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.)

 

The three paintings for the week, two of Hugo Zemp

Men's choir (Fataleka)/Hugo Zemp

The image I used next to Hugo Zemp in a painting from June of this year must now move to represent a song recently added to the list this year which is Sukute the name of a tubular instrument that is both struck and blown. The player of the instrument on Solomon Islands, Fataleka and Baegu Music from Malaita is Rokona. I believe the image I linked to above is indeed Rokona. I thus painted not the new song but an alternative painting for Fataleka divinatory songs: Uunu. Fataleka Music, Uunu song form, Divinatory songs, performed by men's choir seated in two rows facing each other. On the liner notes to the album there is an image of two rows of men with rattles facing each other. I believe these to be the men heard on the recording. Hugo Zemp has been really good with naming and photographing his subjects which my undertaking so much easier. Adhering to my own concept for the series of the Top 100 2021, I simply must paint Hugo Zemp over and over again. While I have images of most performers recorded by Zemp in this list, I am running out of options for Zemp himself. Here he is shown early in his career while I used an image of a much older man in the next.

Hugo Zemp/"A hunter sings alone" (Dan)

The younger portrait of Zemp would have been more appropriate here as Zemp recorded the Dan in Ivory Coast in the mid 1960s well before his work in the Solomon Islands. I own a re-release on CD published by Rounder Records in 1998 titled Africa: The Dan but the original LP dates way further back. It was published as The Music of the Dan by The International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation. In the painting I experimented with a black background which alters the focus, especially early on when setting up the images, from linear to volume. On black you start out with swatches of light rather than the outline. On black you work from the inside outward while with a white ground you do the reverse. Early on in the process the painting had the looks of those kitschy black velvet paintings. An early shot of the painting appears in a video I recently posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-FOrUFdCQ

Ahidous (Berber Dance, Morocco)/Bernard Lortat-Jacob

Grande Danse Ahidus, recorded by Bernard Lortat-Jacob in Morocco in 1978 appeared on the CD-set Voices of the World which was edited and produced by Hugo Zemp together with Lortat-Jacob in 1996 for Musee de l'Homme. The recording is of a mixed chores of Ben Aissa Berbers accompanied by frame drums. Ahidous is a traditional war dance performed in the Atlas Mountains by Berber men and women.

 

Lomax and another Zemp

 

From the cover of Fataleka and Baegu Music/Hugo Zemp

Top 100 2021, #19 (provisional): Fataleka divinatory songs: Uunu. Fataleka Music, Uunu song form, Divinatory songs, performed by men's choir seated in two rows facing each other.

From: Solomon Islands, Fataleka and Baegu Music from Malaita, recorded by Hugo Zemp in 1970. Unesco Collection of Traditional Music, CD released by Smithsonian, originally released on LP on Phillips, 1973. Images in the painting: The flute player comes from the cover of the CD. An image of an uunu performance appears on the LP version but no indidual from this tiny image could be singled out so I opted for the musician shown on the cd cover. For the Hugo Zemp image I resorted to a photo that appeared in the study guide companion to the movie "Are'are Music and Shaping Bamboo by Hugo Zemp. The photo was taken by Ada Zemp-Partinkus on Malailta Island in 1975.

Alan Lomax

Top 100 2020, #86: Smasalom sung by a woman from the Pyuma tribe, Southwestern Formosa (Taiwan).

From The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. XI: Japan, The Ryukyus, Formosa and Korea. Collected and edited by Genjiro Masu for the Japanese Music Institute of Tokyo. Series collected and edited by Alan Lomax (Columbia LP ca. 1955).

Note: when I first became interested in field recordings in the 1990s, Alan Lomax was the chief musicologist I turned to. Numerous songs from his extensive catalogue have been featured in past top 100s. Most of these are recordings of traditional music from the United States but Alan Lomax did field work in many other locations in the world. He is also the man behind the Columbia World Library series from the 1950s, a series of LP's that continue to be a main resource of music for the Top 100. The notes provided with each album are usually richly illustrated but the Smasalom song did not come with an image, and an image of Genjiro Masu I could not find.

