Aurelia Butler

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    A Concert Celebrates Jimmy Carter’s 100th Birthday, With Music and Thanks

    The night included gospel hymns and “America the Beautiful” and the B-52s lighting up the Fox Theater, one of the oldest auditoriums in Atlanta, with a performance of “Love Shack.” In one moment, the crowd was on its feet as Angélique Kidjo, the acclaimed Beninese musician, sang and danced. In another, they shimmied and sang along to a cover of “Ramblin’ Man.”The collection of artists and performances transcended generations, genres and geography. But one thread bound them together on Tuesday night: affection for former President Jimmy Carter, which they were eager to express in celebration of his coming 100th birthday.“You can see he had a relationship to music — look at how we gathered here together tonight,” said the country singer Carlene Carter, who is not related to the former president but said he still feels like kin. “He used it as a powerful tool to bring people together.”The civil rights leader Andrew Young, seated, and his wife, Carolyn, standing, share a laugh with, from left, Thomas and Henry Carter, great-grandchildren of Jimmy Carter and Jason Carter, his grandson.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesCarter’s actual birthday was still almost a couple of weeks away, and Carter himself was 160 miles away, at home in Plains, Ga., where he has been in hospice care for the past 19 months. But the concert was intended as a gift, one that will be broadcast as a special on Georgia Public Television on Oct. 1. The family said he plans to watch as part of his birthday festivities.The concert in many ways mirrored the scope and ambitions of the man it was celebrating: Global and idealistic in its reach, but firmly planted in Georgia, molded by religious and cultural traditions as well as the rich but complicated history of the rural South.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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    Natasha Rothwell and Samara Joy on Finding Their Voices

    The “How to Die Alone” creator and actress and the Grammy-winning jazz singer talk about genre, improvisation and romantic comedies.Admiration Society shows two creative people in two different fields in one wide-ranging conversation.The television actress and writer Natasha Rothwell grew up as an itinerant Air Force kid and started her career in improvisational comedy at places like New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade; she credits both experiences with nurturing her resilience and curiosity. After writing for “Saturday Night Live” in 2014 and then appearing in the 2016 Netflix series “The Characters,” she was hired to write on “Insecure” (2016-21), Issa Rae’s breakthrough Black rom-com HBO series. Rothwell, 43, became better known, however, for portraying Kelli, the show’s frank, sexually free sidekick. She then went on to play Belinda, a disillusioned masseuse at a Hawaiian resort, on the first season of Mike White’s “The White Lotus” in 2021. She’ll reappear on that show’s third season, which airs on Max early next year. And she just finished her showrunning debut as the creator and star of “How to Die Alone,” a New York-set comedy-drama series that premiered on Hulu earlier this month. She plays Mel, a single airport employee whose near-death experience shocks her into living a deeper life.Rothwell is also a jazz obsessive who’s put in many hours of karaoke. One of her favorite artists is Samara Joy, who at the age of 24 has already won three Grammys: Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2023, followed by Best Jazz Performance this year. Descended from two generations of gospel singer royalty (her grandparents co-founded the Savettes; her vocalist-bassist father toured with Andraé Crouch), Joy excels at rebooting jazz standards with tight new arrangements and dreamy, conversational lyrics. In 2020, while still a student at the State University of New York’s Purchase College, she performed Duke Ellington’s “Take Love Easy,” inspired by Ella Fitzgerald’s 1974 version, in a video posted to Facebook that became a pandemic-era viral hit. She has since released two albums, both influenced by her love of contemporary romance narratives.Joy has been touring almost nonstop for the past three years but, by early summer, when she spoke with Rothwell for the first time one evening, she had completed her third album, “Portrait,” which comes out in October. Their conversation took place over video — Joy at her parents’ home in the Bronx and Rothwell calling in from Thailand, where she’d just filmed White’s show. “Both of us are closing some chapters,” said Rothwell — and each was eager to cheer the other on. By the end of a 90-minute conversation, they’d already made plans to meet soon in person.Natasha Rothwell: When I was watching the Grammys [earlier this year], you would’ve thought I’d caught the spirit in my hotel. I was screaming for you, girl. You so deserved [it]. Where are you in New York?Samara Joy: I’m in the Bronx right now, where I grew up. But I’m moving to Harlem.N.R.: I used to live in New York. I’m in L.A. now, but I set everything I write and produce in New York because I’m trying to get a studio to pay me to come back.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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    How Trump and Harris Are Courting Pop Stars (Very Differently)

