Aurelia Butler

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    Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: How an Unlikely Pair Soared Together

    The crooner and the pop star seemed like unlikely collaborators when they joined up in 2014. But the two masters of reinvention inspired and bolstered each other’s careers.It’s still one of the most impressive flexes I’ve ever seen a musician pull off live — and at the age of 88, no less.In 2015, during the third of four sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga were sharing a bill, promoting their chart-topping, cross-generational 2014 duets album, “Cheek to Cheek.” They had a light, snappy chemistry on the songs they sang together, but the best parts of the night were their solo sets, each inviting their respective fan bases — Bennett’s tasteful traditionalists and Gaga’s sartorially zany but spiritually sincere Little Monsters — into the other’s world.For most of the concert, they’d been playing with a full band and orchestra, but for one number during his own set, Bennett summoned a single guitarist to join him in the snug radius of a spotlight. He told us the song was dedicated to his “best friend, Frank Sinatra,” and launched into a velvety rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon,” holding the microphone down at his side rather than bringing it to his lips. A few lines in, he set the mic down atop a piano and sang the rest without any amplification at all. The entire venue was suspended in a hush stillness, and Bennett’s voice was so strong and clear that you could hear every crystalline note, every enunciated lyric, even in the cheap seats.It was spellbinding, and so quintessentially Tony Bennett: the unshowy elegance, the inevitable name-dropping and, above all, the ease with which he suddenly transformed from the rat-a-tat every-crooner into a phenomenally gifted belter who could project like an opera singer.In August 2021, while battling Alzheimer’s disease, Bennett, who died on Friday at 96, made his final public appearance on that very same stage, again with Lady Gaga. He once again demonstrated strength and resilience, this time by simply performing at all. A poignant “60 Minutes” segment captured Bennett’s struggles in rehearsals but his ultimate triumph when he took the stage. In run-throughs, Gaga said, “He called me ‘sweetheart.’ But I wasn’t sure he knew who I was.” She witnessed a startling transformation, though, anytime the band struck the opening notes of another song and Bennett began to sing.“When the music comes on, something happens to him,” she said. “He knows exactly what he’s doing.”Here was the final act of an unlikely collaboration that had changed the trajectory of each musician’s career. When Gaga first linked up with Bennett for “Cheek to Cheek,” some skeptics saw it as nothing more than a savvy distraction, a way for a wild pop instigator to rebrand as a throwback jazz singer in the wake of her first major flop, the overblown (if, in hindsight, somewhat underrated) 2013 album “Artpop.” But the gusto, reverence and musical intelligence she brought to her work with Bennett undoubtedly won her fans and respect from an older generation of listeners. As I was filing out of Radio City that night in 2015, I couldn’t keep track of how many people I’d heard muttering versions of, “I had no idea that Lady Gaga could actually sing!”Bennett was no stranger to cannily timed reinvention, either. He stormed MTV when he was in his late 60s, recording an “Unplugged” album that featured collaborations with Elvis Costello and K.D. Lang, and that eventually won him a Grammy for album of the year. He sang with more eclectic and, in some cases, even younger musicians on his series of “Duets” albums, from 2006 to 2012. He found a kindred spirit in Amy Winehouse, but their connection was short-lived. Their great rendition of “Body and Soul,” for “Duets II,” was the last thing she ever recorded. It was released as a single posthumously, on what would have been Winehouse’s 28th birthday.Gaga satisfied Bennett’s desire to stay active and involved with a younger generation of musicians, and her professional stability made her into the most committed of his duet partners. But Gaga has also said that Bennett’s mentorship “saved” her life. The then-octogenarian’s example allowed her to think beyond the successes or failures of the present moment, and to value a musical career’s longevity. “I was so sad. I couldn’t sleep. I felt dead,” Gaga said of the time before “Cheek to Cheek.” “And then I spent a lot of time with Tony. He wanted nothing but my friendship and my voice.”It’s not that their voices or energies always blended particularly well — Gaga brought an antsy theatricality to their collaborations, while Bennett’s voice seemed to get even more laid-back and free of artifice as he aged — but the mutual admiration they shared was genuine enough to open the minds of their respective audiences and generational cohorts. With their Grammy-winning 2021 album of Cole Porter covers, “Love for Sale,” Bennett seemed to be passing the baton to Gaga, deeming her capable of continuing his lifelong task of keeping the Great American Songbook alive. And Gaga, in turn, was telling her Little Monsters to do their homework and appreciate American popular music’s rich history.One of their last, and most bittersweet, moments of mutual respect came during that 2021 Radio City show, forever immortalized in a “60 Minutes” clip that has been making the rounds on social media on Friday. After weeks of calling her “sweetheart,” the name finally came back to him when they were — where else? — onstage. “Whoa!” Bennett cried, to his duet partner’s obvious delight. “Lady Gaga!” More

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    The Amiable, Unswerving Tony Bennett

