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      Readers Pick Their Song of the Summer

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      You sent in an eclectic mix of tracks from Chappell Roan, Bad Bunny, Lawrence and more.A lot of you got into Chappell Roan this summer.Chona Kasinger for The New York TimesDear listeners,A few weeks ago, I asked you to share your 2024 song of the summer. Not necessarily your favorite of the pop smashes that defined the balmiest months of this year — because I’ve already compiled a playlist of those — but the song that served as your personal soundtrack to the season. The song that will conjure a montaged rush of summer of ’24 memories when you hear it years from now.As usual, Amplifier readers delivered, sending me an eclectic mix of songs and some of your lively personal stories.Over and over, it occurred to me while reading your submissions that a song of the summer does not need to be the kind of frothily fun, carefree tune that we usually associate with that phrase. Sure, there are quite a few tracks on this playlist that fit the bill, from artists like the New York-bred sibling duo Lawrence, the ’60s pop singer Keith and the French icon Zizi Jeanmaire. But quite a few of you recommended more subdued songs that had inspired reflection (like a ballad from Zach Bryan’s latest album) or that provided the soundtrack to a challenging moment (like one reader’s selection of a Mississippi John Hurt classic).I wish I could have selected every single song you submitted — but that would have been a very, very long playlist. It was difficult to pare it down to just 13 tracks, but these selections reflect the range of what you recommended: Some new and some old, some familiar and some so obscure I’d never even heard of them. Thanks to each and every one of you who shared your song and your story.Also, reading through these submissions gave me concrete proof of something I’d suspected: A lot of you got into Chappell Roan this summer. Femininomenon indeed.Ouch! Mi corazón,LindsayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For Some Sex Assault Accusers, This Local Law Has Become a Last Resort

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      The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.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 N.Y. Law That Underpins Several Lawsuits Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.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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      Facing Criticism After Striking Singer, a Maestro Forms New Ensembles

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      John Eliot Gardiner, who hit a singer during a tour in France last year, said he was starting a new choir and orchestra.The renowned conductor John Eliot Gardiner, who has faced widespread criticism since he struck a singer during a tour in France last year, announced on Monday that he had formed a new choir and orchestra as he attempts a comeback on the global stage.Gardiner said his new ensembles, the Constellation Choir and the Constellation Orchestra, would be made up of prominent musicians and singers from across Europe and would embark on a tour in December with stops in Germany, France, Austria and Luxembourg.“More than anything else,” Gardiner said in a statement, “I am so excited and grateful to be working with such exceptional musicians once again, not forgetting the important lessons I have learned and needed to learn from the past year.”Gardiner, 81, a major figure in classical music, is known for founding three acclaimed period ensembles over the past six decades: the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. He has released celebrated recordings, written a book about Bach and conducted at the coronation of King Charles III of Britain.But since the incident in France, he has largely been absent from the global stage. In July, the board of the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras, the nonprofit that oversees the three ensembles, said it had decided that Gardiner would not return to the organization. (Gardiner has sought to frame that decision as his own.)Gardiner struck the singer, William Thomas, a rising bass from England, on the face last year after a performance of the first two acts of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens” at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-St.-André. He was apparently upset that Thomas had headed the wrong way off the podium at the concert, people at the festival said at the time.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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      Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Country Album Snubbed by CMA Awards

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      The country-plus-everything-else album was given only limited promotion on country radio, with the success of the song “Texas Hold ’Em” driven by streaming and downloads.When the Country Music Association announced the nominations for its 58th CMA Awards on Monday, there were plenty of expected names.Morgan Wallen, the pop-country superstar who has been a streaming phenomenon, led the pack with seven nods, including for the top honor, entertainer of the year. Cody Johnson and Chris Stapleton, two Stetson-wearing stalwarts, had five nominations apiece, and Lainey Wilson, a rising star in song and style, and Post Malone, the rap-rock-folkie who made a pivot to country this year, each got four.But there was a conspicuous absence: Beyoncé, whose country-plus-everything-else album “Cowboy Carter” took the music world by storm this spring, with her song “Texas Hold ’Em” going to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. The album — with a cover picturing Beyoncé as a red-white-and-blue rodeo queen, riding a horse sidesaddle and hoisting an American flag — was a cultural phenomenon, stirring debates and extensive news media coverage about the historical role of African Americans in country music and their continuing struggles to be accepted by the Nashville establishment.A Beyoncé fan account quickly protested on X: “The CMA’s have once again deferred to those in the industry who prefer to deny Black artists the recognition they deserve.”But the snub was not unexpected. Eight years ago, Beyoncé got a cool reception at the 2016 CMAs when she performed her song “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks (then still known as the Dixie Chicks). That experience apparently played a role in Beyoncé’s decision to make a country album, with the star saying that “Cowboy Carter” was “born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed … and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive.”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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      Kendrick Lamar to Headline 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show

