A very well-made video presentation from AyiboPost on my favorite Haitian painter. Obin's so-called naive style and detailed historical paintings capture not only the distinctive regional patrimony of the Nord but represent Haiti well. I am also intrigued his and the Cap-Haitien school's subject matter: historic paintings, cultural scenes of capois or northern Haitian life, and, from what I can tell, hardly any of the folkloric of vaudouesque scenes of Hector Hyppolite or other Haitian painters of Obin's generation.
Ratliff's Coltrane: The Story of a Sound is somewhat disappointing. It does not fail to deliver in its coverage of the evolution of Coltrane's music from the earliest navy band recordings to his death 1967. However, a full biography would likely have contextualized more effectively some of the conditions in which Coltrane felt a compulsion to constantly evolve and search for deeper meaning in his music. Ratliff, without hagiography and excessive biographical detail, does manage to accomplish some of this through other biographies and interviews with those who knew Coltrane. But for reasons perhaps unbeknownst to me, the text does does not quite capture the sublime quality of Coltrane's music in the manner a proper biography would. Everything seems aloof and unmoored from the context of his work, despite its coverage of the full breadth of Coltrane's career.
Further, I am not convinced I share the author's opinions on some of Coltrane's creative decisions or personnel, particularly the enriching role of Eric Dolphy as a sideman and arranger for some of Coltrane's most riveting work (Africa/Brass and Olé Coltrane). I've long enjoyed the contrast in styles represented by Dolphy and the Coltrane "classic" quartet, and contrasting nature of Dolphy's own style adds a beautiful clash. His arranging skills and mutual interest in "Eastern" and Indian musical modes and expression surely shaped Coltrane, too, adding another speech-like layer of sound through his alto and bass clarinet solos. I suppose one can always find points of disagreement among fans and aficionados of Coltrane, as his vast legacy has shaped free and mainstream jazz since his untimely death in 1967.
While reading about African writing systems, the kingdom of Bamum crossed my radar. Their visionary king, also called Ibrahim Njoya, formed an alliance with Fulbe Muslims to secure his throne and initiated a series of progressive reforms. One of them being a writing system, but also support for the arts, particularly the works of his relative, Ibrahim Njoya. Naturally, this led to Dan Mazur's detailed article on Njoya's life and work. It's clear that his work represents an indigenous development of a comic book, with the text written in the local Bamum script devised by his king to accompany his own incredibly detailed and unique style, depicting the kingdom's history, its traditions, etc. He worked across multiple mediums and, if French colonial policies had been less intrusive, perhaps Ibrahim Njoya could have established in the 1920s and 1930s an African tradition of comics unlike what could be found in colonial newspapers across much of the continent. For more examples of Njoya's work, as well as that of other artists of Bamum, Les dessins bamum contains a plethora of additional sources. The photographs delineate the various styles and influences apparent in Njoya's oeuvre.
