Aurelia Butler

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    Kahil El’Zabar, Spiritual Jazz’s Dapper Bandleader, Keeps Pushing Ahead

    At 70, he is releasing his 18th album with the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble to celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary and his role in the music’s lineage.Upon first glance, you might not think Kahil El’Zabar, 70, is a spiritual jazz musician. Tall and sprightly with taut skin and a thick mustache, wearing dark sunglasses and a stylish black suit on a January afternoon, he looked more like a fashion model or a recently retired athlete. That’s not to say avant-jazz guys can’t be chic, but rarely do they look this dapper.“My mother owned a bridal formal-wear business, so fashion was always a part of my life since I was a little kid,” he said over cups of green tea at the Moxy Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I have friends that are 70, and they’ll look at me and say, ‘Why you got those little silly clothes on?’ It’s like, ‘We wore wingtips and khakis in ’69. This is 2023, and just because I’m a senior citizen does not mean I can’t be current.’”For the past 50 years, El’Zabar has toed the line between fashion and music, the present and the future, American jazz and West African compositional structure. In 1974, he founded the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble as a quartet blurring the edges of traditional jazz, Afrocentric rhythms and cosmic expanse. Much like the Pyramids, the Ohio-based band that wore African finery and played polyrhythmic arrangements lifted from the continent, El’Zabar’s group wasn’t fully appreciated by American listeners. The quartet came at a time when jazz musicians started blending their sounds with stadium-sized funk and rock, and psychedelic African jazz was considered a bridge too far.El’Zabar has been sewing his own clothes since he was 11. Today, he runs an invite-only resale shop in Chicago.Lyndon French for The New York TimesAs a result, El’Zabar has been underrated in the pantheon of spiritual jazz luminaries, despite his healthy résumé. For someone who’s played with Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, his name doesn’t ring like those of Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane and Sun Ra.It’s because “he’s a percussionist,” said the film director Dwayne Johnson-Cochran, who’s made five documentaries on El’Zabar, during a phone interview. “With Kahil as a drummer, it’s kind of discounted because he’s the guy keeping the beat. He has melodies that are simple yet complex in the counterpoint; in a lot of ways, he’s a genre within himself. People are not in tune with what he’s putting out, but it’s really quite spectacular.”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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    Taylor Swift’s Singapore Shows Stir Anger in Southeast Asia

    The country is defending paying the pop star to play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. Thailand’s prime minister said the price was up to $3 million per show.Taylor Swift has descended on Southeast Asia, or one small part of it at least: All of her six sold-out shows are in Singapore, the region’s wealthiest nation.Many of her fans in this part of the world, which is home to more than 600 million people, are disappointed. But the Singapore leg of Ms. Swift’s wildly popular Eras Tour, which began last weekend and ends on Saturday, is a soft power coup and a boost for the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.The shows — and the undisclosed price that Singapore paid to host them — have also generated diplomatic tension with two of its neighbors, Thailand and the Philippines.Last month, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Thailand said publicly that Singapore had paid Ms. Swift up to $3 million per show on the condition that she play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. A lawmaker in the Philippines later said that was not “what good neighbors do.”Singapore pushed back. First its culture minister said the actual value of the exclusivity deal — which he declined to name — was “nowhere as high.” The country’s former ambassador at large later called the criticism “sour grapes.” And on Tuesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters that he did not see the deal as diplomatically “unfriendly.”Fans in other Southeast Asian countries are disappointed Ms. Swift isn’t performing elsewhere in the region.How Hwee Young/EPA, via ShutterstockWe 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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    ‘Dune: Part Two’ Gives Sci-Fi-Obsessed Silicon Valley a Reason to Party

    In a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco on Thursday evening, tech workers from Google, Slack, X and Mozilla mingled next to a pair of cardboard cutouts of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook founder, chatted as others sipped from cannily named cocktails like the Fremen Mirage (gin, coconut Campari, sweet vermouth) and the Arrakis Palms (vanilla pear purée, gin, Fever-Tree tonic). Tim O’Reilly, a tech industry veteran, dropped by. Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, was also spotted.“Do you think they’ll let me take home one of the freaky sandworm popcorn buckets?” someone in the crowd tittered. The suggestively designed buckets had become a sensation across social media.The techies were all there to celebrate Silicon Valley’s newest obsession: “Dune: Part 2,” the latest movie adapted from the Frank Herbert-authored science-fiction saga, which helped inspire many of them to become interested in technology. The film, which follows the 2021 installment “Dune,” sold an estimated $81.5 million in tickets in the United States and Canada over the weekend, the biggest opening for a Hollywood film since “Barbie.”The invitation-only private screening at the IMAX theater in downtown San Francisco was hosted by two tech executives turned podcasters of “Escape Hatch,” a weekly show focused on sci-fi and fantasy films. And it was not the only game in town.Across Silicon Valley — from venture capital firms to tech executive circles — people had booked their own private screenings of the movie, directed by Denis Villeneuve. On Thursday, the venture firm 50 Years invited founders, friends and investors to “come fuel your imagination with stellar science fiction” in a theater takeover.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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    Vienna Philharmonic and Franz Welser-Möst Return to Carnegie

