Aurelia Butler

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    Jaimie Branch Adds to a Brilliant Legacy With Fly or Die’s Final LP

    The trumpeter, who died a year ago at 39, recorded “Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))” with her quartet in April 2022.Jaimie Branch was a real one. That’s the consensus among anyone who really knew her, and it’s what the record shows. The Guardian once quoted her as saying that “playing the trumpet is like singing your soul,” and somehow her music backs that up completely.A year ago this week, Branch died unexpectedly, at 39; the tragedy took the air out of creative music communities in Brooklyn, Chicago and well beyond. Branch hadn’t released her first LP as a bandleader until 2017, but she’d made up for lost time. With her two groups — Fly or Die, an unorthodox trumpet-cello-bass-drums quartet, and Anteloper, an analog-synth-splashed duo with the drummer Jason Nazary — she put out five albums in as many years. It’s an uncommonly good and unruly set of records: Each is devilishly fun but also musically serious and, as time went on, increasingly razor-sharp politically.Beyond its odd instrumental lineup, what immediately distinguished Fly or Die was the clarity of the melodies Branch was writing, and the pummeling force the band could build around them. Her trumpet lines — both written and improvised — had an irresistible terseness, with the direct power of mariachi trumpeting infused into ideas taken from Midwestern free-jazz players like Baikida Carroll and Lester Bowie, and from electric-era Miles Davis. She delivered it all via extended trumpet techniques borrowed from Axel Dörner, a German avant-gardist, and wreathed that crisp, purposeful sound in the quartet’s earthy timbres: bass, cello and the drummer Chad Taylor’s low, skulking beats, encompassing the samba-adjacent and odd-metered jazz funk.In the wake of her passing, those Fly or Die albums now represent Branch’s biggest legacy — and something of a challenge to the rest of the jazz world. Who else is here to sing their soul, in her absence? Who are the real ones that remain? Who else wants to fly?As it turns out, Branch had one last gauntlet to throw down. On Friday, International Anthem will release “Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War)),” the quartet’s third and final studio LP, recorded in April 2022 during her residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha. It is just as electrifying as the group’s first two LPs, but with a wider sonic horizon and more parts in motion. And there’s a triumphant streak running through it that only heightens the pain of Branch’s demise. She was moving fast and riding high when we lost her.Synths, mixed percussion, guest horn players and extra vocalists flood in at the edges. The nine-minute centerpiece “Baba Louie” starts out as a spiked punch of Caribbean carnival rhythm and South African-inflected horns, introduces a short flirtation between marimba and flute, blossoms into an anthemic trumpet solo section, and finally veers into a dragging, almost dublike stretch of groove.There is more space on “((World War))” than any previous album for Branch’s disarming, half-sung vocals, which she had started using on “Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise” from 2019. “We’re gonna gonna gonna take over the world, and give it give it back back back back to the la-la-la-land,” she chants on “Take Over the World,” from the new album, stuttering rhythmically over Taylor’s deceptively complex drum beat, Jason Ajemian’s centering acoustic bass and Lester St. Louis’s furious scrub on cello.Stripped down to just two voices and a bass, she and Ajemian harmonize on a cover of the Meat Puppets’ “Comin’ Down,” a satirical inspirational country ditty, here retitled “The Mountain.” On the closer, “World War ((Reprise)),” she jangles a Fisher-Price musical toy and sings in an even, intimate tone, almost like Patty Waters:Publicize, televise, capitalizeon revolution’s eyesWhat the world could beIf only you could seeTheir wings are false flagsOn our wings, they all rise.Branch began her career on the Chicago scene, internalizing the city’s pulpy, blues-based brand of free jazz. She made her way to music school in Boston and Baltimore, then on to New York, where many of the musicians she played with (including all of Fly or Die’s original members) were Chicago transplants. Part of what delayed her in stepping forward as a bandleader was, sadly, an addiction that she would battle off and on for over a decade.But during periods of recovery, she found that she could get a natural high from “putting it all out on the table” as a performer, she told the audio journal Aquarium Drunkard in 2019. “Playing a simple melody is probably not something I would have done in 2007 or 2008,” she said, but the “vulnerability” of making a strong, clear statement gave Branch the “chemical reaction that I wanted.”She puts a lot on the line on “Burning Grey,” from the new album. Entreating the listener to stay vigilant, she sings: “Believe me/The future lives inside us/Don’t forget to fight.”If we’re lucky, Branch’s impact will be felt for years. Not just in the sound of improvised music, but in the fervor and hope — the all-on-the-table abandon — that improvisers put into attacking their craft.Jaimie Branch“Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))”(International Anthem) More