'Are'are and Mitsogo

Hugo Zemp/Sisiwa, oil on canvas, 11x14 inches.

 

Ya Mwei masks/Pierre Sallee, 11x14 inches, ink on paper

The otherworldly sounds heard on Voice of the Genie Ya Mwei (mother of the inundations) come from two performers who ingested irritant leaves causing a swelling of the throat. While performing the secret male-only rite they also wear Ya Mwei costumes establishing a total transformation from man to spirit. Pierre Sallee recorded the sounds of a night of rituals by the Mitsogo people of Gabon in 1968. 

Top: Aamamata: Lament by Oko'ohimana sung by Sisiwa and Nonohanapata. Outake from the film 'Are'are recorded in Malaita, Solomon Islands in 1974 and 1975 by Hugo Zemp. For the film Hugo Zemp made a special effort to employ Sisiwa who was the only singer who knew the old lullabies and funeral lamentations. Zemp had made sound recordings of Sisiwa when he visited the Solomon Islands in 1969 to capture the music of the 'Are'are for the Ocora record label.

La Flute de Pan

Hugo Zemp, Sabine Seso, oil on canvas, 11x14 inches, 2021

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about a technique that involves simultaneously creating vocal sounds and playing a flute. I was discussing then the track Au waa recorded by Hugo Zemp in the Solomon Islands in the 1970s. In this painting you see Hugo Zemp himself playing one of those flutes made from bamboo stalks. The portrait of Zemp here though is to accompany the track Koleo sung by a woman from Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands. There are no pan flutes heard on the recording. The name of the woman singing is not listed in the liner notes and the one portrayed above is either Sabina Seso or Sylvia Saghorekao, singers who were recorded by Zemp during the same sessions on the island as Koleo currently residing at number 16 in the Top 100 2021. The image of Seso (I assume it's her) was taken by Zemp and I had used it recently to illustrate Ratsi rope sung by Seso and Saghorekao. Koleo is a type of funerary singing. The vocalizing flute technique like that of the au waa of the Solomon Islands is practiced in different parts of the world. The hindewhu of the Ba-Benzele pygmies of Central Africa is very similar to the au waa. The tune Hindewhu in the top 100 was recorded by Arom Simha in 1966 and appears on the album La musique de la pygmées Ba-Benzélé. The flute is made from the stem of a pawpaw. The image I used for this drawing is a photograph taken by Simha that appeared in the liner notes to that album. There too, in the liner notes for the album, it is illustrating this vocalizing flute technique which is called (by Hugo Zemp, when he used it in the collection Les voix du monde) hocketting. The performer on the recording is a woman though, and it may sound familiar to you because Herbie Hancock used a sample of it in the intro of his famous Watermelon Man from the album Headhunter. Or you you may have heard on Madonna's Sanctuary from Bedtime Stories. She credits Hancock for the sample but fails to identify the true source. When listening to the recording you would think it's an improvised ditty. It couldn't be farther from the truth as the very same melody appears on different Baka pygmie recordings using different names. The very same melody, note for note, is included in Louis Sarno's Bayaka CD recorded 20 years after Simha recorded Hindewhu in 1966.

Ba-Benzelle group (Hindewhu), 11x14 inches, ink, 2021

Hugo Zemp: Les Voix du Monde

Aaresi and Il'aresi, ink on paper, 11x14 inches, 2021

The is the second painting within a brief period featuring the singers Aaresi and Il'aresi. The duo appears 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 at 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 Nuuha iisisu genre (love songs/complaints). The song illustrated less than a month ago is from the Aamamata genre of funerary songs. 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. The splashing of water provides the rhythm. Aaresi and Il'aresi are in the top 20 of individual performers in the Top 100 2020, a count that I tabulate each year. This is the first year individual performers recorded in an ethnographic context have made this particular list. I have never tabulated a list of recorders but would I have done this Hugo Zemp would, without a doubt, have topped this list in 2020. Not only was Zemp responsible for all six recordings made within the Solomon Islands in the Top 100 this year, he is also the main curator of the 3cd-set Les voix du monde: une anthologie des expressions vocales that was released in 1996 and is with great distance the winner of the albums contest that year. Directly after Aaresi and Il'aresi at number 74 comes a recording of a type of pan flute that is called au waa that features in the same 'Are'Are Music film. Au waa consists of seven bundled (bamboo) pan flutes. The performer now is Noni'ikeni. He sings a melody that is the same melody he produces on the flutes, much in the same manner as jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk is known to have played.