    In an 80-year career, he stuck with one mission: illuminating songs he cherished.Has there ever been a more purely likable pop figure than Tony Bennett?Throughout a career that began in the 1940s, Bennett, who died on Friday at 96, maintained one mission, amiably and unswervingly. He didn’t chase trends; he didn’t get defensive, either. Instead, he let listeners — and, in recent decades, much younger duet partners — come to him, generation after generation. He welcomed them to a repertoire of songs he admired, knew intimately and was happy to share.Bennett sang vintage pop standards, the pre-rock canon sometimes called the Great American Songbook. They’re songs mostly about grown-up love, about courtship, yearning and fulfillment, with elegant rhymes and ingenious melodies that invite a little improvisation. He recorded with orchestras, with major jazz musicians, with big bands and, for more than 50 years, with the pianist and arranger Ralph Sharon and his trio. He was always unplugged — a simple fact that cannily recharged his career when he played “MTV Unplugged” in 1994.Bennett’s voice made the technical challenges of his songs evaporate. As a young man, he showed off his near-operatic range and dynamic control in early recordings like “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” from 1950. But he wasn’t an old-fashioned crooner; his sense of swing was just as strong. And he understood that pure virtuosity can keep listeners at a distance. He soon revealed a grain in his voice that made it earthy and approachable, downplaying his precision. Very often, there was a jovial savvy in his phrasing; he’d punch out a note ahead of the beat, as if he couldn’t wait to sing it.Bennett onstage at Carnegie Hall in 1976. His long career had its share of commercial ups and downs and transient record-company pressures.D. Gorton/The New York TimesThere was always an easy strength, a self-confident baritone underpinning, in his singing. When he had a big band behind him, he was easily brassy enough to hold his own. But he didn’t steamroller through his songs. He was ever attentive to lyrics. His signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” has two melodic peaks near the end. The first is on the line “When I come home”; he sustains “home” and tapers it off with longing in his vibrato, as if he’s feeling the distance. Soon afterward comes “Your golden sun will shine for me,” and he sings “sun” as if he knows he’ll be basking in it.Bennett’s long, long career had its share of commercial ups and downs and transient record-company pressures. As the 1960s ended, he was persuaded to record recent pop hits on the album “Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!,” though he maintained some dignity by putting lush orchestral arrangements behind songs like George Harrison’s “Something.”After changing labels — and, in the mid-1970s, starting his own short-lived but artistically rewarding label, Improv — Bennett returned to what he did best: singing standards with musicians who brought out their jazz possibilities. Two albums he made with the harmony-probing pianist Bill Evans — “The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album” (1975) and “Together Again” (1977), both just piano-and-voice duets — are luminous testaments to the way Bennett never took familiar songs for granted.He was 67 when he recorded “MTV Unplugged” with Sharon’s trio and a guest appearance by Elvis Costello. It was a shrewd and satisfying move; Bennett became pop’s cool grandpa. Rock-hating Grammy voters seized their chance to give him his second album of the year award (after “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”), and current rock and pop performers embraced the chance to sing with him and learn from him. Duet albums (with K.D. Lang, Diana Krall and Lady Gaga) and individual duet tracks (with, among many others, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Bono, Christina Aguilera, Queen Latifah and Amy Winehouse) made clear how admired, durable, companionable and game he was; even the awkward moments are endearing.In later years, as his voice lowered and thickened, Bennett used those qualities to bring out mature perspectives. The slow-motion version of Jerome Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight” that appears on the 2007 compilation, “Sings the American Songbook, Vol. 1,” is latter-day Bennett: a little raspy, a little tremulous and gloriously fond, an affirmation not only of “tonight” but of a longtime love. There’s a rueful chuckle as he sings, “That laugh that wrinkles your nose/Touches my foolish heart.” Those lyrics were written in 1936, and Bennett was still listening through every line, still getting closer to the song. More

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    Tony Bennett’s 10 Essential Songs