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    ‘Gran Turismo’ Review: Once Upon a Pair of Sticks

    A popular racing video game series gets turned into an underdog sports drama in this big-screen adaptation.Since the late 1990s, the Gran Turismo racing games for PlayStation have brought in billions of dollars, rivaling the box-office bounties of some movie franchises. It was only a matter of time before a movie offshoot arrived, following in the tracks of other live-action adaptations of PlayStation games, including last year’s “Uncharted.” “Gran Turismo” the movie tells the true (but unlikely) story of Jann Mardenborough, a Gran Turismo maven who became a professional racer of actual cars on actual tracks.Mardenborough’s leap from pixels to asphalt was an effective advertisement for Gran Turismo as more than a game, but his transition wasn’t all smooth. In the director Neill Blomkamp’s dutiful telling, Jann (Archie Madekwe), a teenager from Cardiff, Wales, faces doubters and steep learning curves to go with the racetrack curves. His underdog story — can this digital driver make it in the real world? — doubles as an old-fashioned tale of a young man proving his worth to his family and other skeptics.Madekwe’s Jann is so unassuming that every step in his journey comes as a pleasant surprise. After Jann’s father (Djimon Hounsou) says there’s no future in gaming and brings Jann to his job at a rail yard, Jann goes off and wins a contest held by Nissan to recruit promising Gran Turismo players. (His mother, played by Geri Halliwell Horner, is a bit more encouraging.) He earns a spot in the company’s racing academy, which is overseen by a hard-nosed engineer, Jack (David Harbour), and an unctuous marketer, Danny (Orlando Bloom). Once again Jann exceeds expectations and beats out a more TV-ready competitor for the chance to race professionally.The movie begins to resemble the levels in a video game, as Jann enters races worldwide to clinch his contract with Nissan. He finally beats an obnoxious front-runner (Josha Stradowski) in Dubai and celebrates in Tokyo, but he flips his car on his next race (as the real Mardenborough did in 2015, though the film adjusts the chronology). Like many sports movies, there’s no shortage of training and competition — the perpetual buildup. A finale comes at Le Mans, the annual 24-hour race.Blomkamp’s handling of the track scenes lacks a compelling physicality, or (if you’ll pardon the term) drive — the editing and camerawork could each use a sharper sense of rhythm and velocity. That might not matter so much if it were paired with a strong screenplay, but the platitudinous script here lacks flair (though Jann does have the likable quirk of listening to Enya or Kenny G to chill out before races). Madekwe conveys a youthful vulnerability and an appealing air of quiet doggedness, even if he’s mild-mannered as a performer here. The movie doesn’t need to achieve the same levels of sensation as a wildly popular racing simulator, but it should convey excitement and dynamism in its own cinematic way. When the novelty of watching a gamer become a driver wears off, we’re left with an adequate racing drama in a medium built for so much more.Gran TurismoRated PG-13 for intense action and some strong language. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Toto Cutugno, Singer Whose ‘L’Italiano’ Struck a Chord, Dies at 80