Noni'ikeni, 14x11 inches, 2021

The sources for both ink paintings on paper were screen shots that I took while re-watching the film 'Are're Music. A synopsis of the film, with outtakes of all the major highlights can be seen here on YouTube. I have been painting simultaneously on the top 100s from 2020 and 2021 working on one of each of the series at the same time. The painting for the Top 100 2021 I worked on while drawing the 'Are'are illustrates the song, a lullaby, Hejde Lilibe, recorded by Zoltan Kallos in 1965. The same song was also featured in the Top 100 2020 and, just two months ago, I illustrated the same song. So for the version for this year (all paintings are now on canvas) I decided I would use the very same images as I had used in March. (It's really the only image of the singer Anna Balint that is available on line.) The track is listed as Hungarian Lullaby (cancion de cuna hungara) on the collection La voz humana en la musica by Carlos Reynoso (2021.) Upon my further reading up on the work of Kallos, I realized the recording was not made in Hungary, as I had assumed, but rather by ethnic Hungarians in Romania. (Not that it makes any difference but I had to, again, update my archive to reflect this error in the data I maintain.)

Zoltan Kollas and Anna Balint, oil on canvas, 2021

'Are'are and Shuara

The collection The Human Voice in Music compiled by Carlos Reynoso starts with a shamanic song of the Ecuadorian Shuara (familiar name: Jivaro). "For  those who wish to form an idea that is not biased by the temptation of  exoticism or by anachronistic particularistic yearnings, the collection  begins here." These are Reynoso's words (via Google Translate) which I (should) take to heart. Right away, within the first song of the collection, my integrity is being challenged. While having certain thoughts on the beginnings and essence of music, there are a number of factors at play I remain ignorant about. Reynoso must be serious about fighting misconceptions. Now the Shuar (Jivaro), is a good place to start because if there's one culture that has been misrepresented throughout western literature it must be the Amazonian Shuar. According to Reynoso the Shuara Shamanic Song exists in the grey area between speech and singing. The recorded performance is a manifestation of an altered state of consciousness that is patterned in such a way that it should be considered music. [Reynoso] Isabel Aretz and Felipe Ramon y Rivera, who I assume are responsible for recording this gem, characterize this incantation as a song. If the shaman heard on the recording is male or female isn't mentioned. In last year's top 100 I assumed that this was a recording of a woman but now I have my doubts. It shouldn't matter. Most shamans are men but in some cultures (including the Shuar) sometimes women become shaman, then there are other cultures, particularly in East Asia where most shamans are women. Listening to the song I assumed I heard a woman's voice but listening to other shamans recorded, both Shuar and from other cultures, it is not uncommon, even characteristic, for a (male) shaman to use a falsetto voice. I realized the shaman recorded by Aretz and Ramon y Rivera could be a man after watching a video of Dan Ramon, a Shuar shaman who was recently recorded by a site called Amazon Explorer. I decided to use a still from this video for the illustration of the Shuar Shaman Song. He is pictured on the right while Isabel Aretz is on the left. Aretz (1909-2005) was an Argentine Venezuelan composer and ethnomusicologist. The song was number 15 in 2020 and now, in the Top 100 2021, resides at number 4, for the time being.

No doubt exist as to the gender of the performers of the song "Aamamata na Kaukaurara" that is number 67 of the Top 100 2020. The performers Aaresi and Il'eresi were recorded by Hugo Zemp in 1977 in the Solomon Islands. Aamamata is a genre of song used for funerals. Kaukaurara is the composer of the song. The title thus translates as Funeral Lament by Kaukaurara. Another  song by the same two women appears on Zemp's Musique 'Are'are. The image above comes from a still from that film. The 'Are'are are a cultural group from the largest Island in the Solomon archipelago which is Malaita.

