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      David LaFlamme, Whose ‘White Bird’ Captured a 1960s Dream, Dies at 82

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      As a founder of the San Francisco band It’s a Beautiful Day, he was at the center, if not in the forefront, of the Haight-Ashbury acid-rock explosion.David LaFlamme, who infused the psychedelic rock of the 1960s with the plaintive sounds of an electric violin as a founder of It’s a Beautiful Day, the ethereal San Francisco band whose breakout hit, “White Bird,” encapsulated the hippie-era longing for freedom, died on Aug. 6 in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 82.His daughter Kira LaFlamme said the cause of his death, at a health care facility, was complications of Parkinson’s disease.Mr. LaFlamme had seemed an unlikely fit for the role of flower-power troubadour. He was a classically trained violinist who had performed with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. He was an Army veteran. “When I was a young man, I carried my M-1 very proudly and was ready to do my duty to defend my country,” he said in a 2007 video interview.But the times were the times, and in 1967, the year of the Summer of Love, he and his wife, Linda, a keyboardist, formed It’s a Beautiful Day. The band bubbled up from the acid-rock cauldron of the Haight-Ashbury district, which also produced the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and other groups.The band never found the commercial success of its hallowed San Francisco contemporaries. Its debut album, called simply “It’s a Beautiful Day” and released in 1969, climbed to No. 47 on the Billboard chart. “White Bird,” sung by Mr. LaFlamme and Pattie Santos, did not manage to crack the Hot 100 singles chart, perhaps in part because of its running time: more than six minutes, twice the length of most AM radio hits.Even so, the song became an FM radio staple, and an artifact of its cultural moment.The LaFlammes wrote the song in 1967, when they were living in the attic of a Victorian house during a brief relocation to Seattle. The lyrics took shape on a drizzly winter day as they peered out a window at leaves blowing on the street below.White birdIn a golden cageOn a winter’s dayIn the rain“We were like caged birds in that attic,” Mr. LaFlamme recalled. “We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable.”He later said the song, with its references to darkened skies and rage, was about the struggle between freedom and conformity. In an email, Linda LaFlamme said that she considered it a song of hope, and that the only rage they had felt was about the Seattle weather.Still, the song, with its pleading chorus, “White bird must fly, or she will die,” seemed to echo the mounting disillusionment of 1969, as marmalade skies turned into storm clouds with the realities of drug addiction and social turmoil, as epitomized by the bloodshed at the Altamont rock festival that year.“It was a very solemn period of music on that first album,” Mr. LaFlamme said in a 2003 interview published on the music website Exposé.“If I would have kept going that way,” he added, “I would have ended up like Jim Morrison, getting more and more into that personal torture trip.”It’s a Beautiful Day’s debut album, released in 1969, reached No. 47 on the Billboard chart. But the band never found a fraction of the commercial success of some of its fellow San Francisco bands.Columbia recordsDavid Gordon LaFlamme was born on May 4, 1941, in New Britain, Conn., the first of six children of Adelard and Norma (Winther) LaFlamme. He spent his early years in Los Angeles, where his father was a Hollywood stunt double, before settling in Salt Lake City, where his father became a copper miner.David was about 5 when he got his first violin, a hand-me-down from an aunt.“I began fooling around with it on my own and taught myself to play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’” he said in a 1998 interview. Formal training followed.After joining the Army — he was stationed at Fort Ord, near Monterey, Calif. — he suffered hearing damage from the firing of deafening ordnance. He ended up in a military hospital in San Francisco, then put down roots in the city after his discharge in 1962.He found lodging in the same house as his future wife, Linda Rudman. “By the second day that I was there, she and I had already written a song together,” he said.In 1967, Mr. LaFlamme formed a band called Electric Chamber Orkustra, also known as the Orkustra, with Bobby Beausoleil, a young musician who played bouzouki and would later be convicted of murder as a follower of Charles Manson. A run with Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks followed before the LaFlammes formed It’s a Beautiful Day.The band got its break in October 1968, when the promoter Bill Graham had it open for Cream in Oakland. It’s a Beautiful Day signed with Columbia Records soon after.The band’s second album, “Marrying Maiden,” rose to No. 28 on the album charts. But by then the LaFlammes had split up and his wife had left the band. (They divorced in 1969.)It’s a Beautiful Day carried on with varying lineups and released three more albums, including “At Carnegie Hall” in 1972, before disbanding a year later.In addition to his daughter Kira, from his first marriage, Mr. LaFlamme is survived by his third wife, Linda (Baker) LaFlamme, whom he married in 1982; his sisters, Gloria LaFlamme, Michelle Haag and Diane Petersen; his brothers, Lon and Dorian; another daughter, Alisha LaFlamme, from his marriage to Sharon Wilson, which ended in divorce in 1973; and six grandchildren.Mr. LaFlamme released several albums over the years, including a solo album in the mid-1970s called “White Bird,” which included a disco-ready version of the original single. It actually outperformed the original, peaking at No. 89 on the Billboard Hot 100.But, he said in 1998, “It was a very difficult period musically, because during that period disco music ruled the earth.”“It was really the day the music died,” he said. More