    Over a career of 70-plus years, the singer infused his performances with a huge range, dramatic flair, rhythmic agility and an inquisitive approach to interpreting lyrics.When Anthony Dominick Benedetto was growing up in Astoria, Queens, during the Depression, his parents couldn’t afford to pay for the singing lessons he wanted. But he had a good teacher close to home: his father, John Benedetto, an immigrant from southern Italy who loved the songs of the old country and sang them to his two sons on their front stoop.Anthony Benedetto later took the advice of the comedian Bob Hope and adopted the more Americanized stage name Tony Bennett. He enjoyed a long, prolific career until his death on Friday at 96, with plenty of ups and downs, 20 Grammys and an Emmy, in addition to being a Kennedy Center honoree and the first interpretive singer to receive the Gershwin Prize from the Library of Congress.Voice lessons, however long delayed, were important to his development. After he served in World War II, Bennett studied, thanks to the G.I. Bill, at the American Theater Wing school in Manhattan. When he was still singing in his 90s, he credited his bel canto training — an Italian vocal style that dates back to the 18th century and that emphasizes a light tone — for maintaining his instrument.Bennett was equally at home with romantic ballads and jazzy saloon songs, and whether he was singing Cole Porter or Stevie Wonder, he brought a huge range, dramatic flair, rhythmic agility and an inquisitive approach to interpreting lyrics. In 1965, Frank Sinatra told Life magazine, “For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.” He held on to that distinction for decades to follow.Here are 10 of his greatest songs.“The Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (1950)Bennett had been singing in Bob Hope’s live revue when he was signed to a contract by Mitch Miller, the pop-minded A&R chief at the venerable Columbia Records. In his first single for the label, it’s easy to hear what impressed Miller: Bennett cuts through the Spanish-inflected arrangement of this kitschy 1930s tango with an untethered expression of postwar bravado.“Strike Up the Band” (1959)Bennett was a big Count Basie fan, and he especially admired the Basie band’s surging use of dynamics, so he was well prepared for this session. His version of George and Ira Gershwin’s characteristically tricky “Strike Up the Band” lasts just over a minute and a half, but Billy Mitchell’s tenor sax solo is dazzling and it’s hard to name another singer who could navigate the band’s hard, swinging tempo with such élan.“I’m Thru With Love” (1961)Like Frank Sinatra before him, Bennett pushed back when Miller tried to steer him toward greater commerciality. Miller was “furious” and stormed out of the recording studio, Bennett later wrote, when the singer insisted on moving away from grand orchestral arrangements to record an album with only a pianist, his sympatico collaborator Ralph Sharon. The jazz standard “I’m Thru With Love” had previously been recorded by Bing Crosby, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, but Bennett optimized the song’s melancholy tone in this streamlined version.“The Best Is Yet to Come” (1962)The album-opening title song from “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” became Bennett’s signature hit, but it’s the jaunty closer that sounds fresher now. He snagged “The Best Is Yet to Come” from a flop Broadway musical called “All American,” and turned it into a standard: Sinatra covered it two years later, and Fitzgerald and Bob Dylan, among others, eventually followed. It remained a concert staple for years, and no song better exemplifies what the critic Mark Rowland once called Bennett’s “radiance of spirit.”“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (1967)Bennett considered Count Basie and Duke Ellington the two greatest bandleaders he’d ever heard, and with the great Milt Hinton on bass and the Basie regular Joe Newman on trumpet, he swings effortlessly and joyfully on this Ellington jazz standard. Bennett had something close to awe for great jazz musicians, which may be why he never claimed to be part of that tradition. “I’m not a jazz singer,” he often said. “I’m a singer who likes jazz.”“Something” (1971)Between 1951 and 1963, Bennett released 19 songs that reached the Top 20 of the Billboard singles chart. Then the Beatles came along and the hits stopped. The Columbia Records honcho Clive Davis pushed Bennett to cover modern pop hits, and on the day he began a new record a new record that included Beatles and Stevie Wonder songs, Bennett vomited, Davis recalled. The singer was a trouper, though; the “woo!” he interjects in the middle of George Harrison’s “Something” is almost convincing.“Some Other Time” (1975)Bennett had an affinity for pianists: Art Tatum was an enduring influence, he had a long partnership with Ralph Sharon, and he made one of his best albums with Bill Evans. Though he wasn’t a master of urban ennui on the level of Sinatra, Bennett does wring all the bittersweet rue out of this song, written by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green for the musical “On the Town,” by singing in parallel with Evans’s lyrical, prudent piano.“I Got Lost in Her Arms” (1986)For much of the ’70s, the toll of drugs, divorce, tax problems and depression wore Bennett down. Then his son Danny took over as his manager and engineered a return to Columbia Records. Maybe more significantly, Bennett reunited with Sharon and recorded his acclaimed comeback with just piano, bass, drums and an orchestra. His voice was now rougher, but especially on his version of Irving Berlin’s “I Got Lost in Her Arms,” he adjusted by infusing his lower register with savvy understatement.“When Do the Bells Ring for Me” (1990)Bennett loved the Great American Songbook, but eventually, a prolific singer runs out of pre-rock standards and needs to find slightly younger material. So Bennett was delighted when, in a restaurant one night, he heard the piano bar stalwart Charles DeForest perform a song he’d written, “When Do the Bells Ring for Me” It became a concert showcase for Bennett, thanks to its climactic high notes, and when he sang it at the Grammys in 1991, he got a standing ovation.“I Get a Kick Out of You” (2021)Biographically, Bennett couldn’t have had less in common with Cole Porter, a Midwesterner born to substantial privilege. But Porter’s giddy use of double and triple rhymes was perfect for Bennett’s rubato trickery, so his second album with Lady Gaga was a Porter-only affair, released five years after Bennett was given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. And let’s be honest, it’s a kick to hear a 95-year-old master sing, “Some, they may go for cocaine.” More

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    João Donato, Innovative Brazilian Musician, Is Dead at 88

