Monsieur K.

October 26, 2021June 8, 2023

Paul & Henry | A Musical Encore

Paul Vincent Kuntz / Photo by Henry Kuntz

Paul & Henry | A Musical Encore

Paul and I had hoped to record some new music in 2021, this being once again the “Year of the Ox”, that year of the Zodiac in which we made our first duo recordings. While we were unable to realize that project in earthly time, I thought I might intuit and create what we might have fashioned musically in virtual spiritual time. Lapu Lazuli is a new piece that combines a solo piano improvisation of Paul’s (from his album Awakening) with a solo multi-track piece of mine (from the album IIFIINIITY). When I placed this music together, I couldn’t help but marvel. It felt like these pieces had always been waiting for each other… a match made in heaven, you might say! Enjoy Lapu Lazuli…

Lapu Lazuli

Paul Vincent Kuntz: Piano with percussion effects | Henry Kuntz: Nepalese & Balinese bamboo flutes (played together), Bolivian bass flute; rhaita (Morocco); two Guatemalan bamboo flutes (played together). Individual photos of Paul and Henry by Paul. Composite photo by Henry.

Please click here to download the song Lapu Lazuli for FREE. Thanks.

August 12, 2021June 8, 2023

Song of Praise

Song of Praise

Allow me, if you will, to sing artistic praises for my brother Paul Vincent who, on July 17, 2021, four days prior to his 60th birthday, lifted off from this dimensional space into Realms of Spirit. You may recall Paul from the three duo recordings he and I made over the last dozen years (Year of the Ox, Jazz Khardma, Double Vision), improvisations on which he contributed a florally dense piano, overlaying the instrument’s strings with small percussion instruments and other objects to expand its timbral and tonal range.

Paul’s main artistic penchant, however, was for his photography, of which he was a master. His work at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston – where he was known for his extensive photographic knowledge and attention to compositional detail – found him at times inside the operating room for groundbreaking surgeries. On his own adventurous career path, documentary photography was what most inspired him. Early on, while driving to classes at the University of Houston, he would pass through that city’s predominantly African-American Third Ward. There he made lifetime friends and extensive community contacts and began documenting the area’s people and vibrant cultural life: its music, funerals, revivals, its energy and flow.

Continue reading “Song of Praise”

July 11, 2019

Jaltemba Daze

Jaltemba Daze

Bright trumpets scream
through steamy ocean mists
sandy midday heat.
Fat tuba bellows
beneath clarinets’ bird-pitched squeals
some golden molten trombone sass.
Dancers male and female
old and young
drunk and sober
shake and twist in the tented shade
raising sea dust plumes.

Quick Afro-Mex beats
drums and drums and
booming bass drum and
crashing cymbals and falling coconuts
pulsate the cumpleaños.

The Pacific pounds
roars and sparkles in
ever widening waves of cerveza foam
come to overtake the fiesta.

Beautiful and indifferent,
the Girl from Ipanema
wafts languidly by
under Canadian eyes, American sighs
a strummy guitar, samba rattles,
and slaps from an African
slave box drum.

An ancient Indio from Oaxaca
in white under
a big brimmed cone straw hat
left over from the Revolution
marches into the midst.
His left hand’s bugle blares a primal ritual tune
his right keeps the old time
on a slack snare drum
slung from his neck.
The young barefoot one
his granddaughter
collects silver and gold.

El festival!
Incoherent crowds of
hawkers gawkers
bathers and sea bunglers
slip through
cacophonous shimmering
polka-dots of rainbow sombrillas
pursued by hot aromas of
smoked fish garlic shrimp and
the shrill cries of
swooping sea birds.

Parties within parties within parties
and one grand party
muchas canciones
on the shores of Jaltemba…