Aurelia Butler

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    The Singer Whose Work Feels Like Prayer

    On her new LP, “Daughter of a Temple,” Ganavya is the central vocalist, composer and community builder for 30 artists who constitute a who’s who in jazz and experimental music.Before collaborating with 30 artists of various disciplines for her new album, Ganavya made a practice of kneeling to wash the feet of her guests. They’d often break down at the gesture.“Everyone cried,” she recalled. “It comes back to a grammar of care. In the tradition that I was raised, you can’t actually pay your teacher enough for what they’re giving you. So you do things around the house because you understand that there’s no amount of money that you could ever give that would ever make this make sense.”The 33-year-old vocalist, composer and bandleader was raised in the Hindu tradition of harikatha, a type of storytelling that blends music and poetry. A who’s who in jazz and experimental music — artists including Esperanza Spalding, Shabaka Hutchings, Immanuel Wilkins and Vijay Iyer — sat in over the course of a week in Houston to record “Daughter of a Temple,” her 48-minute set of meditative chants and devotional hymns released last week. The LP features one of Wayne Shorter’s last recordings, the track “Elders Wayne and Carolina,” on which he and his wife recite the Buddhist chant “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.”The album is an example of community building as art. Born Ganavya Doraiswamy in Flushing, Queens, and raised in Tamil Nadu, a state in South India, Ganavya came up in a creative family, where, as a child, she studied the harikatha along the Varkari pilgrimage route. She and her family would walk and sing poems called abhangs — nonstop devotional poems — for several days on end.“As soon as you hear Ganavya’s voice, you want to hear it some more,” Esperanza Spalding, a collaborator, said.Adama Jalloh for The New York Times“By the time I was already born, the whole family on my father’s side were musicians; I was born into the eye of the storm already,” she said. “It was just what we did, it wasn’t a thing, it wasn’t a statement. We learned how to cook, do the laundry, and music.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    No More Nostalgia Concerts, Please

    The culture industry keeps getting better at monetizing the past — including the new ritual of musicians playing old albums, in full, onstage.In March, the rock band Weezer announced plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their self-titled debut, known to fans as “the Blue Album,” with a special tour: At every stop they would play the album in full, from front to back. I may not have enjoyed Weezer’s new output in decades, but the Blue Album was a fixture of my teenage consciousness, as it was for many my age; I was tempted to buy a ticket and spend an evening among my cohort, transported back to that time. But as I watched the video announcing the tour, I also felt a nagging sense of déjà vu.I assumed I was just reacting to the whole ritual of touring years-old albums, a concept that has become a staple of the industry. It emerged in the mid-2000s, with a curated series of relatively small concerts self-consciously titled “Don’t Look Back” — but within a decade it had become big business. In 2016, Bruce Springsteen toured the world playing the entirety of his 1980 album “The River”; U2 came aboard in 2017 with a massive tour where they played the whole of “The Joshua Tree,” from 1987. Now these exercises are commonplace: Just this year, concertgoers could catch anything from the rap icon Nas playing all of “Illmatic” (30th anniversary) to the country star Clint Black playing “Killin’ Time” (35th) to the pop-punk band Green Day playing both “Dookie” (30th) and “American Idiot” (20th) — albums mostly from an era when people expressed their love for records by actually buying them.Then it came to me: It wasn’t just that Weezer’s Blue Album tour was the sort of thing every band seems to be doing these days. It felt familiar because it was something that Weezer themselves had already done, 14 years earlier, on their “Memories” tour.Back then, I remember finding the conceit intriguingly novel. Today that aura of novelty is itself a distant memory. Notices of new album-anniversary tours pop up incessantly in my inbox and social feeds. Taken together, they do not feel like fun experiments or celebrations of beloved albums. They feel like the onward acceleration of a culture industry that is unsettlingly dedicated — not just in our concert halls but on our screens and everywhere else it can reach us — to monetizing our nostalgic attachment to media from the past.It’s easy to sympathize with everyone involved. For fans who grew attached to these albums when they were originally released, the concerts function as powerful shortcuts back to poignant memories and distant modes of feeling. For new fans, they are a chance to reconnect with cultural moments they might have missed the first time around. As for the bands: Many are scrambling, looking for ways to pay the bills as album and tour revenues plummet for all but the most successful artists. Presumably, booking agents are reminding artists that these nostalgia exercises do help sell tickets, while streaming stats are reminding them exactly which of their albums people listen to most. Speaking to Yahoo News in 2017, Art Alexakis of the band Everclear noted that merchandise sales at their anniversary tours were almost twice as high as at their regular shows. (Nostalgia is a hell of a drug; side effects may include buying two vinyl LPs and a T-shirt.) So musicians become jukeboxes — playing exactly what the data says people want to hear, minimizing the risk of boring anyone with new material or new ideas.‘That means that all the good songs were up at the front.’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What Were Your Favorite Movies, TV, Music and Books in 2024?