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      Oliver Anthony Says ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Is Not a Republican Anthem

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      “I wrote this song about those people,” Oliver Anthony said of his No. 1 hit, after presidential candidates answered a question about his Billboard hit at their first debate.The singer Oliver Anthony, whose song “Rich Men North of Richmond” has soared to the top of the Billboard singles chart, released a YouTube video on Friday denouncing Republicans and conservative outlets for co-opting his song.“It was funny seeing that presidential debate,” Anthony said. “I wrote that song about those people.”A clip of Anthony performing was played by Fox News moderators at the start of the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, after a series of videos of Americans lamenting conditions under President Biden, including inflation and homelessness. The clip showed Anthony — with guitar in hand and two dogs at his feet — singing: “These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control.”The song, which Anthony uploaded to YouTube earlier this month, had caught fire with conservative figures like Matt Walsh and Laura Ingraham, who described it as an authentic expression of working-class American life. Widely perceived as a conservative anthem, it also drew critiques from some on the left, who called the lyrics racist.At the debate, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was the first to respond to a question asking why the song had struck a chord with so many Americans.“Our country is in decline,” Mr. DeSantis said. “This decline is not inevitable. It’s a choice.” He added, “Those rich men north of Richmond have put us in this situation.”Anthony said Friday it “cracks me up” that the candidates had been forced to listen to his song onstage, because he was singing about powerful people like them.The new video showed him behind the wheel of his truck, as heavy rain pelted the windows. “That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden,” he said. “You know, it’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden.”Anthony, who is from Farmville, Va., also said that he was fed up by what he perceived to be the weaponization of his music by both the right and left.“It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” he said. “I see the right, trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me.”The left, he added, had misinterpreted his lyrics as being attacks on the poor when, he said, he was trying to defend them. “I’ve got to be clear that my message like with any of my songs, it references the inefficiencies of the government.”Reason, a libertarian magazine, had lauded what it perceived as Anthony’s anti-tax message. But liberal commentators were troubled by a lyric about the “obese milkin’ welfare.” The folk singer Billy Bragg even wrote his own version of the song and cautioned Anthony about punching down.At first, Anthony appeared to welcome the attention from conservatives. He granted Fox News the right to use it in the debate, Politico reported. And he gave an interview to the network, saying that he had been motivated to write the song because of his own struggles, which he assumed were shared by others.“It resonates the suffering in our world right now, like even in our own country,” he said then. “We’ve had years of people feeling depressed and hopeless and every time you look at the T.V. or get online everything’s negative.” He added that “corporate media and education” had helped to sow division.Anthony returned to that theme in his video on Friday, saying that despite how it may appear, his music had actually united people.“It’s driving people crazy to see the unity that’s come from this from all walks,” Anthony said. “This isn’t a Republican and Democrat thing. This isn’t even a United States thing. Like, this has been a global response.”Anthony, who could not immediately be reached for an interview on Friday evening, described himself as a “nobody” who through some divine intervention had been tasked with sending a message that things needed to change. Before his meteoric rise to fame, he was an unknown songwriter. Although he performs as Oliver Anthony, his full name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford.“I don’t know what this country is going to look like in 10 or 20 years if things don’t change,” he said. “I don’t know what this world is going to look like. And like, something has to be done about it. You know?” More

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      A Crash Course in the Elephant 6 Recording Co.

