A grab bag of musicians

Alvin Curran/Giacinto Scelsi

20th Century avant-garde classical music really has a presence this year in the top 100 as it had once before in the late eighties. String quartets #3 and #4 by the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) and Canti Illuminati by Alvin Curran (Am. b. 1938, lives in Rome) all scored points in 1987 and again in 2022. Neither of these musicians I had painted before (I started illustrating the top 100 in 1990.) Portraits for both are thus long overdue. Scelsi featured in the Top 100 1987 (Curran did not,) while Curran is in this year's list (Scelsi is not.) The current format of double portraits without duplicates allows me to catch up on painting musicians that should have been painted in the history of the Top 100 but were not. Scelsi was a mentor and friend to Alvin Curran and Canti Illuminati (seen by Scelsi weeks before his death) is a sort of hommage to the old master.

Pat Conte/Andalusian (Rom) guitarist (from a photo c. 1900)

Now Pat Conte, the American multi string-instrument/guitar player, I did paint before, twice, but not as a musician but as a collector of old 78 records. This year Pat Conte returns as collector, and originator of the series The Secret Museum of Mankind, with a 78 called Vlach Longassi, from 1929 of the Andalusian Gypsy guitarist Oudi Jorghi. The track is included on the latest release in the Secret Museum series: Guitars, Vol. 1: Prologue to Modern Styles. I was delighted to find out that the Secret Museum was alive again after silence of more than a decade. I bought the record and a second tune also is listed in this year's 100. Fiesta Mora en Tanger by the, at the time, famous string quartet Cuarteto Aguilar. They were famous enough that there's pictures of them on line. I painted all three of the brothers and the one sister Aguilar.

Cuarteto Aguilar

They're not all new faces I'm painting. Take Cat Power, for example, just like in all of the last twenty years she's in this year's list once again (be it towards the bottom this time.) A brand new record appeared on the market but this new one failed to make the list. Not that I don't like it, but hey, times change. The song in the list is an old one: Metal Heart appeared first on Moon Pix [1998, Matador] and then again on Juke Box. [Matador, 2008] The song is one of her classics and a continuous (as far as I can tell) presence in her live sets. These live sets, by the way, for the last 15 years or so, feature Erik Paparazzi, who also played bass on Moon Pix.

Erik Paparazzi/Cat Power

Another familiar face, who was painted numerous times over the years is Michael Hurley. Like Cat Power, I'm a longtime fan of this musician who debuted on Folkways in 1964, the year I was born. In his eighties now he is still recording and performing. The track in the Top 100 was recorded in 2016 and is called O My Stars, a song that features the Swedish folk duo My Bubba. I painted the blond one from the duo but I took me a while to figure out who was the blond one and who the brunette was. I figured it out: The blonde one is My, while the brunette is Bubba.

Michael Hurley/My Larsdotter

Alright, I'll do one more before I let you go. Unrelated to any of the five above is a track by Piaroa Indians recorded by Pierre Gaisseau in 1949 in Colombia during the Orinoco-Amazon expedition of 1948/50. Some of the recording I've had for a long time on an album called The Columbia World Library of Folk & Primitive Music, Volume 9: Venezuela, but did find the original release Musique Primitive Indienne that not only has longer versions of some on the Columbia LP, but also uses a different set of titles. Bark Music of the Piaroa has been in the Top 100 several times but this time it listens to Rituel Saisonnier & D'initiation : Musique De Nuit (1). Gaisseau was part of the famous Ogooue-Congo expedition of 1946, who were the first to record the Pygmy people of the rain forests of Central Africa. As important as that expedition was, Gaisseau is even more famous for the film Sky Above and Mud Beneath, filmed in 1959 in previously unexplored areas of Papua New Guinea. The film had an enormous impact on the "Western mind."

Pierre Gaisseau/Piaroa bark horn player

 

Piaroa (2)

Bark Horns of the Piaroa, charcoal on paper, 11x14 inches, 2020

 

Piaroa

Piaroa lineup, some in costume
11 x 14 inches, various materials on paper, 2020

The collection of field recordings from The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, vol. 9: Venezuela features a block of five songs with recordings of the native Piaroa peoples. The recordings were made by Pierre Gaisseau in 1949 in the Upper Orinoco. He was probably also the one to provide the photograph in the booklet of the album produced by Juan Liscano and Alan Lomax. The source I used was a different photo, it is the banner of a facebook page dedicated to the Piaroa. Seventy years between the two photographs but nothing changed. (The presence of a woman in the newer photo may be a change from the old one as in the liner notes it is stated that these costumes were hidden from the women.) The Piaroa are egalitarian in organization which is not all that common in native societies of the Amazon region, or anywhere in the world for that matter. This not only applies to the social hierarchical structures but to the genders as well. They are anti-authoritarian and opposed to the hoarding of resources. [Wikipedia] Like Zen Buddhists they are taught to not hoard possessions and not take themselves too seriously from an early age. They ridicule anyone who displays pride or vanity. They laugh a lot. (Why am I so serious I often wonder.)

The COVID-19 situation did not change a lot in Venezuela since I last wrote about the country on April 8th. There are now 329 cases reported with 10 deaths, three weeks ago the numbers were 166 and 7 respectively. Venezuela is one of a few countries whose numbers will be followed in the months to come as at least four more recordings have found their way into the current top 100. The Piaroa now reside at #8 and have another recording lower down the list. Venezuela as a country, of course, has other issues to deal with beside the coronavirus. (Like corruption in a failing oil-based economy—I'm not sure how this all would affect the Piaroa, I hope they continue to laugh a lot.)