    A prolific pianist, composer and arranger who began recording in the 1950s, he was a pioneer of bossa nova but didn’t confine himself to any genre.João Donato, a Brazilian composer, musician and producer who was a pioneer of bossa nova and who went on to cross-pollinate music across the Americas, died on Monday in Rio de Janeiro. He was 88.His death, in a hospital, was announced on his Instagram page. Brazilian news media reported that the cause was pneumonia.Mr. Donato was in the coterie of Rio de Janeiro musicians — among them Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and the guitarist Luiz Bonfá — who developed the subtle swing and harmonic sophistication of bossa nova in the mid-1950s.But Mr. Donato didn’t confine himself to any genre. In a recording career that extended from the 1950s into the current decade, he released some three dozen albums as a leader and collaborated with a wide range of artists on many more. Although he was best known as a keyboardist, he was also a singer, accordionist and trombonist.As a pianist, Mr. Donato was known for his blend of a frisky, restlessly syncopated, harmonically intricate left hand with relaxed, sure-footed right-hand melodies. As a composer, producer and arranger, he constantly — and playfully — fused and stretched idioms and production styles. He once said he had a “sweet tooth for funky ideas.”Mr. Donato played MPB (as Brazilian popular music is widely known; the letters stand for “música popular brasileira”), jazz, funk, salsa, American pop and pan-American hybrids that were entirely his own. He worked with generations of Brazilian musicians, including the singer and movie star Carmen Miranda; the singers Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento and Marisa Monte; and the rapper Marcelo D2.He also recorded with Eddie Palmieri, Michael Franks, Mongo Santamaría and Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest. Throughout his life, he sought new grooves.The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said on Twitter: “João Donato saw music in everything. He innovated, he passed through samba, bossa nova, jazz, forró, and in the mixture of rhythm built something unique. He kept creating and innovating until the end.”Mr. Donato’s debut album, released in 1956, was produced by Antonio Carlos Jobim, another innovator of bossa nova.João Donato de Oliveira Neto was born on Aug. 17, 1934, in Rio Branco, the capital of the state of Acre. He began playing accordion and writing songs as a child. In 1945, he moved with his family to Rio de Janeiro, where he began performing professionally in his teens.Mr. Donato began leading his own groups in the early 1950s while also working as a sideman. He played accordion on Luiz Bonfá’s first album, released in 1955, as part of a studio band that also included Antonio Carlos Jobim. Mr. Jobim produced Mr. Donato’s debut album, “Chá Dançante” (1956), and Mr. Donato wrote songs with João Gilberto, including “Minha Saudade,” which became a Brazilian standard.But by the end of the 1950s, Mr. Donato’s preferred style had grown so complex that audiences complained that they couldn’t dance to it, and he had difficulty finding work in Brazil. He accepted a job backing Carmen Miranda at a Lake Tahoe resort, and relocated to the United States.As the 1960s began, he was welcomed by Latin and jazz musicians. He recorded with Cal Tjader, Astrud Gilberto (who died in June), Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaría and Eddie Palmieri. (He played trombone in Mr. Palmieri’s La Perfecta, a brassy salsa band Mr. Palmieri called a “trombanga.”)The vibraphonist Dave Pike recorded an entire album of Mr. Donato’s compositions, “Bossa Nova Carnival,” in 1962, and the saxophonist Bud Shank put Mr. Donato in charge of his 1965 album, “Bud Shank & His Brazilian Friends.” “This is João Donato’s baby,” Mr. Shank wrote in the liner notes. “I’ve turned all the problems over to him and I just relax and play.”On his own albums for U.S. labels, Mr. Donato drew on jazz and Caribbean influences as well as Brazilian ones. His pivotal 1970 album, “A Bad Donato,” was a radical turn toward funk, merging Brazilian-rooted melodies and rhythms with electric keyboards and wah-wah guitars. The keyboardist and arranger Eumir Deodato, who worked with Mr. Donato on that album, went on to have a worldwide Brazilian funk hit with his version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001).”Mr. Donato’s album “A Bad Donato,” released in 1970, merged Brazilian-rooted melodies and rhythms with electric keyboards and wah-wah guitars. Mr. Donato returned to Brazil in 1973. There, a friend persuaded him to record songs with lyrics rather than solely instrumentals, including his own modest but earnest vocals. His tuneful, easygoing 1973 album, “Quem É Quem,” was not an immediate hit, but it has been widely praised over the years; in 2007, Brazilian Rolling Stone placed it among the 100 greatest Brazilian albums.Mr. Donato’s new lyricists included two of the leading figures in the determinedly eclectic Brazilian cultural movement known as tropicália: Caetano Veloso, who put Portuguese lyrics to “O Sapo” (“The Frog”) to turn it into “A Rã,” and Gilberto Gil, who supplied lyrics for many of the songs on Mr. Donato’s 1975 album, “Lugar Comum.” Mr. Donato also wrote songs with lyrics by his younger brother, Lysias Ênio Oliveira.For the next two decades, Mr. Donato recorded almost entirely as a sideman. The singer Gal Costa recorded “A Rã” for her 1974 album, “Cantar,” and hired Mr. Donato as an arranger and bandleader for that album and her subsequent tour.Mr. Donato also recorded extensively with important Brazilian musicians like Jorge Ben, João Bosco, Chico Buarque and Martinho da Vila. He continued to perform his own music and released a live album, “Leilíadas,” in 1986. But he didn’t return to making his own studio albums until “Coisas Tao Simples” (“Such Simple Things”), released in 1994, even as he continued to do session work with songwriters including Bebel Gilberto and Marisa Monte.The albums Mr. Donato made after resuming his solo career were unpredictable and diverse. Some returned to his bossa nova-jazz fusions; some featured singers, including Wanda Sá, Paula Morelenbaum, Maria Tita and Joyce. Others had titles reflecting Mr. Donato’s fondness for musical hybrids, like “Bluchanga” (2017) and “Sambolero” (2010), which won a Latin Grammy Award for best Latin jazz album. He also received a Latin Grammy for lifetime achievement in 2010.In 2017, Mr. Donato made an album of synthesizer-centered funk, “Sintetizamor,” with his son, João Donato, known professionally as Donatinho, who survives him. Other survivors include his wife, Ivone Belém, and his daughters, Jodel and Joana Donato. He lived in Rio de Janeiro.In 2021, Mr. Donato collaborated with Jazz Is Dead, the Los Angeles-based project of Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge, on the album “Jazz Is Dead 7.” In 2022 he released “Serotonina,” an easygoing pop-jazz album featuring his electric piano and clavinet.On Twitter, Mr. Veloso summed up Mr. Donato’s music admiringly. It was, he wrote, “the highest achievement of extreme complexity in extreme simplicity.”Ana Ionova More

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    The History of the Lynching Site Where Jason Aldean Filmed ‘Try That in a Small Town’