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      The rapper, who’s had a big year thanks to a beef with Drake that led to the smash song “Not Like Us,” will perform in New Orleans in February.Kendrick Lamar will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show next February in New Orleans, the National Football League, Roc Nation and Apple Music announced on Sunday. It is the second time that the rapper, from Compton, Calif., will take part in the event, but will be his first as the headline act.The booking comes amid a busy year for the rapper. Earlier this spring, Lamar and Drake traded bars in a high-profile beef, which resulted in Lamar’s hit song “Not Like Us.”“Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date,” Lamar said in a statement. “And I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got the right one.”The league announced Lamar as the performer after the rapper posted a short video on social media set on a football field with a giant American flag as a backdrop during the opening Sunday of its season, when the majority of its teams will play their games.Lamar last performed on the Super Bowl stage in 2022, as part of the event’s first showcase for hip-hop music, led by the West Coast superstars Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, as well as Eminem, 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige.“Kendrick Lamar is truly a once-in-a-generation artist and performer,” Jay-Z, the founder of Roc Nation, said in a statement. “His deep love for hip-hop and culture informs his artistic vision. He has an unparalleled ability to define and influence culture globally. Kendrick’s work transcends music, and his impact will be felt for years to come.”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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      Isaiah Collier Funnels a ‘Very Radical Time’ Into a Vivid New Album

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      Before Isaiah Collier went into the studio to record his new album, the saxophonist and composer sent his fellow musicians a playlist of sorts. Instead of songs, it contained news clips chronicling racially motivated violence targeting Black men and women — including the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery and the 2023 shooting of the Kansas City, Mo., teenager Ralph Yarl — as well as the protests that followed. Collier wanted the LP to be an “observation log” of the past four years, and he was reminding the members of his band, the Chosen Few, exactly where the music had sprung from.“It’s one thing to hear people who write their inspirations,” Collier, 26, explained on a recent video call from his hometown, Chicago. “It’s another thing for you to be in real time, and knowing that this is really coming from an actual tangible and concrete place.”To make that context clear for listeners, Collier wove broadcast news excerpts into the finished album, “The World Is on Fire,” out Oct. 18. The aesthetic choice plays out powerfully on tracks like one named after Arbery, which opens with a CBS report blended with a somber chord progression from the pianist Julian Davis Reid. Later in the piece, police sirens wail in the background as Collier’s alto solo reaches a torrential climax, backed by the drummer Michael Shekwoaga Ode’s seismic rolls and cymbal crashes.Along with his musical upbringing, Isaiah Collier learned about the perils of racism early on.Lyndon French for The New York Times“This is why this song carries this type of weight,” Collier said. “The air that you feel around it — it’s real.”Much of the record, which finds Collier most often playing tenor, surges ahead with an irrepressible momentum that harks back to John Coltrane’s classic 1960s quartet. Like another album Collier released this year with the Chosen Few, “The Almighty” — which juxtaposes turbulent workouts and meditative interludes in the mode of Pharoah Sanders’s late 1960s and early ’70s masterpieces — “The World Is on Fire” boasts the grit and conviction that have helped Collier stand out in an increasingly crowded field of younger artists engaging with the tradition of so-called spiritual jazz.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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      Dan Morgenstern, Chronicler and Friend of Jazz, Dies at 94

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      He wrote prolifically about the music and played an important role in documenting its history, especially in his many years with the Institute of Jazz Studies.Dan Morgenstern, a revered jazz journalist, teacher and historian and one of the last jazz scholars to have known the giants of jazz he wrote about as both a friend and a chronicler, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 94.His son Josh said his death, in a hospital, was caused by heart failure.Mr. Morgenstern was a jazz writer uniquely embraced by jazz musicians — a nonmusician who captured their sounds in unpretentious prose, amplified with sweeping and encyclopedic historical context.He was known for his low-key manner and humility, but his accomplishments as a jazz scholar were larger than life.He contributed thousands of articles to magazines, newspapers and journals, and he served the venerable Metronome magazine as its last editor in chief and Jazz magazine (later Jazz & Pop) as its first. He reviewed live jazz for The New York Post and records for The Chicago Sun-Times, as well as publishing 148 record reviews while an editor at DownBeat, including a stint from 1967 to 1973 as the magazine’s chief editor.His incisive liner-note essays won eight Grammy Awards. He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2007 and received three Deems Taylor Awards for excellence in music writing from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, two of them for his books “Jazz People” (1976) and “Living With Jazz” (2004). He was involved — as a writer, adviser, music consultant and occasional onscreen authority — in more than a dozen jazz documentaries. Most decisively, he served from 1976 to 2011 as the director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University-Newark, elevating the institute into the largest repository of jazz documents, recordings and memorabilia in the world.“I don’t like the word ‘critic’ very much,” Mr. Morgenstern often maintained. “I look at myself more as an advocate for the music than as a critic,” he wrote in “Living With Jazz.” “My most enthusiastic early readers were my musician friends, and one thing led to another. What has served me best, I hope, is that I learned about the music not from books but from the people who created it.”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