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeOn this week’s episode of Popcast, the pop music critic Jon Caramanica and the pop music reporter Joe Coscarelli discuss how musicians, both mainstream and more obscure, have figured into the current presidential campaign, including:An endorsement of Kamala Harris from Taylor Swift, plus the role of Beyoncé’s music in the Harris campaignDonald J. Trump’s recent embrace of rappers and reggaeton stars, in addition to his support in the country music worldHow Trump is finding new audiences via podcasters like Theo Von and the Nelk Boys, as well as via the stars of livestreaming services like Twitch and Kick, including Adin RossHarris’s full dive into the meme ecosystem following her inclusion in Charli XCX’s “brat summer”Connect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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    New York Philharmonic Players Reach Deal Raising Base Pay to $205,000

    Under a new labor agreement, expected to be ratified Friday, the musicians will get a 30 percent raise over three years, making them among the highest paid in the country.The New York Philharmonic, the oldest orchestra in America, has long been one of the most revered. But in recent years, its musicians have been paid significantly less than their peers in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.That will soon change. Under a new labor contract announced on Thursday, the Philharmonic’s musicians will get a raise of 30 percent over the next three years, bringing the base salary to $205,000. They will be among the highest paid orchestra musicians in the country.“It’s transformative,” said Colin Williams, the associate principal trombone, who helped lead the negotiations. “It speaks to the commitment from the Philharmonic’s leadership to making sure this place is really a destination orchestra.”The Philharmonic’s leaders praised the agreement, which the ensemble’s roughly 100 musicians are expected to ratify on Friday, when their existing contract expires.“This is a restorative settlement that brings our musicians to the level of their peer orchestras,” Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s interim leader, said in an interview.Included in the agreement are changes meant to make the hiring process fairer and more transparent, including provisions that will require musicians to play from behind a screen in the final rounds of auditions. (A screen has been optional in the final round.)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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    Lucine Amara, 99, Dies; Familiar Soprano at the Met Saw Bias There

    She sang with the Metropolitan Opera for decades, often on short notice, including after lodging a successful age discrimination complaint against the company.Lucine Amara, an American singer who continued a decades-long career at the Metropolitan Opera after she successfully brought the company up on age-discrimination charges in a widely publicized case, died on Sept. 6 at her home in Queens. She was 99. Her daughter, Evelyn La Quaif, a soprano and stage director, who had shared an apartment with her mother in recent weeks, said that the cause was respiratory illness and heart failure and that Ms. Amara also had dementia. She had lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for decades.A lyric soprano known for her clear, supple voice, Ms. Amara sang 748 performances with the Met between 1950 and 1991, an impressively long tenure.Her dozens of roles there included Mimì in Puccini’s “La Bohème,” Nedda in Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci,” the title part in Richard Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos,” and Donna Elvira in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Pamina in his “Magic Flute.”Appearing in a 1964 Met production of Gounod’s “Faust,” Ms. Amara was described by Theodore Strongin in The New York Times as “a first-rank Marguerite in all respects.”If Ms. Amara was not as well known to the general public as other singers in her cohort — among them Roberta Peters and Victoria de los Angeles — it was partly, her admirers say, because she was damned by her own competence and by her matter-of-fact approach to her craft.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 Combs Is Denied Bail and Held at M.D.C., a Troubled Brooklyn Jail