    Henry Choate, an 18-year-old Black man, was hanged outside the Maury County Courthouse in Tennessee in 1927 after he was falsely accused of attacking a white girl.The new video for the country singer Jason Aldean’s song “Try That in a Small Town” takes place outside a courthouse in Tennessee where, nearly a century ago, an 18-year-old Black man was attacked by a mob and lynched.Mr. Aldean was criticized after releasing the video, which included violent news footage of looting and unrest during protests in American cities. Country Music Television pulled the video this week after accusations surfaced on social media that its lyrics and message were offensive.“I think there is a lack of sensitivity using that courthouse as a prop,” said Cheryl L. Keyes, chair of the department of African American studies and a professor of ethnomusicology at U.C.L.A.The teenager who was lynched, Henry Choate, had traveled from his home in Coffee County, Tenn., where he worked in road construction, to visit his grandfather in nearby Maury County on Nov. 11, 1927 — Armistice Day, as it was known at the time, or Veterans Day today.While he was there, he was accused — falsely, historians now believe — of raping a 16-year-old white girl.According to an account in “Lynching and Frame-Up in Tennessee,” a book by Robert Minor that was published in 1946, the girl’s family called the county sheriff, who responded by rounding up a pack of bloodhounds to track down the girl’s attacker.Before the hounds arrived, however, a group of white people went to Mr. Choate’s grandfather’s house, “called out” Mr. Choate and took him to the girl, who did not identify him as her attacker, according to Mr. Minor’s book.Once the hounds were brought in, they were “given the scent” on a street called Hicks Lane, where the attack was alleged to have taken place. But the scent did not lead the dogs to Mr. Choate’s grandfather’s house.Instead, “the trail faded out in another direction,” Mr. Minor wrote, “and the girl again said she did not recognize Henry Choate as her assailant.”One man, however, announced that he had seen Mr. Choate returning to his grandfather’s home from the direction of Hicks Lane. Mr. Choate’s arms were tied with ropes and he was led away. Eventually, he was turned over to the sheriff, who arrested him.After Mr. Choate was brought to the jail, a cook there told him to pray because “the mob is coming to lynch you,” according to Mr. Minor’s book.The courthouse in Maury County, Tenn., in 1946.Associated Press“I know they are,” Mr. Choate said.According to Mr. Minor’s account, a mob of white men gathered outside the jail, demanding the keys. The sheriff’s wife, with whom the sheriff had left the keys, initially refused because she believed Mr. Choate was innocent, Mr. Minor wrote.The mob attempted to enter the jail twice, and failed, according to a contemporaneous account of the episode in The Tennessean.One member of the mob left and returned with a sledgehammer and began beating the jailhouse door with it, Mr. Minor wrote.Terrified that the mob would dynamite the jailhouse, the sheriff’s wife relented, and the first deputy sheriff unlocked the door. Mr. Choate was beaten with a sledgehammer and dragged out of the jail.The mob used a rope to tie him to the bumper of a car and dragged him to the Maury County courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., where they hanged him from a window, according to news reports.There were about 250 men in the mob, according to research from the University of North Carolina.Two pastors, two lawyers and James I. Finney, the editor of The Tennessean, had begged members of the mob to spare Mr. Choate’s life, but to no avail, the International News Service reported.Others denounced the actions of the mob.The executive committee of a body called the Tennessee Inter-Racial Commission later said in a statement that “all available information indicates that the sheriff of Maury County failed to meet his obligations as an officer,” The Tennessean reported a little over a week after the lynching.The Maury County sheriff, who was identified in news accounts at the time as Luther Wiley, said in a statement in the days after the lynching that he was honoring a promise.“I had an agreement with the mother, brothers and the little girl not to take the criminal away from our county, but to give him a speedy trial,” he said, according to a 1927 account in The Tennessean. “And I kept my promise steadfastly.”He added that he was “overpowered by all classes of weapons,” referring to members of the mob who had armed themselves with crowbars, sledgehammers and dynamite.Ultimately, a grand jury declined to indict anyone involved with the lynching, according to a wire article that was published in The Philadelphia Tribune in December 1927.As the details of Mr. Choate’s death resurfaced this week, Mr. Aldean responded on Twitter to the criticism of his music video by denying that he had released “a pro-lynching song.”“These references are not only meritless, but dangerous,” he wrote. “There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it — and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage — and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music — this one goes too far.”TackleBox Films, the company that produced the video, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Alain Delaquérière More

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    Bel Canto Rarities, Delivered With Unflashy, Revelatory Style