    The nostalgic ballads and catchy pop songs he wrote paved the way for an international career. He sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.Toto Cutugno, an Italian singer and songwriter whose 1983 hit song “L’Italiano” became a worldwide sensation and was still hugely popular decades later, died on Tuesday in Milan. He was 80.His longtime manager, Danilo Mancuso, said the cause of Mr. Cutugno’s death, at San Raffaele Hospital, was cancer.In a career that began when he was in his late teens, Mr. Cutugno sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.“He was able to build melodies that remained stuck in the audience’s mind and heart,” Mr. Mancuso, who had worked with Mr. Cutugno for 20 years, said in a phone interview. “The refrains of his most popular songs are so melodic.”Mr. Cutugno’s career began with a stint, first as a drummer and then as a pianist, with Toto e i Tati, a small local band in Northern Italy. He soon branched out into songwriting.His talent for writing memorable songs earned him collaborations with famous French singers, like Joe Dassin, for whom he wrote “L’été Indien” and “Et si Tu N’Existais pas,” and Dalida, with whom he wrote the disco hit “Monday, Tuesday … Laissez-Moi Danser.” He also wrote songs for the French pop star Johnny Hallyday and for famed Italian singers like Domenico Modugno, Adriano Celentano, Gigliola Cinquetti and Ornella Vanoni. International stars like Celine Dion sang his songs as well.But Mr. Cutugno also found success singing his own compositions, first with Albatros, a disco band, which took third place at the Sanremo Festival of Italian Song in 1976. He then began a solo career and garnered his first national recognition in Italy in 1980, when he won the festival with “Solo Noi.”Mr. Cutugno in performance in Rome in 2002. “He was able to build melodies that remained stuck in the audience’s mind and heart,” his manager said.Fethi Belaid/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe returned to the festival three years later with “L’Italiano.” He finished in fifth place, but the song, a hymn to a country straining to rebuild after World War II — marked by symbols of Italy like espresso, the Fiat Seicento and a president who had fought as a partisan during the conflict — became tremendously popular. It is still one of Italy’s best-known songs, played on television and at street festivals across the country, as well as a nostalgic reminder of their homeland for expatriates elsewhere.The song’s success paved the way for an international career: Mr. Cutugno went on to tour over the years in the United States, Europe, Turkey and Russia.“Russia was his second homeland,” said Mr. Mancuso, his manager. “The only Western entertainment that Russian televisions broadcast at the time was the Sanremo song festival, and Toto was often on, and was appreciated.”He added that Mr. Cutugno’s nostalgic tunes were reminiscent of the musical styles of Eastern Europe, and especially Russia, which made them instantly familiar to those audiences.In 2019, Mr. Cutugno’s ties to Russia got him into trouble with some Ukrainian politicians, who wanted to stop him from performing in Kyiv, the nation’s capital. Mr. Cutugno denied that he supported Russia in its aggression against Ukraine and noted that he had rejected a booking in Crimea after Russia reclaimed it in 2014. He eventually did perform in Kyiv.In 1990, Mr. Cutugno won the Eurovision Song Contest. He was one of only three Italians to have done so — the others were Ms. Cinquetti in 1964 and the rock band Maneskin in 2021. His winning song, “Insieme: 1992” (“Together: 1992”), was a ballad dedicated to the European Union and its political integration. That same year, Ray Charles agreed to sing an English-language version of a song by Mr. Cutugno at the Sanremo festival; Mr. Cutugno called the collaboration “the greatest professional satisfaction” of his lifetime.Mr. Cutugno, who was known for his emotional guitar playing and for shaking his longish black hair when he sang, also had a stint as a television presenter in Italy.Toto Cutugno was born Salvatore Cutugno on July 7, 1943, in the small town of Tendola, near Fosdinovo, in the mountains of Italy’s northwest between the regions of Tuscany and Liguria. His father, Domenico Cutugno, was a Sicilian Navy marshal, and his mother, Olga Mariani, was a homemaker.He went to secondary school in the city of La Spezia, where he grew up, and took private music lessons that included piano and accordion.He is survived by his wife, Carla Cutugno; his son, Niko; and two younger siblings, Roberto and Rosanna Cutugno. More