    We want to know what stuck with you this year. What were the best things you watched, read and heard?Toward the end of every year, our critics share their thoughts on the best film, television, pop music, classical music, books, art, dance, theater, video games, comedy and so much more.They’ll be doing it again this year. But we also want to hear from you.What was the best TV show, or episode, you watched in 2024? The best movie? Your favorite book of the year? There are four areas of culture and arts that we want to hear from you about, all listed below. Please pick your one favorite in each category and focus on that, or else we’ll be overwhelmed!You can answer one or all of those questions. We plan to publish some of the responses, but we won’t publish any part of yours without following up with you, verifying your information and hearing back from you. And we won’t share your contact information outside the Times newsroom or use it for any reason other than to get in touch with you. More

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    The Reintroduction of Daniel Craig

    In love, it can be terrifying to show all your cards, to make yourself vulnerable, to let your desire be fully seen. What is offered to another person without reservation can also be taken without recompense. Still, because we want to be loved, we risk it.Maybe we don’t think much about that aspect of love, preferring to dwell — as most movies do — on all the moony, swoony parts. But that dangerous feeling of exposure is the central preoccupation of the new drama “Queer,” and it can’t be explored without a lead actor who is similarly willing to offer himself up.Enter Daniel Craig, 56, our erstwhile James Bond on a bold new assignment.In “Queer,” due Nov. 27 and adapted from a William S. Burroughs novel, Craig plays Lee, an American expat in midcentury Mexico City who becomes enamored with a coolly distant younger man, Allerton (Drew Starkey). Lee is undone by a desire that is reciprocated only in fits and starts, and watching Craig pine so vulnerably packs a pop-cultural punch: Once considered the very face of masculine cool, his visage is now soaked in flop sweat.Though his performance has been earning raves and Oscar chatter since “Queer” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, it may surprise fans to see this side of Craig after watching him play a stoic secret agent for the better part of 15 years. But when I asked the director Luca Guadagnino whether “Queer” is closer to his leading man’s actual sensibility than people might have guessed, he replied, “Every movie is a documentary about the actor playing the character.”If that’s the case, maybe now is the perfect time to be reintroduced to Daniel Craig.“I’m not a method actor, but I’m a nightmare to be with when I’m working,” Daniel Craig said of his intense devotion to his work.Thea Traff for The New York Times“SOMETIMES I FIND it very laughable, the idea of maleness,” he said. It was an early morning in October, and I had met Craig for breakfast at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood to ponder the performance of masculinity. “Most men go through life with this act that they do,” he told me. “But it is an act.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Best True Crime to Stream: The Fame Monster

    Across television, film and podcasting, here are four picks that explore lesser-discussed crimes involving celebrities.There is an absolute glut of true crime content that involves the rich and famous. These stories also tend to be rehashed and retread because fame breeds fascination, of course, and name recognition helps when seeking the eyes and ears of an audience. But there are plenty of stories involving stars that are just as compelling even if they haven’t gotten the same attention. Here are four of them across television, podcast and film.Documentary film“Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara”The harsh realities of toxic fan culture have gotten more attention in 2024, with pop stars like Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish speaking more openly about the ubiquitousness of harassment and obsession that accompany fame.For this new documentary, the director Erin Lee Carr (“Mommy Dead and Dearest,” “At The Heart of Gold”) weaves together two sides of a shocking story that turned the lives of Tegan and Sara Quin, twin sisters who are the queer folk-pop duo Tegan and Sara, upside down.In the 1990s and 2000s, the sisters had a knack for building community at shows and online, with Tegan in particular feeling a responsibility to their fans. When this familiarity dovetailed with a catfishing scheme, Tegan and many fans became ensnared in a sophisticated identity theft operation that lasted over 15 years. “Fake Tegan systematically destroyed my life,” Tegan says at one point.As layers are peeled back, a more complex picture comes into focus. Unfortunately, the end brings little comfort, only underscoring the magnitude of the discoveries made along the way.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ to Premiere: What to Know About the Movie Marked by Tragedy