 

Chant funebre de femmes

 Hugo Zemp, 14x11 inches, various materials on paper, 2020

Top 100 2020, #23 Chant funebre de femmes, Koleo from Iles Salomon: Musique de Guadalcanal. [Ocora, 1994] Recorded by Hugo Zemp, 1990.

Hugo Zemp (cont.)

Aamamata, funerary chant
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2014

I left the previous post on Hugo Zemp with a question that I now have the answer to: Indeed panpipes are in the repertoire of traditional Solomon Islanders music. However...this is not because Hugo Zemp imported the flutes from South America but the islanders themselves invented their own pan flute and they make it out of bamboo. And I learned that the Koleo (funerary chant) that I so treasure and is at #3 in the Top 100, is a rather recent development, a synthesis of the previous weaping tradition at a funeral and the vocal imitation of bamboo panpipes. The photograph that was the source for the above painting features in a lengthy paper on bamboo flutes by Hugo Zemp. He probably took the picture. Depicted are two women performing the funerary chant Aamamata, a different recording than the Koleo that is featured on Iles Salomon: Musique de Guadalcanal (Ocora/Radio France, 1970.) Hugo Zemp now is becoming the most important ethnomusicologist in this year's top 100 as he is the producer of Les voix du monde, une anthologie des expressions vocale, a three cd-set compiling all these recordings I have been collecting (and mimicking in my own compilation The Origins of Music.) All the stuff I've been gathering over many years I suddenly find in one instant compiled on these three cds. The collection is all I have been listening to.

Hugo Zemp

Hugo Zemp playing a pan flute watched by a young woman
14 x 11 inches, oil and spray paint on canvas, 2019

Most recordings (sixty-nine to be precise) in the Top 100 2018/2019 were not recorded in a studio but in the "field" by folklorists, (ethno)musicologists, hobbyists, and institutions. Not always do I, in these pages, dwell on those individuals who travel the world to record music from the most remote places in often challenging even dangerous conditions. From the sixty-nine recordings the majority were made by ethnomusicologists from France and the US. Over the next few weeks I'll single out a few of these individuals whom I will provide with a short bio and of course paint. First up is Hugo Zemp, who is represented twice in the top 10 with recordings made in Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Both tracks come from the LP Iles Salomon: Music del Guadalcanal. Professor Zemp was born in Basle, Switzerland in 1937 and has recorded, written, and filmed on the subject of ethnic music. As a Swiss national (working in France) he is naturally interested in yodeling, a subject he also found in various places beside Switzerland. On the image above Zemp is seen playing a pan flute in the Solomon Islands. He must have transported that thing all the way from South America! The young woman (who may well be the individual heard on Aate: Dance le femmes) looks bewildered. I wonder if Zemp left the pan flute behind and if so, did the flutes end up in the repertoire of Solomon Islands traditional music?

The following is the full list of credits for the field recordings, they're in order of the Top 100. A few names will sound familiar (Bartok) but most are pretty obscure.

Charles Duvelle; Hugo Zemp (2); Jean-Jacquez Nattiez (2); Anne-Maria and Pierre Pétrequin (2); Béla Bartók; Ramon Pelinski (3); OPOS; Enrique Pinilla (2); David Fenshawe (2); Megan Biesele; Jaap Kunst; Dept. of Anthropology, Government of India; Theodore Levin (3); Henry Lecomte (7); Francisco Carreño and Miguel Cardona; W. Coppens; Charles Brooks (2); David Blair Stiffler (3); Leo A. Verwilghen (2); Steven Field (2); Denise Harvey; Frank Proschan; Albert Cort Haddon; Albert Lord; Michel Vuylsteke; Andrei Golovnev; unknown (7); F. Conti; Vietnamese Institute of Musicology (2); Andre Didier; Howard Keva Kaufman; Hugh Tracey; Carol Jenkins; Georges Luneau; A.P. Elkin; Dave Dargie; Anne Chapman; Stephen Jay; Gilbert Rouget and André Didier; Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin; Jenny de Vera; Center for Andean Ethnomusicology.