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    John Eliot Gardiner, Famed Conductor, Accused of Hitting Singer

    John Eliot Gardiner was accused of lashing out backstage at a singer who had headed the wrong way off a podium during a performance of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens.”The appearance by the conductor John Eliot Gardiner leading the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in southeastern France this week was supposed to be a celebration: the start of a tour across Europe by one of classical music’s most revered maestros and his esteemed ensembles.Instead, Gardiner, 80, provoked an outcry when, on Tuesday evening, he was accused of hitting a singer in the face backstage after a concert performance of the first two acts of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens” at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André.Gardiner struck the singer, William Thomas, a bass, because he had headed the wrong way off the podium at the concert, according to a person who was granted anonymity to describe the incident because the person was not authorized to discuss it publicly.Thomas, a rising bass from England who was performing the role of Priam, did not appear to be seriously injured and was set to perform again on Wednesday evening. His representatives did not respond to requests for comment.Gardiner withdrew from the festival on Wednesday to return to London to see his doctor, said Nicholas Boyd-Vaughan, a spokesman for Intermusica, the agency that represents him. Gardiner was unavailable for comment, Boyd-Vaughan said.Gardiner — a father of the period-instrument movement and the founder of some of its most treasured ensembles, the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique — conducted at the coronation of King Charles III of Britain in May. In addition to making numerous recordings, many of which are considered classics, his 2013 book about Johann Sebastian Bach, “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven,” was well received by critics.The incident at “Les Troyens,” which was first reported by the classical music website Slippedisc, prompted criticism in the classical music industry, with some saying that Gardiner should face consequences. Gardiner and the ensembles still have four more planned stops on the tour, including at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, the Opéra Royal in Versailles, the Berliner Festspiele in Germany and the Proms, the BBC’s classical music festival, in England.“John Eliot Gardiner is still going to be allowed to conduct @bbcproms?” the mezzo-soprano Helena Cooke wrote on Wednesday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Are you joking?”The Proms said it was investigating. “We take allegations about inappropriate behavior seriously and are currently establishing the facts about the incident,” said George Chambers, a spokesman for the festival.Gardiner was replaced at the Festival Berlioz on Wednesday by Dinis Sousa, an associate conductor of the Monteverdi Choir, for a performance of the final acts of “Les Troyens.”Bruno Messina, the general and artistic director of the Festival Berlioz, said in a statement that he was “devastated by the incident,” which he did not describe or give details of, but that he felt it was important that Wednesday’s show go on. More

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    Popcast (Deluxe): A Shocking No. 1 Hit and Addison Rae’s New EP

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:“Rich Men North of Richmond,” the sudden No. 1 hit by Oliver Anthony Music, the recording alias of the roots-country singer Christopher Anthony Lunsford, which has become a culture war flashpoint and right-wing media cause célèbreThe release of “AR,” the first EP from the one-time TikTok star Addison Rae, and the way in which copycat pop might be the purest pop of all“In the Night,” the new song from DJ Sliink featuring SAFE and Bandmanrill“Namesake,” a new song from the Chicago rapper NonameSnacks of the weekConnect 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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    ‘Scrapper’ Review: You’re on Your Own, Kid