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      A new documentary explores the lo-fi psychedelic music made by bands including Apples in Stereo, the Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel.The Apples in Stereo, one of the anchors of the Elephant 6 scene that’s the focus of a new documentary.Tim BarnesDear listeners,Today’s Amplifier is a celebration of the Elephant 6 Recording Co., a humble but hugely influential music scene that grew in the 1990s out of two small Southern cities — Ruston, La. and later Athens, Ga. — and serves as the subject of “The Elephant 6 Recording Co.,” a spirited new documentary directed by C.B. Stockfleth that tells the stories of some of its most enduring bands, like Neutral Milk Hotel, the Apples in Stereo and the Olivia Tremor Control.If none of those names means anything to you, fear not: You’re only 25 minutes and eight songs away from knowing exactly what I’m talking about.The Elephant 6 story begins in Ruston, a sleepy college town where there was little to do but dream, hang out with friends and, when you got bored enough to try to figure out how, make music. One of my favorite things about the film is the way it captures the necessity of creativity and a do-it-yourself ethos in places where there isn’t a lot of pre-existing art or culture. “I feel like kids in places like that tend to get deeper into the things that they love — tend to go further into them, tend to lose themselves more in them because they need to,” Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel says in the doc. “They have to escape into something.”Eventually, those kids cobbled together enough money to buy instruments, microphones and most crucially, four-track tape machines. In the film, Kevin Sweeney of the band the Sunshine Fix gives perhaps the most succinct summary of the Elephant 6 sound that I’ve ever heard: “Those guys were just trying to record ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ or ‘Pet Sounds’ on their cassette machines,” he says. After some consideration, he adds, in disbelief, “And they did!”A whole group of them relocated from Ruston to Athens, where the independent-minded bands who had come before — like R.E.M. and Pylon — had created an infrastructure where artful music could thrive and find its local audience. “It just seemed like a beacon for weirdos,” says the Elephant 6 musician Heather McIntosh.Sometimes called the Brian Wilson of the scene, Robert Schneider, the helium-voiced lead singer of the Apples and the producer of many of the early Elephant 6 albums, set up his own low-budget recording space that he called Pet Sounds Studios. (Although, as someone points out in the documentary, it acquired the nickname “Pet Smells,” because of all the cats that lived there.)“The Elephant 6 Recording Co.” is a vivid time capsule of musical community before the internet, before tape trading became a thing of the past and before indie rock became such a marketable commodity. Neutral Milk Hotel emerged as the scene’s breakout star when it released the critically adored 1998 album “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” but the group’s frontman, Jeff Mangum, fled the public eye and stopped releasing new music. (Still publicity shy, he’s the only major member of the collective who isn’t featured in the film.)Inspired by the movie, today’s playlist is a crash course in the Elephant 6 sound, which would go on to inspire the next generation of indie musicians and beyond. Though many other artists would be associated with the collective in later years, I’ve stuck to four of the original and most recognizable bands from that scene — the Olivia Tremor Control, the Apples in Stereo, Elf Power and Neutral Milk Hotel — selecting an earlier and later song from each.Get ready to lose yourself in a utopia of psychedelic pop-rock, layered and collagelike production, and the intoxicating ambition of a bunch of musicians trying to craft their own “Pet Sounds” with whatever they had on hand. (The film, which premieres this weekend, will be available on video on demand starting Sept. 1.)Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The Olivia Tremor Control: “Jumping Fences”The Olivia Tremor Control melded psychedelic experimentation and pure pop melody, fronted by longtime friends Will Hart and Bill Doss, who died in 2012. The band’s 1996 debut album, “Music From the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle,” is one of the high-water marks of the Elephant 6 scene, and the jangly, tuneful “Jumping Fences” demonstrates why. Like many 19-year-olds who came before me and, hopefully, many who will follow, it blew my mind when I first heard it in college. (Listen on YouTube)2. The Apples in Stereo: “Glowworm”Fronted by Schneider and formed when he was temporarily living in Denver, the Apples in Stereo are the most sugary sweet of the Elephant 6 bands; their infectious tunes recall the sunshine pop of the ’60s coated with layers of tape hiss. After a run of singles and EPs, “Fun Trick Noisemaker,” the Apples’ 1995 debut that features the bouncy fan favorite “Glowworm,” was the first full-length LP to bear the Elephant 6 stamp. (Listen on YouTube)3. Elf Power: “Jane”Though the dream-pop group Elf Power recorded this 1999 song in New York with the accomplished producer Dave Fridmann, its introverted titular character still captures that imaginative, small-town spirit out of which so many Elephant 6 bands sprung: “Jane was the one who