    Teatro Nuovo’s concerts of Donizetti’s “Poliuto” and the Ricci brothers’ “Crispino e la Comare” delight with historically informed singing.Opera fandom is often built around a preoccupation — zealous, territorial, absolute — with distinctive voices. Maria Callas, Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Luciano Pavarotti — they’re all immediately identifiable by timbre alone. Not coincidentally, all of these singers have been major recording artists.Teatro Nuovo, the brainchild of the bel canto specialist Will Crutchfield, inverts that value system. It asks: What would happen if all of the singers onstage shared a particular school of singing and even a certain vocal quality?In semi-staged concerts of Donizetti’s “Poliuto” and Federico and Luigi Ricci’s “Crispino e la Comare” at the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center on Wednesday and Thursday, Teatro Nuovo found manifold beauties in a brand of homogeneity that aims to reconstruct bel canto style from historical sources that predate the mid-20th-century revival and its recording stars.The singers in the two casts largely shared a vocal profile and style — a trim yet colorful sound with a quick, understated vibrato and an emphasis on legato, portamento and unaspirated coloratura. They eschewed abrupt pivots in color and dynamics. And, unconstrained by the need to project over a modern orchestra in a vast hall, they rarely pushed their voices for volume, size or drama, choosing instead an unforced, even emission of sound.Teatro Nuovo’s ingenious use of projections leveraged historical set designs — the Metropolitan Opera’s 1919 production of “Crispino” and the 1840 premiere of the French version of “Poliuto” — as backdrops for each concert. It was a quick, cost-effective way to add theatrical context.Donizetti completed “Poliuto” in 1838, having already composed the operas that would make him immortal: “L’Elisir d’Amore,” “Lucia di Lammermoor” and the so-called Tudor trilogy. In its extensive recitatives, unhurried melodic elaboration and dramatic silences you can hear his well-earned confidence. After “Poliuto” riled censors in Naples for its depiction of a Christian martyr, Donizetti refashioned it in French. But the original Italian version gained a hold after his death.The tenor Santiago Ballerini embodied the virtues of Teatro Nuovo’s house style in Donizetti’s “Poliuto.”Steven PisanoAs Poliuto, Santiago Ballerini embodied the virtues of Teatro Nuovo’s house style with a pretty, graciously produced tenor capable of reaching dramatic heights. The baritone Ricardo José Rivera, as his rival Severo, had the evening’s richest instrument — powerful yet capable of softness. As Poliuto’s wife, the soprano Chelsea Lehnea dug into Paolina’s conflicting emotions with a mercurially colored, highly responsive instrument that flew seamlessly through its registers, even if some of her choices felt exaggerated. Hans Tashjian (Callistene), with a somewhat hollow bass, was hard to hear.If “Poliuto” is a prestige drama by a generational talent, one who was stretching a genre and challenging convention, then “Crispino e la Comare” is a network sitcom by a pair of brothers with a nose for diverting entertainment. Everyday character types — a down-and-out blue-collar cobbler and the smug doctors he outsmarts — are harmlessly yet incisively mocked. The score foregrounds a font of melodies over spare, efficient accompaniments; no one would mistake it for the sparkling sophistication of Rossini or Donizetti, but it has its charms.In the Riccis’ fantastical satire, a fairy godmother grants the cobbler Crispino the ability to predict whether patients will live or die, turning him into Venice’s top doctor, much to the chagrin of medical professionals. As Crispino’s self-pity — even the chorus tells him to shut up already — morphs into self-regard, he alienates everyone, including his wife, until the fairy teaches him a lesson with a quick trip to the underworld.Mattia Venni was a sensational Crispino — his handsome baritone and capacity for self-parody allowed him to evolve from the melodramatic sobs of an almost-suicide scene to the complacent patter of success. As Crispino’s wife, the soprano Teresa Castillo sang her spirited, flirty showpieces mellifluously. The mezzo-soprano Liz Culpepper’s fairy godmother, all chesty low notes and wry amusement, felt like an ancestor of Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s “Falstaff.” Dorian McCall, with his rich lows and light snobbery, and Vincent Graña, with his rubber-voiced comedic stylings, cut up as Crispino’s rivals.Venni and Liz Culpepper in “Crispino.” The backdrop projection is from the Metropolitan Opera’s 1919 production of the opera.Steven PisanoTeatro Nuovo’s period-style orchestra astonished again and again. The instruments don’t have the invincible brilliance of their modern counterparts. But something more personal, even intimate, comes across in the woody bassoons, earthy cellos, translucent violins and ravishingly rangy clarinet. Period instruments can be temperamental, but the players didn’t sacrifice tuning or polish.The orchestra’s almost musky timbre made it a versatile collaborator. In the concertato at the end of Act II of “Poliuto,” it complemented rather than competed with the singers, with transparent textures that allowed the mildly lustrous voices to come through. In “Crispino,” its rough-hewn energy gave it a sincere, good-humored quality.In the Donizetti, Jakob Lehmann, who both played violin and conducted with his bow, relished accelerating the tempo of concluding allegros and guided the music with such subtlety that even staccatos had shape to them. The maestro al cembalo Jonathan Brandani effectively conducted “Crispino” from the keyboard and let the bass and cello lead in recitatives.In a few brief seasons, Teatro Nuovo has staked out a singular place for itself by marrying the thrill of discovery with a shared sense of purpose. More

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    Barbenheimer: The Unofficial Playlist