    The music mogul, who is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, was denied bail and ordered held at a federal detention center. His lawyers are appealing.When Sean Combs flew from Miami to New York this month to prepare for an expected federal indictment, he left behind his expansive mansion with multiple pools, a spa and a guesthouse on a man-made island.Going forward, though, home for Mr. Combs will most likely be the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking concrete structure in Brooklyn that houses more than 1,200 people and has a reputation for poor conditions.Mr. Combs was ordered held in federal detention on Tuesday and taken to the Brooklyn jail after a judge denied him bail. A grand jury had indicted him on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, and prosecutors said he was a dangerous person who would be at risk to flee if released.It was a sudden change of circumstances for a music producer, known in the industry as Diddy and Puff Daddy, who has been wealthy since becoming one of the most prominent record label founders of the 1990s. Jail records now have him registered under the number 37452-054.The M.D.C., as it is known, has been troubled by deaths and suicides and an electrical fire that once left inmates without heat for days in the dead of winter. A lawyer for Edwin Cordero, a detainee who died there in July from injuries he sustained in a fight, called the prison “an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal jail that is hell on earth.”The Bureau of Prisons responded to criticism in a statement that said it “takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional employees and the community.”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 Octagon Inside the Sphere: Bloody Fights and Soaring Films

    To amplify the first live athletic competition at the Las Vegas landmark, the Ultimate Fighting Championship turned to Hollywood.After an animated vignette of conquistadors ransacking Indigenous Mexican temples played on the Sphere’s enormous video screen and the venue’s haptic seats shook violently, two mixed martial arts fighters approached each other on Mexican Independence Day weekend. As they battled in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s caged octagon, birds soared across a backdrop of temple ruins.The Sphere — a futuristic orb-like structure with more than 700,000 square feet of programmable screens inside and out — has primarily hosted musicians, keynote speakers and filmmakers since opening its radiant gaze upon the Las Vegas Strip in July 2023.It was one of those concerts last year, part of U2’s nearly six-month residency, that amazed and inspired Dana White, the U.F.C.’s chief executive. For months he has grandiosely proclaimed that he would hold the first live athletic competition at the Sphere, which can typically seat about 17,000 people.The company invested $20 million into Saturday night’s spectacle, called Noche U.F.C., as White challenged his staff to mesh a brutal, polarizing blood sport with pageantry and flair by working with award-winning Hollywood creators.“We showed everybody tonight what’s possible,” White said after the fight, which he said broke U.F.C. records for ticket and merchandise sales. “You can do more than just concerts here and pull them off and make them great. So who’s next?”The U.F.C. filled more than 700,000 square feet of programmable screens with tributes on Mexican Independence Day weekend.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 Babadook’ Is Still an Unnerving Dream 10 Years Later

    Back in theaters for its 10th anniversary, the haunting movie never really left, with a legacy that includes an entire horror subgenre.Before I even saw “The Babadook” I was scared of the Babadook. He quickly became such an icon of horror that the idea was immediately unsettling.Invented by the Australian director Jennifer Kent for her 2014 film, Mister Babadook is a creature from a children’s pop-up book that suddenly appears in the home of Amelia (Essie Davis) and her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman). The brute is crudely drawn, with a top hat, long spindly fingers and teeth that form a grimace. “If it’s in a word or in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook,” the foreboding red hardcover reads.Despite his silly name and somewhat dapper attire, the Babadook is the stuff of nightmares, inexplicable but threatening. And as you watch Kent’s film, the terror only intensifies. You never actually see the corporeal form of the Babadook, but he infiltrates Amelia, an exhausted mother grieving after her husband was killed while driving her to the hospital to give birth to Samuel. He has grown into an erratic little boy who believes monsters are lurking in their house and has behavioral issues in school. When the Babadook book suddenly appears out of nowhere, his fears seem justified. Amelia, however, tries to pretend everything is normal.She has buried her pain, allowing it to fester into a bloodthirsty animosity toward her own spawn. The Babadook latches on to what’s been growing inside of her.When the film was originally released, it grossed just a little over $960,000 domestically (and a little over $10 million worldwide). Yet like the Babadook himself, the film has cast a long shadow that grows only more encompassing as it celebrates its 10th anniversary with a rerelease starting Thursday.The character became an internet phenomenon, even making an appearance in the Urban Dictionary. One popular post from 2016 featured the comedy writer Katie Dippold announcing that for Halloween she had “dressed as the Babadook but my friend’s house had more of a grown-ups drinking wine vibe,” complete with a photo of herself out of place in full Babadook drag. Somehow the creature also turned into a gay icon. (Well, he is quite fabulous.)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