would always have her fun when she’s lying on her bed, making visions in her head,” the frontman Andrew Rieger sings. Sounds like Jane’s about to start a band. (Listen on YouTube)4. Neutral Milk Hotel: “Song Against Sex”Neutral Milk Hotel’s first album, “On Avery Island” from 1996, overflows with ideas, lo-fi resourcefulness and ramshackle energy. On its lead track, “Song Against Sex,” Mangum creates one of his soon-to-be-signature surrealist musical frescoes, while regal blasts of horns and crashing percussion give the song an antic maximalism. (Listen on YouTube)5. The Olivia Tremor Control: “A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director’”The Olivia Tremor Control pushed even further into the realm of psychedelia on its great second album, “Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One,” from 1999. On this track, hooky melodies and moments of pop lucidity suddenly burst forth from textured cacophony. (Listen on YouTube)6. The Apples in Stereo: “Please”Here’s an effervescent fuzz-pop gem from the Apples in Stereo’s 2002 album, “Velocity of Sound.” One of the longest running Elephant 6 bands, the Apples have also had some of the most high-profile cultural crossovers: cameos on “The Powerpuff Girls” and, later, “The Colbert Report.” Just as unexpectedly, Schneider is now a mathematician who teaches at Michigan Technological University — and, to the surprise of his students, moonlights as an influential indie musician. (Listen on YouTube)7. Elf Power: “All the World Is Waiting”Elf Power is perhaps the most prolific of the major Elephant 6 bands; last year, the group put out its 14th album, “Artificial Countrysides.” I love this warped, stomping tune from Elf Power’s 2006 release, “Back to the Web”; its music video, filmed in Athens, captures the communal zaniness of the Elephant 6 scene. (Listen on YouTube)8. Neutral Milk Hotel: “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”Mangum’s fervently beloved 1998 album brought more attention to the Elephant 6 scene than anything had before — maybe more attention than it could handle. Something changed after “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” a visionary, heart-on-its-sleeve album that continues to find new listeners in new generations; this was clear enough when the band finally reunited in 2013 for an extensive world tour. The album’s title track, which on the record features little more than four frantically strummed guitar chords and Mangum’s keening wail, has since become the unofficial anthem of Elephant 6 and all it represented. When “The Elephant 6 Recording Co.” premiered last week in Los Angeles, an accompanying tribute concert ended with a group singalong of this tune. (Listen on YouTube)How strange it is to be anything at all,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“8 Songs That Explain the Elephant 6 Recording Co.” track listTrack 1: The Olivia Tremor Control, “Jumping Fences”Track 2: The Apples in Stereo, “Glowworm”Track 3: Elf Power, “Jane”Track 4: Neutral Milk Hotel, “Song Against Sex”Track 5: The Olivia Tremor Control, “A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director’”Track 6: The Apples in Stereo, “Please”Track 7: Elf Power, “All the World Is Waiting”Track 8: Neutral Milk Hotel, “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”Bonus tracksWant to feel old? Friday is the 10-year anniversary of Miley Cyrus’s most infamous Video Music Awards performance, which sent waves of moral panic throughout the nation in 2013. Exactly a decade later, she’s released a more wizened and reflective ballad, “Used to Be Young,” which I wrote about in the Playlist. This week’s roundup of new music also features new tracks from L’Rain, Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves and Al Green’s gorgeous cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” More

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      Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Selena Gomez, Al Green, L’Rain and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Miley Cyrus, ‘Used to Be Young’“You say I used to be wild, I say I used to be young,” Miley Cyrus sings on the muted, introspective new ballad “Used to Be Young.” The timing of the single’s release is canny: Cyrus gave her infamous, twerk-seen-’round-the-world MTV Video Music Awards performance 10 years ago on Friday. Cyrus, now 30, isn’t chiding her younger self or expressing regrets here, though — “I know I used to be crazy, messed up, but God was it fun,” she sings with an audible grin — so much as she is asserting her right to grow and change. Though “Used to Be Young” starts out quiet, it gradually builds in intensity, culminating in a finale that allows Cyrus to showcase the full power of her grainy drawl. LINDSAY ZOLADZAl Green, ‘Perfect Day’The magnificently idiosyncratic soul singer Al Green has re-emerged singing “Perfect Day,” a song from 1972 by — of all people — Lou Reed. Reed’s original had a disquieting undertone, warning “You’re going to reap just what you sow.” But Green’s remake — backed by musicians from his 1970s Hi Rhythm Section — trades any misgivings for romance, and the same line becomes a promise of mutual bliss. JON PARELESZach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, ‘I Remember Everything’This wrenching highlight from Zach Bryan’s new self-titled album is a he-said/she-said account of a failed, whiskey-soaked romance, set to a forlorn chord progression. “A cold shoulder at closing