    Franz Welser-Möst, who stands at the top of this storied orchestra’s roster of conductors, led three meaty programs at Carnegie Hall over the weekend.The Vienna Philharmonic hasn’t had a chief conductor since 1933. But it has had favorite conductors.Of the great musicians who have led this self-governing, proudly idiosyncratic orchestra, Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez were made honorary members; Herbert von Karajan and Karl Böhm were given honorary conducting titles. The violinist Daniel Froschauer, the Philharmonic’s chairman, has said that today, the ensemble not so secretly has two maestros at the top of its roster: Riccardo Muti and Franz Welser-Möst.At Carnegie Hall last weekend, it was the Austrian-born Welser-Möst, 63, who conducted three breathless, exhilarating and often moving performances by the Philharmonic, in meaty programs of Bruckner and Mahler symphonies, and works by Berg, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Strauss and Ravel.It takes a lot to win over the affection of the Philharmonic, one of Europe’s finest ensembles, just as it takes a lot to join its ranks. These players — known for their lush sound, their brighter, higher tuning frequency and their distinctly Viennese articulation — can be haughty and stubborn; I have seen them outright defy a conductor in rehearsal.Welser-Möst has not only penetrated the Philharmonic’s inner circle, but also has done so while leading the Cleveland Orchestra — another top-notch ensemble, though one whose sound differs enormously from that of the Viennese.The main difference between the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic is that while the Clevelanders have been criticized for giving performances that are too good, no one could ever accuse the Viennese of the same.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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    Can You Identify These Books and Their Film Adaptations That Became Best Picture Winners?

    Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about literature that has gone on to find new life in the form of movies, television shows, theatrical productions and other formats. With the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony on March 10, this month’s challenge focuses on nonfiction books that were adapted into films that went on to win the Oscar for best picture. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for more information and links to the books. More

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    Twice’s ‘With You-th’ Tops the Billboard Chart

    The act’s six-song EP “With You-th” debuts at No. 1, while Morgan Wallen celebrates a year of “One Thing at a Time” by hitting the No. 2 spot.The nine-woman K-pop group Twice leads the Billboard album chart for the first time this week with its latest mini-LP, thanks to collectible CD and vinyl sales, while Morgan Wallen marks a full year of blockbuster streaming numbers.Twice’s “With You-th,” a six-song EP, opens at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with the equivalent of 95,000 sales in the United States. The vast majority of its consumption — 90,000 copies — was through purchases of physical copies, which included 14 collectible variations on CD and three vinyl LP versions, according to the tracking service Luminate.“With You-th” also garnered 6.3 million streams, the lowest streaming total for a No. 1 album in almost five years, since Celine Dion’s “Courage” opened with 3.9 million in 2019 — a period when sales “bundles” helped albums top the charts by including the music with purchases of concert tickets or merchandise. (After an industry uproar, Billboard tweaked its rules to rein in the practice.)Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” rises one spot to No. 2 in its 52nd week on the chart, with the equivalent of 67,000 sales. Since it came out a year ago, Wallen’s album has remained remarkably popular, holding at No. 1 for a total of 18 weeks and never dipping below No. 6 on the all-genre album chart — and even then, only hitting that low point two times.Week after week, “One Thing” has been a streaming champion, logging a total of 8.3 billion streams since it came out. Even after a full year, each of the album’s 36 tracks is clicked an average of more than two million times on streaming services weekly — by comparison, the six songs on the brand-new Twice album had an average of a little over one million streams apiece.Also this week, “Vultures 1,” by Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and Ty Dolla Sign falls to No. 3 after two weeks at the top, while Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” is No. 4 and SZA’s “SOS” is in fifth place. More

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    Composer, Uninterrupted: Christian Wolff at 90

    Wolff, the last representative of the New York School that included John Cage and Morton Feldman, will celebrate his birthday with a concert at Judson Memorial Church.If artistic stature worked by osmosis, Christian Wolff could claim greatness based on that alone. “My father met Brahms,” he said, easing into conversation at a sturdy wooden table in the dining room of his Hanover, N.H., home. That meeting was in 1896, when Brahms was in Bonn, Germany, for Clara Schumann’s funeral. Wolff’s father was 6 or 7.Wolff’s grandfather, a violinist, conductor and professor, knew Brahms personally and professionally, he said. His great-grandfather, also a conductor, was a supporter of Robert Schumann. “And my great-great-grandfather was a champion of Beethoven’s, so there is something back there” he added, laughing at the implications of such a heritage.Wolff, who turns 90 on Friday, is associated with a different pantheon. He is the last living representative of what’s known as the New York School of composition, a group that included John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and David Tudor. Their tight-knit circle shifted midcentury American music away from classic European models. And it radiated out, intersecting with other arts and artists who were making New York a leading center of modernism: the choreographer Merce Cunningham, the poet John Ashbery, the painters Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and many others.New York School days: Christian Wolff, the dancer Viola Farber and John Cage at the marathon performance of Erik Satie’s “Vexations” at the Pocket Theater in the East Village in 1963.Larry Morris/The New York TimesWolff only lived in New York City for just under 20 years. Even so, he retains historical and aesthetic ties to it. Accordingly, he’ll be in town this weekend for a series of events celebrating his birthday at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. On Saturday, a multigenerational group of friends and acolytes will present works spanning his career, including a new piece Wolff composed for the occasion.The location is auspicious. Judson Memorial Church, a hotbed of experimental art and dance in the 1950s and ’60s, is just blocks away from the site of the Washington Square tenement where Wolff’s family settled after fleeing wartime Europe. It was there that his parents, Kurt and Helen Wolff, established Pantheon Books, which published Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and Paul Valéry, as well as the first English translation of the “I Ching.”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