Paquito D'Rivera & Brenda Feliciano:Carlos Páez Vilaró Painting, ca. 2004

Celebrity Edition: Paquito D'Rivera & Brenda Feliciano

Transcript

GUEST: I am the musical director for 24 year of the Punta del Este Jazz Festival. The first festival, the hotel that we stayed in is called Casa Pueblo. Casa Pueblo was built by a wonderful, who is, in my opinion, the national painter of, of Uruguay, Carlos Páez Vilaró, and we become friends. And then, in my 50th anniversary as a, as a musician...

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: I celebrated in 2004...

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: Uh, he came, as a, as a surprise, he came and gave to me this, uh, painting that I appreciate very much.

APPRAISER: What a wonderful gift. Can you tell me what these letters mean up here on the corner, "F.Y."?

GUEST: Yeah, it's... It's Francisco Yobino, who is the founder of the Festival Internacional de Jazz de Punta del Este. That's how we met Páez Vilaró.

APPRAISER: Páez Vilaró, he was born in 1923. He actually began his studies in Buenos Aires. But one of the other things that he did is that he studied music first. He was a... He studied composition, and he was a composer.

GUEST: I never knew that! (chuckling): We have to stay in touch with this guy, man.

GUEST: (exclaiming)

GUEST: He knows, he knows everything! (laughter)

APPRAISER: And he actually had a band. He was very interested in, in African-inspired music, Afro-Uruguayan, Afro-Brazilian music.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: And he was, like, an ethnographic musician. He was a true renaissance man. It's painted on cardboard. The medium is some tempera and some ink, as well. So the ink is providing these really dark outlines of the musicians. We know what it's about, right? It's about a jazz band playing, right?

GUEST: Jazz quintet or something, yes.

APPRAISER: Yeah. The whole idea of this is to almost hear the painting. It's hard to overstate the importance of jazz music on, on modern art as we know it.

GUEST: They are brother and sister.

GUEST: They are, they are... They are connected.

GUEST: Yes.

GUEST: And, and maybe you... Here, in this painting, you feel it even more, because Carlos was very close to, to Afro-Uruguayan music, which is very colorful.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: I, I think he even play some of the drums and all that.

APPRAISER: Well, what does candombe sound like?

GUEST: It's like... (imitating lively percussion) It's a very dynamic music. And very colorful.

APPRAISER: Have you ever thought about getting it valued?

GUEST: No. Not really. We are terrible business people.

GUEST: (laughter)

APPRAISER: If this painting was going to come to auction, I would put a conservative auction estimate on it of $4,000 to $6,000.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: I would put an insurance value on it of about $15,000.

GUEST: Oh.

GUEST: Hm.

GUEST: That's good to know.

GUEST: Thank you so much for putting all this together into a cohesive, you know, understandable way to perceive. Now, when I look at this painting, I'm gonna listen to the music it brings out, yeah?

GUEST: Some candombe, you know?

GUEST: (laughs)