time, you were begging me to stay ’til the sun rose,” Bryan sings in his aching croak, before Kacey Musgraves enters with a pointed question: “You’re drinking everything to ease your mind, but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?” ZOLADZL’Rain, ‘Pet Rock’“Why would you go without me?” L’Rain — the songwriter and musician Taja Cheek — wonders in “Pet Rock,” a turbulent song about unwanted solitude. Cascading guitars and shifty-meter drumbeats give the music an unpredictable, almost tidal motion that ebbs and flows with all the lyrics’ unanswered questions. PARELESSelena Gomez, ‘Single Soon’“I know he’ll be a mess when I break the news/but I’ll be single soon,” Selena Gomez exults in the ultra-smiley “Single Soon.” It’s a triumphal march about all the prerogatives of moving on — “I’m gonna do what I wanna do” — with giggles in the backup track as she decides it’s “Time to try another one.” Like Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” it celebrates the choices ahead. PARELESPrince, ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’The teaser for the next much-expanded Prince reissue — “Diamonds and Pearls,” due Oct. 27 — is a falsetto funk tune about a woman with a mysterious but alluring occupation. “Some call it a curse, some call it sweet salvation/No one can deny the stimulation,” Prince sings over a skulking synth-bass line. The lyrics stay ambiguous, but the groove tells its own sensual story. PARELESMargo Price, ‘Strays’Margo Price released her album “Strays” in January, but its title track arrives this week in the rollout of “Strays II,” a sequel she’s releasing a few songs at a time. In “Strays,” she sings about being young, broke and ferally in love back in January 2003, with a galloping beat and pounding piano chords that suggests the E Street Band visiting Nashville. The memories sound victorious. PARELESMon Laferte, ‘Tenochtitlán’The Chilean songwriter Mon Laferte sings about a woman shamed for her pregnancy in “Tenochtitlán,” comparing her to the Virgin Mary. In a track that melds the retro and futuristic, she overlays a trip-hop bass undertow with lushly dramatic strings, a flamenco-tinged guitar solo and a passage of pitch-shifted vocals, while she urges, “Beautiful one, cry no more.” PARELESLuciana Souza & Trio Corrente, ‘Bem Que Te Avisei’The new album from Luciana Souza and Trio Corrente, “Cometa” is a celebration of Brazil’s classic songbook, with covers of songs by Dorival Caymmi and Antonio Carlos Jobim alongside lively originals written in the spirit of tradition. Souza contributes a composition, “Bem Que Te Avisei” (“Well, I Warned You”), an up-tempo samba in which she admonishes a suitor not to chase someone unless he’s interested in committing. The piece comes fully alive midway through, when she sings a verse accompanied by just Paulo Paulelli’s bass and Edu Ribeiro’s light percussion, and achieves elevation at the end, as Souza’s wordless vocals double with the piano of Fabio Torres, briefly bringing to mind Flora Purim’s synergy with Chick Corea in Return to Forever. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOTitanic, ‘Anónima’The Guatemalan songwriter Mabe Fratti and the Venezuelan composer Hector Tosta, who bills himself as I la Católica, have collaborated as Titanic, with an album due in October. In “Anónima” (“Anonymous”), Fratti’s cello grunts rhythmic double-stops as she sings about persistent, troubling thoughts, surrounded by clusters of piano notes and increasingly brutal percussion. Her voice maintains its equanimity, but her distorted cello finally lashes out. PARELESAbiodun Oyewole, ‘Somebody Else’s Idea’In 1968, the poet-activists Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka released “Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing,” a collection that would help to define the Black Arts Movement. The poet with the most works featured in its pages was Sun Ra: Although mostly known as the bandleader of the Arkestra, Ra was a philosopher and poet as much as he was a musician. That same year, a group of young poets came together in Harlem, dubbing themselves the Last Poets and helping to lay the groundwork for what would soon become hip-hop; Abiodun Oyewole was one of them. Those histories collide on “My Words Are Music: A Celebration of Sun Ra’s Poetry,” a new album on which various artists read Ra’s poems between spacey synthesizer interludes from Marshall Allen, the Arkestra’s current leader. On “Somebody Else’s Idea,” Oyewole delivers verses that Ra first recorded in the early 1970s, when the Last Poets were in their prime: “Somebody else’s idea of things to come/need not be the only way to vision the future,” he declares. RUSSONELLO More

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      In Kentucky, a Maestro of the People