    10 songs marked by aesthetic contrasts for the movies’ big opening weekend.Are you a Barbie girl in the Oppenheimer world?Universal Pictures, Warner Bros.Dear listeners,A long awaited day has finally arrived: the cinematic collision of matter and antimatter represented by the two biggest and perhaps most thematically divergent summer blockbusters opening on the same date. To all who celebrate, a very happy Barbenheimer to you.The conversation around “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” runs the risk of relying on lazy stereotypes about gender essentialism and taste: men are from Mars, and women are from Venus; “Oppenheimer” is for boys, and “Barbie” is for girls. But what I find so amusing about a lot of the “Barbenheimer” memes is the way they also subtly make fun of those assumptions and treat the idea of “masculine” and “feminine” aesthetics as something more artificial, interchangeable and downright laughable than they might at first appear to be.I admit that the Barbenheimer memes are still making me laugh. (Well, the good ones.) Even the jokes about how ridiculously overdone the Barbenheimer memes are at this point are making me laugh. I wanted to make my own contribution. So, behold — Barbenheimer: The Playlist.Sometimes a good playlist is all about cohesion and tonal similarity. But when compiling a collection of songs, I also love playing around with aesthetic contrasts — the wilder, the better. And I definitely went a little wild on this one.Yes, this playlist segues one of Leonard Cohen’s most depressing songs ever into Natasha Bedingfield’s feel-good mid-aughts radio hit “Unwritten.” It also follows a Nine Inch Nails song with a fake pop song that interpolates (a generous word in this context) that same Nine Inch Nails song. One thing it does not contain is “Barbie Girl.” Even I know my limits.But for all its zany juxtaposition, I hope you find something to enjoy in each of this playlist’s extremes. We all contain multitudes — in each of us, an inner “Barbie” and an inner “Oppenheimer.” Here’s a soundtrack to satisfy of both them.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Dolly Mixture: “Baby It’s You”The Shirelles were the first group to record the sweetly swooning “Baby It’s You” — written by Burt Bacharach, Luther Dixon and Mack David — a hit, but I love the driving tempo of this version from 1980, by the underrated British post-punk band Dolly Mixture. (Get it? Dolly?) (Listen on YouTube)2. Nine Inch Nails: “Head Like a Hole”Trent Reznor’s recording career began with a gnashing roar, as this pummeling track kicked off Nine Inch Nails’ 1989 debut album “Pretty Hate Machine.” The chorus sounds like someone upending an entire drawer of cutlery, and it still absolutely and unequivocally rules. RIP J. Robert Oppenheimer; you would have loved Nine Inch Nails. Maybe. (Listen on YouTube)3. Ashley O: “On a Roll”In a 2019 episode of the sci-fi anthology show “Black Mirror,” Miley Cyrus played Ashley O, a fictitious pop star with a Barbie-pink bob and a creepy holographic alter ego. One of Ashley O’s hits, hilariously, interpolates “Head Like a Hole” and changes its most brutal lyrics to empty, #girlboss-worthy slogans: “I’m on a roll, riding so high, achieving my goals.” (Reznor, a fan of the show, approved the use of his music, including a rework of “Hurt” called “Flirt,” which, tragically, did not make the episode.) “On a Roll” is so dystopian and absurd that it is legitimately enjoyable — or at least catchier than anything heard on “The Idol.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Mclusky: “To Hell With Good Intentions”“And we’re all going straight to hell!” yells Andrew Falkous, from the middle of an inferno of guitar noise, on this propulsive and darkly funny single from the Welsh rock band’s beloved 2002 album “Mclusky Do Dallas.” (Listen on YouTube)5. Hannah Diamond: “Every Night”Excessively sugary, synthetically glossy and slightly uncanny, “Every Night,” from 2014, sounds as though it were written and performed by an AI program schooled on ’90s Jock Jams and Max Martin hits. But it’s actually the work of Hannah Diamond, the British musician and visual artist who has worked with the experimental pop collective PC Music. (Her recent single, “Affirmations,” has a slight Ashley O vibe about it, too.) (Listen on YouTube)6. Leonard Cohen: “Avalanche”The morose opening track of Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate,” from 1971, “Avalanche” is … definitely one of the songs of hate. (Listen on YouTube)7. Natasha Bedingfield: “Unwritten”If ever a CW coming-of-age dramadey is made about my life (it won’t be), I feel this should be the theme song. Curse “The Hills” for getting there first. (Listen on YouTube)8. Lou Reed: “Waves of Fear”Here’s Lou Reed doing his best Danzig, from his 1982 solo album “The Blue Mask” — one of the middle-period gems buried in his vast discography. The song is both cartoonishly macabre and a very convincing evocation of an anxiety attack: “Waves of fear, pulsing with death/I curse my tremors, I jump at my own step.” (Listen on YouTube)9. Sophie: “Immaterial”The great electronic performer and producer Sophie, who died in 2021, looks beyond the limitations of the material world and reaches for something transcendent and liberatory on this swirling pop fantasy. It’s from her first and only full-length album, “Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides,” from 2018. (Listen on YouTube)10. The Gap Band: “You Dropped a Bomb on Me”This is the way this playlist ends. Not with a whimper, but with a jam. (Listen on YouTube)I’ve got more songs than a song convention,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Barbenheimer: The Unofficial Playlist” track listTrack 1: Dolly Mixture, “Baby It’s You”Track 2: Nine Inch Nails, “Head Like a Hole”Track 3: Ashley O, “On a Roll”Track 4: Mclusky, “To Hell With Good Intentions”Track 5: Hannah Diamond, “Every Night”Track 6: Leonard Cohen, “Avalanche”Track 7: Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten”Track 8: Lou Reed, “Waves of Fear”Track 9: Sophie, “Immaterial”Track 10: The Gap Band, “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” More

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    Who’s Who in ‘Oppenheimer’: A Guide to the Real People