    The film, whose cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was killed in a shooting on the set, is being screened at a festival devoted to cinematography.It was just over three years ago that Alec Baldwin was practicing drawing a gun on the set of the western “Rust” in New Mexico when it went off, firing a live round that killed its cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounded its director, Joel Souza.The fatal shooting resulted in criminal cases, lawsuits and a reassessment of the use of real guns in Hollywood. In the midst of it all the movie was completed in Montana, with a new cinematographer and only fake weapons allowed on the set, by a team that said it wanted to ensure that Ms. Hutchins’s final work reached the screen.On Wednesday, the 133-minute-long film will have its world premiere at a small if starry film festival in Torun, Poland, called Camerimage, which is devoted to the art of cinematography. Here’s what to know about the unusual event.Will Alec Baldwin be there?Though Mr. Baldwin stars in the film, as a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust, he is not expected to be in the audience on Wednesday.The film’s main spokesman at the festival will be its director, Mr. Souza, who was injured in the shooting when the bullet passed through Ms. Hutchins and lodged in his shoulder. Mr. Souza completed the project after Ms. Hutchins’s widower, Matthew Hutchins, gave it his blessing and stepped in as an executive producer.“It became very important to me to finish that on her behalf,” Mr. Souza said in an interview this year. “I would never presume to want to speak for somebody who can’t speak for themselves anymore, but I feel pretty damn confident that’s what she would have wanted.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Lawyers Argue Seizure of Jail Notes Was Unjust

    Lawyers for the music mogul objected at a hearing to prosecutors viewing handwritten materials from their client’s cell after a sweep of the Brooklyn jail where he is being held.Sean Combs appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday as his lawyers objected to the prosecution’s use of handwritten notes found inside the music mogul’s jail cell, arguing that his rights had been violated when they were turned over to prosecutors.The dispute stemmed from a recent sweep of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Mr. Combs has been held since September. Prosecutors cited the notes, which they contend exposed prohibited behavior, in a court filing last week in which they argued Mr. Combs should remain incarcerated until his trial, which is scheduled for May.The text of Mr. Combs’s notes was redacted from the public record. But prosecutors said it showed that he was trying to obstruct their case, by suggesting that he had paid a potential witness to post a statement on social media expressing support for him. Another note, the government said, related to him directing someone to find “dirt” on two alleged victims.Mr. Combs’s lawyers quickly lodged an objection to the prosecution’s possession of the notes, arguing that it was a violation of attorney-client privilege.“This has been a complete institutional failure,” Marc Agnifilo, Mr. Combs’s lead lawyer, said at the hearing.The prosecution has defended its handling of the notes, writing in court papers that the sweep was preplanned and not engineered to target Mr. Combs. The government further said that any recovered material was reviewed by a “filter team” within the U.S. attorney’s office tasked with excluding any privileged materials from prosecutors handling the case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Bizarre Love Triangle Playlist

    Sabrina Carpenter, Loretta Lynn and SZA sing about all the points on a love triangle.Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” was the most successful of this year’s triangular tunes.Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersDear listeners,Today’s playlist is all about one of popular music’s favorite shapes: the love triangle.Full of drama, secrets and passion, songs about love triangles have never exactly gone out of style. But as I’ve been considering some of the patterns and trends in this past year of pop music, I’ve noticed that they’re more popular — and in some cases, subversive — than ever.This year has specifically been full of songs in which the singer is unusually fixated on “the other woman.” The most successful is “Taste,” a sassy, innuendo-stuffed pop-country smash by one of the year’s breakout stars, Sabrina Carpenter. “I’ve heard you’re back together,” she sings to her love interest’s former and current squeeze. “And if that’s true, you’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.” That refrain has more than a hint of queer subtext, which Carpenter makes explicit in the campy, surprisingly gory music video, which ends with her kissing her female rival (played by Jenna Ortega) and the two accidentally killing their shared beau. In a twist, they’re not terribly bothered by it.But “Taste” wasn’t the only 2024 song with an eye on the other point of the triangle. Released in March, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” — a track from the deluxe edition of “Guts” — finds the singer haunted by the imagined perfection of her current partner’s ex-girlfriend: “If I told you how much I think about her, you’d think I was in love,” she sings. Another prominent triangular tune, Billie Eilish’s “Wildflower,” from “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” has become such a beloved fan favorite that it has spent 26 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. “I see her in the back of my mind, all the time,” Eilish sings of a partner’s ex — whom Eilish comforted when they first broke up, causing her to wonder, “Did I cross the line?”These songs all suggest some sort of transference and, at times, even a flirtation with both opposing points on the love triangle. Pop songs about same-sex desire are not nearly as taboo as they once were, and I suspect the surge in these sorts of songs reflect that shift.But in another sense, they’re telling a tale as old as time, a point I wanted to underscore by putting them in conversation with some older tracks. On today’s playlist, you’ll hear all the aforementioned songs, along with classics from the Cars, Loretta Lynn and Robyn, among other artists. It also features a certain global superstar’s 2024 remake of the ultimate “other woman” song, “Jolene.” No matter how you slice it, it seems, three’s a crowd.I know I’ve been known to share,LindsayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More