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      Teddy Abrams, the 36-year-old music director of the Louisville Orchestra, has embedded himself in his community, breaking the mold of modern conductors.On a muggy July night at an amphitheater in suburban Kentucky, the conductor and composer Teddy Abrams — sporting black jeans, camouflage sneakers and a bouncy mop of golden curls — took the podium and began to evangelize.It was the final stop on the Louisville Orchestra’s summer tour across Kentucky, and Abrams, the ensemble’s 36-year-old music director, paused to speak to the crowd of roughly 900 in Bardstown, 40 miles or so south of Louisville, about his mission.He told the audience — teenagers in tie-dye, retirees snacking on nachos and workers from nearby Bourbon distilleries among them — that he wanted to use music to “bring people together across all backgrounds.” Invoking his idol, the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein, he said music was a universal language: “We have to do something with it.” He spoke of the need for Kentucky to promote its rich cultural traditions.“This is your Louisville Orchestra, everyone,” he said. “Kentuckians know good music. We’ve made a lot of the music that the world loves, invented entire genres right here in our state. That’s what this is all about — sharing the incredible music-making that takes places in Kentucky.”During his nine years at the helm of the Louisville Orchestra, Abrams has helped the 86-year-old ensemble emerge from a period of turmoil to reclaim its reputation as one of the most innovative in the United States.And he stands out for another reason. While many modern maestros lead jet-set lives, spending only as much as time in one place as contractually required, Abrams, a California native, has broken the mold, putting down roots in Kentucky and embarking on an ambitious project to make the orchestra part of daily life for Kentuckians.“Teddy, it’s so easy!” Students in the rap program invited Abrams to take part in a dance video, at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesHe lives in a house near downtown Louisville, where he regularly hosts musicians, activists, city officials and entrepreneurs, and rides a bicycle around town. (He finally got a driver’s license in October.) He writes music honoring local figures, including a “rap opera” about Muhammad Ali (a musical, “Ali,” by Abrams and the actor and director Clint Dyer, is set to premiere in Louisville next year and is aimed for Broadway in 2025). He has expanded the orchestra’s public efforts, starting a rap program for young people; founding a creator corps that invites artists from around the country to embed themselves in Kentucky; and leading a two-year statewide tour, which began in May, including the stop in Bardstown.His approach stands in stark contrast to that of many music directors, who often take on full-time commitments to several orchestras at once and can live thousands of miles from their ensembles.Abrams says that conductors too often operate at a distance from their communities, missing an opportunity to build connections.“We expect mayors and university presidents and police chiefs to be in the city,” he said. “I think that the conductor of the orchestra should be in that same category of civic leader. Because if they’re not, what does it say to the people of that town?”Abrams’s vision has drawn attention at a time when many arts organizations are looking to forge closer ties with residents and communities. His approach recalls that of Bernstein, who as music director of the New York Philharmonic popularized a series of concerts for young people and was credited with helping make classical music accessible to the public.“This is your Louisville Orchestra, everyone”: The orchestra performing in Bardstown. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesFiling into the stands at Bardstown.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAbrams also draws inspiration from his mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas, the former music director of the San Francisco Symphony, who studied with Bernstein and has also initiated music education efforts, including the popular “Keeping Score” television series.Thomas, who has known Abrams since he was a child, said his protégé had created “a very natural space for people to feel comfortable inside of the music.”“He is extraordinarily devoted to helping people better understand what the music is all about, and what they’re all about,” Thomas said. “I’ve never really seen anything quite like it, and it fills me with an enormous sense of hope.”Abrams’s success in Louisville has fueled speculation that he might be tapped for a more prominent post, perhaps in Los Angeles or elsewhere. He doesn’t rule out such a move, he said, but at the same time he doesn’t feel pressure to climb the ladder.“I never thought I’m just going to stay here until a larger orchestra comes along, until I can get a ‘better’ gig,” he said. “That’s not the calling. I was brought here to do something for this place.”Born in Berkeley, Calif., the son of lawyers, Abrams played piano and clarinet as a child. He was drawn to conducting after seeing Thomas lead an all-Gershwin program with the San Francisco Symphony when he was 9. He wrote a letter to the famed maestro soliciting advice — and lessons.“I never thought I’m just going to stay here until a larger orchestra comes along, until I can get a ‘better’ gig,” Abrams said. “That’s not the calling. I was brought here to do something for this place.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThe singer Lisa Bielawa performed in the premiere of Tyler Taylor’s “In Memory’s Safe” in Bardstown. Both Taylor and Bielawa are composers in residence with the orchestra.