the Tukano people from the 1970 documentary War of the Gods. [British Library, 1971]

Niels Halbertma/Christine Hugh-Jones

 

It's a start

 

Brian Moser and Donald Tayler

The first brushstrokes of the Top 100 2022 have been placed on a 11x14 canvas which means the series have now officially started. The first painting will be a double portrait of two British anthropologists who recorded (and lived with) various tribes along the Río Piraparaná in Amazonia in Colombia. Several of their recordings will be featured in the new Top 100 including the likely #1 "Elders chanting origin myths," a fragment of which, wrongly attributed then, was also featured in the Top 100 2021. The chanting elders appear on The Indians of Colombia, that I believed to have been recorded by Lars Persson. The recording, suddenly of great interest to me this year, did not have much data so I started my research. I found on the British Library "Sounds" website the recordings made by Moser and Tayler in 1960 and 1961 of five different places they visited in Colombia's Amazonia region. A bit later I found the music on an LP named Music of the Tukana and Cuna Peoples of Colombia [Rogue Records, 1987] from which the current #1 is taken. I did not have any images yet but upon relentless searching I came across a movie following Brian Moser on a re-visit to the region 35 years after the recordings were made. The movie The Indians of the Vaupes was made by Titus Moser, who accompanied his dad together with the anthropologists Stephen and Christine Hugh-Jones, who had also visited the same peoples in the 1970s. In the film, outtakes from videos taken by Moser and Tayler during their initial visits were shown, including a fragment of the elders chanting origin myths. It supplied me with images of Moser and Tayler, as well as the leading elders of the song. I have names too: Cristo and Bosco. 

While the format of the 2022 painting is identical with that of the paintings of 2021, the concept has changed dramatically. I decided to do away with the hierarchical structure of the paintings in which the #1 from the list is also the painting in first place. The painting can now be exhibited in any order. Then, the individual paintings do not necessarily illustrate a particular song. The selection of portraits is simply a summary of those people meaningful to the list of 100 songs. It may be that a certain musician I painted is not in the list of 100 but deserves inclusion because of her presence throughout the lists compiled in the year. This way I avoid having to paint multiple portraits of one individual. Hope it works out, we'll see. I will forward the finished painting of Moser and Tayler shortly.