    Christopher Nolan’s complex drama depicts the development of the nuclear bomb and midcentury political machinations. Here’s the back story.The premise of “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic, is straightforward: tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist known as the “father of the atomic bomb.” But, as with the director’s other movies, the execution is far from simple. The film skips between time periods, and it features a dizzying array of scientists, politicians and possible Communist agents amid a series of government hearings.Here’s a guide to help you keep track of the real-life characters and events of the movie.J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy)The American theoretical physicist (played by Cillian Murphy) spearheaded the development of the atomic bomb through the Manhattan Project.Born in New York City in 1904, Oppenheimer spent his undergraduate years at Harvard before moving to Cambridge, England, for graduate work in physics. There, he grew frustrated with his tutor’s insistence that he focus on lab work instead of theory and is reported to have given the man, Patrick Blackett, a poisoned apple. The tutor never ate the apple, but university officials placed him on probation. That said, the episode is the subject of conflicting stories.After receiving his doctorate in physics at a German university, Oppenheimer accepted professorships at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology, helping to pioneer work in an American school of theoretical physics.With World War II well underway, Oppenheimer was appointed director of Los Alamos, part of the mammoth effort to develop the bomb. Having fallen in love with New Mexico when he was sent there as a boy to recover from dysentery, he established a secret lab in the desert of Los Alamos, N.M., coordinating efforts by top physicists and engineers that culminated in the first nuclear explosion, at Alamogordo on July 16, 1945, known as the Trinity test.He later directed the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent center for theoretical research, in Princeton, N.J., and became chairman of the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission.Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr.)Robert Downey Jr. plays the man who campaigned to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures, via Associated PressOppenheimer’s primary antagonist in the film, Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and a leader of the campaign to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance.Born in West Virginia, he worked variously as a traveling shoe salesman, an investment bank partner and a bureaucrat helping the future president Herbert Hoover’s Food Administration during World War I. After World War II, President Harry S. Truman appointed Strauss to the Atomic Energy Commission and he became its chairman, pushing for the development of the hydrogen bomb. Strauss later served as acting secretary of commerce under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but his nomination was rejected by the Senate, in part because of the scientific community’s outrage over his treatment of Oppenheimer.Jean Tatlock (played by Florence Pugh)An active member of the Bay Area’s Communist Party, Tatlock (Florence Pugh) was a graduate student at Stanford Medical School when she began dating Oppenheimer in 1936. She helped introduce him to Communist activists, fueling his left-leaning sympathies. She ended her relationship with Oppenheimer in 1939, even as he continued to visit her. Their last meeting, in June 1943, was surveilled by F.B.I. agents. In 1944, the 29-year-old Tatlock was found dead in her bathroom. Most historians conclude she died by suicide.William Borden (played by David Dastmalchian)Born in 1920 in Washington, D.C., Borden (David Dastmalchian) had degrees from Yale and Yale Law. He eventually worked as legislative secretary for a Connecticut senator, Brien McMahon, and became staff director of the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in 1949.In 1953, most likely with the encouragement of Strauss, he sent a letter to the F.B.I. director, J. Edgar Hoover, suggesting that “more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union.” This was the catalyst for a closed-door hearing about Oppenheimer’s Communist ties — depicted in the film — and the eventual revocation of his security clearance.Ernest Lawrence (played by Josh Hartnett)A Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Lawrence (Josh Hartnett) was born in 1901 in South Dakota. He earned a doctorate in physics from Yale and became a professor of physics at U.C. Berkeley, where he invented the cyclotron, a particle accelerator that was instrumental to the development of the atomic bomb. It was Lawrence who helped introduce Oppenheimer to the Manhattan Project. After the war, he advocated for the development of hydrogen nuclear weapons.Edward Teller (played by Benny Safdie)Benny Safdie as the physicist Edward Teller, who testified against Oppenheimer.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures, via Associated PressBorn in Budapest, Teller (Benny Safdie) earned his physics doctorate in Germany and was later offered a professorship at George Washington University, becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1941. Known for his research into nuclear energy, he joined Oppenheimer’s team at Los Alamos, where he worked in the theoretical physics division.Teller was obsessed with hydrogen energy and the development of a hydrogen bomb, which led him to butt heads with other members of the Manhattan Project. After the Soviet Union tested an atomic weapon in 1949, Teller became a primary proponent of developing hydrogen bombs to gain leverage in the Cold War.He later testified against Oppenheimer in the closed-door hearing, saying, “I feel I would prefer to see the vital interests of this country in hands that I understand better and therefore trust more.”Did Oppenheimer really meet Einstein?Yes, they were colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Study. “Though I knew Einstein for two or three decades, it was only in the last decade of his life that we were close colleagues and something of friends,” Oppenheimer wrote in The New York Review of Books in 1966.However, Nolan has admitted that he made up a key scene between the two: At one point, Oppenheimer goes to the taciturn Einstein for advice on calculations by the Los Alamos team, which showed that the Trinity test could be contained and wouldn’t blow up the world.“It wasn’t Einstein who Oppenheimer went to consult about it,” Nolan said in a recent interview. “It was Arthur Compton, who directed an outpost of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago. But I shifted that to Einstein.”What are the two hearings featured in the film?Cillian Murphy, center, as Oppenheimer. Black-and-white scenes follow 1959 Senate hearings on the nomination of Lewis Strauss for commerce secretary. Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal PicturesThe film revolves around two committee hearings — one, in 1954, depicted in color and the other, in 1959, in black and white.The first was a four-week secret meeting in which the Atomic Energy Commission deliberated on whether to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Amid a scare about Soviet technological advances, Oppenheimer’s possible links to left-wing causes had come under scrutiny, and Borden’s letter to Hoover provided the tipping point. When the commission chairman, Strauss, informed Oppenheimer that his security clearance had been suspended, Oppenheimer refused to resign and demanded a hearing from the commission’s Personnel Security Board.That hearing was one-sided from the beginning, with Oppenheimer’s lawyers barred from accessing confidential materials, while the commission’s prosecuting attorney had access to hundreds of wiretap recordings. Ultimately, the three-person board decided that Oppenheimer was a loyal citizen but that his security clearance should be rescinded.In 1959, the Senate held a hearing on Strauss’s nomination for commerce secretary, a heated process that Time magazine called “U.S. history’s bitterest battle over confirmation of a presidential nomination.” The nomination was rejected, in a 49-to-46 vote.What ultimately happened to Oppenheimer?After losing his security clearance, Oppenheimer continued to teach and conduct research with the support of many in the scientific community, who saw him as a martyr. In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson granted him the Enrico Fermi Award, which honors lifetime achievements in energy science.In 1966, he retired from the Institute for Advanced Study and died from throat cancer the next year.In December 2022, a few days after a trailer for “Oppenheimer” was released, Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm nullified the 1954 decision to revoke Oppenheimer’s clearance. She cited a “flawed process” that violated the Atomic Energy Commission’s own regulations.“More evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to,” Granholm said, “while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed.” More