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesJ. Bryan Heath, a trombonist in the orchestra, sang and played guitar in an arrangement of “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThomas urged him to seek out 20th-century composers, including Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Bartok, in addition to Beethoven and Mozart, and told him to “keep your ears open.” (Thomas’s reply, framed, now hangs in Abrams’s Louisville bedroom.)Soon Abrams was studying with Thomas, who offered guidance on life as well as music. When he saw Abrams, then a teenager, with a pencil behind each ear, he counseled him that “one pencil is endearing; two are eccentric.”Thomas said that Abrams was eager from the start: “He always had this tremendous and thorough enthusiasm for music in all of its different forms.”At 11, he enrolled at community college because his family thought it would be a better fit than traditional schools (“I was a diminutive kid who related to adults,” he said). At 18, he graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and went onto the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, becoming one of the youngest conducting students to enroll there.Abrams seemed destined for a traditional career, earning plum posts as a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami, co-founded by Thomas, and as an assistant conductor at the Detroit Symphony under its then-music director, Leonard Slatkin.Then the Louisville Orchestra, which had been searching for years for a replacement for Jorge Mester, its veteran conductor, invited him for an audition. Abrams said he felt an immediate connection with the orchestra, and in 2014, when he was 27, he became the youngest music director in Louisville’s history.He took up full-time residence in the city, buying a sprawling two-story home in the trendy NuLu neighborhood, and furnishing it with two pianos, a Hammond organ, a keyboard and other instruments. Abrams, who is also fluent in genres like jazz, swing and blues, sometimes took his keyboard to the street to entertain passers-by.When he arrived, the orchestra was still feeling the pain of having declared bankruptcy in 2010 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. At the time, the orchestra made cuts to musicians’ pay and reduced the size of the ensemble to 55 from 71.Abrams with donors and board members at Toogie’s Table in Bardstown.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAbrams watching the dance video he made with the students.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAbrams signs a concertgoer’s program in Bardstown.Jon Cherry for The New York Times“We were left with ashes,” said Kathleen Karr, the principal flutist. “His ability to make us feel so worthy of all his ideas gave us new hope.”Abrams set out to improve morale and to rethink the orchestra’s place in the community.“The orchestra was in such a place of questioning and an identity crisis that it meant when I came here it was an open book,” he said. “We could write the story in a new way.”The Louisville ensemble had a reputation for experimentation going back to the 1940s, when the city’s mayor, Charles Farnsley, a fan of composers like Stravinsky and Villa-Lobos, came up with a plan to save the orchestra by commissioning works by living composers. In the decades that followed, as the orchestra premiered and recorded hundreds of new pieces, few ensembles could match Louisville’s ambition.Abrams has sought to resurrect that legacy, inviting composers and artists to Louisville for residencies and commissioning more than 70 works, including pieces by rappers and R&B stars. He has also presented many of his own works, including a piece about Mammoth Cave, in central Kentucky, which premiered this spring inside the cave with the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.The star pianist Yuja Wang, a classmate at Curtis who often enlisted Abrams to accompany her while rehearsing concertos, went to Louisville last year for the premiere of a piano concerto that Abrams wrote for her, which combines jazz, funk, big band and television and movie music. “He has this way of expanding on every thought and making it even more imaginative,” she said. “He always has a clear vision of what he wants.”As he enters his 10th season in Louisville, Abrams is keeping the focus on community, amicably playing the role of musical ambassador (a photo of him conducting greets visitors at the Louisville airport).One day this summer, he spent time with a group of students in the hip-hop program, a joint project of the orchestra and the education group Hip-Hop N2 Learning. When the teenagers invited him to take part in a dance video they would post on TikTok, he agreed with some hesitation, watching intently as they taught him the routine.“I’ve never done this before,” he said. “I’m worried this will be the white guy cannot dance situation.”“Teddy, it’s so easy!” the students exclaimed, and he began to sway his hips and cross his arms.When they finished, Abrams turned to the students. “Let me know when we get to a million views,” he said.Craig Greenberg, the mayor of Louisville, said Abrams often showed up in unexpected places to promote the orchestra. Several years ago, he said, Abrams brought a small band of orchestra players to perform at a wrestling match.