    In Charlotte Regan’s feature-length debut, a girl wise beyond her years reconnects with her father, an immature drifter.Charlotte Regan’s feature-length debut, “Scrapper,” is as whip-smart as the 12-year-old girl at its center. Georgie (played wonderfully by the newcomer Lola Campbell) lives alone in her apartment in London following the death of her mother, and spends her days stealing bicycles for money and playing hooky with her friend Ali (Alin Uzun).Through some clever voice mail trickery, she has convinced the inattentive adults in her life that she is being taken care of by her nonexistent uncle. That all changes when her estranged father, Jason (Harris Dickinson), shows up to the house to assume the role as Georgie’s primary caretaker — but not without some tension.“Scrapper” is tender without falling into sappiness. Regan doesn’t romanticize Georgie’s struggles with poverty, grief and bullying, which are accompanied by the film’s gritty sense of humor. At the same time, the film’s vivid cinematography, by Molly Manning Walker, fills the screen with symmetry and pastel colors; there’s a youthful energy to the way many of the scenes are shot, even as Georgie is trying to haggle her way into a better deal for a stolen bike.Through it all, Campbell and Dickinson portray a father-daughter relationship between a girl wise beyond her years and an immature drifter, meeting in the middle to form a rough-hewed yet sincere connection.ScrapperNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Retribution’ Review: Stay Out of the Car Pool Lane

    What mastermind keeps convincing Liam Neeson to make these tough-daddy thrillers?For 25 minutes, Nimrod Antal’s “Retribution” is a malevolently fun movie. A workaholic banker named Matt Turner (Liam Neeson) is chauffeuring his malcontent children to school when he answers a ring from an unknown caller who says the family’s luxury S.U.V. is rigged with a bomb. The villain demands obedience — or else.The first command: confiscate the kids’ phones. Talk about an impossible mission. “Are you psycho?” Matt’s teenage son (Jack Champion) snipes, barely looking up from the screen. Alas, as soon as the tykes behave, the tension evaporates.We’re left to wonder what mastermind keeps convincing Neeson to make these tough-daddy thrillers — and when will this genre escape its own tropes of sepia-tinted skies, italicized poster fonts and titles seemingly chosen by plopping a finger onto a page of the Old Testament?Antal and the screenwriter Chris Salmanpour have adapted the 2015 Spanish flick “El Desconocido” with a script that feels rewritten in all caps. In Neeson’s opening sequence — the only instance where we see him standing up — he squeezes in an impressive boxing workout before his boss (Matthew Modine) interrupts to call him both a “credit to capitalism” and something unprintable here. (Matt’s estranged wife, played by Embeth Davidtz, would agree with the latter.)It’s clear why these films need Neeson: He commits to every line like his life actually does depend on it. But gravitas alone can’t salvage the frustrating plot contrivances and ridiculous dialogue that make the characters sound dumber and dumber the more they explain their motivations. If you endure the shenanigans long enough to see the baddie reveal their identity with a preening taunt — “Surprise?” — you might, as I did, holler back, “No!”RetributionRated R for language and violence. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘BS High’ Review: Greed and Football

    A saga of high school football players taken advantage of by a dubious start-up is played for entertainment in this flawed documentary.In August 2021, the high school football powerhouse IMG Academy played a lesser-known team, Bishop Sycamore, in a game broadcast on ESPN. IMG won. The score was 58-0. That lopsided match precipitated a shocking revelation: Bishop Sycamore wasn’t a true high school. The tale is one of greed and grift. But “BS High,” a documentary about the saga, is too taken by the audacity of Roy Johnson, the founder of Bishop Sycamore, to critique his actions.The directors Martin Desmond Roe and Travon Free have gained unfettered access to Johnson to retrace the coach’s founding of a football academy ostensibly intended to help Black athletes succeed. At first, Johnson is depicted as an amusing, comically inept figure dodging unpaid hotel bills, buying groceries at bottom-market prices and concocting cons so egregious there are no laws against them. It’s all done with the goal of turning Bishop Sycamore into a recruitment hub for top-tier colleges.The questions Roe and Free volley at Johnson aren’t used to investigate his misdeeds, but rather played, through sharp cuts, as setups for punch lines. That method wears thin as these young players, in their own interviews, share the broken promises, shattered dreams and physical perils they endured. Ultimately, the film shifts full blame to what Johnson took advantage of: a larger system that exploits young athletes for big money and television ratings. But by repurposing the story in a way that seems geared for pure entertainment, “BS High” can come off as similarly exploitative.BS HighNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More