“He’s always looking to break down the barriers,” Greenberg said, “so that more people have access to art and have an entry point to begin to enjoy the arts even more.”The pandemic, which forced the cancellation of in-person concerts, brought new challenges. But Abrams and the orchestra’s chief executive, Graham Parker, have kept the organization’s finances relatively stable. The annual budget has more than doubled to about $12 million over the past decade, and donations and grants have risen sharply.Still, there is work to be done: The orchestra’s audiences remain predominantly white, as do its players, despite the fact that about 24 percent of Louisville’s residents are Black and about 7 percent are Hispanic.A year after Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker in Louisville, was shot and killed by police officers, Abrams and the orchestra joined forces with Jecorey Arthur, a rapper and City Council member, for a virtual program that included a Ravel piano concerto, as well as Black spirituals and a hip-hop track.Jecorey Arthur, a rapper and City Council member, said of Abrams: “He’s always very intentional, not just musically, but also socially and politically, and knows that he is a part of something that is bigger than him as an individual.”Jon Cherry for The New York Times“He’s always very intentional,” Arthur said, “not just musically, but also socially and politically, and knows that he is a part of something that is bigger than him as an individual.”Abrams, who has signed with Louisville through at least the 2024-25 season, acknowledges that he has lofty ideals and that he may at some point be tempted to try his community-driven approach elsewhere.But for now, he says, he is content where he is.“If Louisville becomes a destination city for composers, and they all start leaving Williamsburg and L.A. and Nashville and wherever they are, then the question is reversed,” he said. “Why would I leave? Why would you leave something if you actually helped make it?” More

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      The Maestro John Eliot Gardiner, Accused of Hitting Singer, Apologies

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      John Eliot Gardiner expressed regret after he was accused of lashing out at a singer after a concert in France, and he withdrew from the rest of a planned tour.The renowned conductor John Eliot Gardiner, who drew widespread criticism this week after he was accused of hitting a singer after a performance in France, apologized on Thursday, saying that he had lost his temper and that “physical violence is never acceptable.”In a statement, Gardiner, 80, said that he had apologized to the singer, William Thomas, 28, and that he would withdraw from the remaining concerts on a European tour with two of his venerated ensembles, the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The incident occurred Tuesday night after a concert performance of the first two acts of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens” at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André in southeastern France.“I deeply regret the incident which occurred at the Festival Berlioz at La Côte-Saint-André on Tuesday evening and apologize unreservedly for losing my temper immediately after the performance,” Gardiner said in the statement. “I make no excuses for my behavior and have apologized personally to Will Thomas, for whom I have the greatest respect. I do so again, and to the other artists, for the distress that this has caused.”“I know that physical violence is never acceptable and that musicians should always feel safe,” he added. “I ask for your patience and understanding as I take time to reflect on my actions.”Gardiner provoked an outcry when, on Tuesday evening, he struck Thomas backstage 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.After the incident, Gardiner abruptly withdrew from the festival and returned to London to see his doctor, missing a performance on Wednesday night.Thomas, a rising bass from England who was performing the role of Priam, was not seriously injured and performed on Wednesday.On Thursday, Askonas Holt, the agency representing Thomas, confirmed in a statement that an incident had taken place and said that Thomas would continue to take part in the tour, which will next head to 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. The agency said Thomas would not comment on the incident.“All musicians deserve the right to practice their art in an environment free from abuse or physical harm,” the statement said.The Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras, a nonprofit that oversees Gardiner’s ensembles, said in a statement on Thursday that Dinis Sousa, an associate conductor with the organization, would replace Gardiner for the rest of the tour. Sousa had stepped in for Gardiner on Wednesday in France.“We continue to look into the events that occurred on Tuesday evening,” the group said. “Our values of respect and inclusivity are fundamental to us as a company and we take seriously the welfare of all our performers and employees.’’Gardiner — a crucial figure in 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. He has made numerous recordings, many of which are considered classics, and wrote “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven” in 2013 about the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach.In a 2010 interview with The Financial Times, Gardiner was asked about his famously demanding style.“Can I protest my innocence?” he said. “I can be impatient, I get stroppy, I haven’t always been compassionate. I made plenty of mistakes in my early years. But I don’t think I behaved anything like as heinously as you have heard. The way an orchestra is set up is undemocratic. Someone needs to be in charge.” More

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

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      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