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      Cisco Swank Puts His Spin on Jazz-Rap on ‘More Better’

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      The 23-year-old pianist, drummer and rapper puts a pandemic-era spin on jazz-rap on his debut, “More Better,” and he always keeps the faith.At a recent Sunday afternoon performance in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, the pianist Francisco Haye sat behind a piano at Emmanuel Baptist Church, leading his quintet through a number of recognizable jazz standards. Yet they weren’t straight-ahead: Songs like “All the Things You Are,” “Little Sunflower” and “My Favorite Things” each had wrinkles — a bouncy backbeat or a near-frenetic breakdown — that made them feel fresh.It was the kind of set that might rankle those who prefer to hear Ella Fitzgerald, Freddie Hubbard and John Coltrane without frills, yet these listeners — made up of elders who have known Haye since he was a child growing up in the congregation there — seemed to embrace what he was trying to do.The goal, he told them, was to take “cliché jazz tunes and not make them boring.”Haye’s artistry is informed by artists like Robert Glasper and Roy Hargrove, both classically trained jazz musicians who have blended the genre with hip-hop, R&B and rock, aligning the music with alternative rap and the neo-soul movement that emerged in the late 1990s. Haye, performing under the name Cisco Swank, plays melodic piano chords over lush soul and trap-inspired drums and raps in a manner that recalls the weary lethargy of Mike and Earl Sweatshirt, but with the polish of a Village Vanguard headliner.Jazz-rap hybrids aren’t new, of course, but Haye, 23, without pandering to any audience, is tapping into a subset who dig lo-fi underground rap.Haye’s earliest musical memories involve playing drums and piano at the church, when he was only 3 or 4 years old. Lindsay Perryman for The New York Times“He’s sitting right in the center of a lot of points,” said the noted trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire in a telephone interview. “And it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to. It’s just who he is. He is Black music. All of it. It’s in every note.”Haye runs through the tapestry of jazz, R&B and rap on his recently released debut album, “More Better,” which at times ruminates on the pandemic but without wallowing in despair.“Teary-eyed still thinkin’ ’bout 2020/Quarantined, bro, the streets eerie,” he raps on “If You’re Out There.” “City full of dreams, concrete, but I see it when I look in the sky.” On “What Came From Above,” over a melancholic piano loop and stuttering electronic drums, Haye admits he is “renewed” back at home with his family. (He returned to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, from the Berklee College of Music, where he studied piano performance and contemporary writing and production when the pandemic took hold.) On “Over Now,” he laments the end of a romantic relationship with keen self-awareness. “I try to smile through it,” Haye raps with an exhausted tone. “I don’t really like fast moving/I try not to commit, bro, I’m last to it.” Even the LP’s title — thought of randomly during a rehearsal — is meant to convey perseverance in dark times.Haye, tall and skinny with long dreads and a boyish charm, peppers his conversation with affirmations like “facts” and “fire,” and speaks easily and expertly about a wide range of musicians — Beethoven and Bach, Kirk Franklin and Richard Smallwood. While growing up in Flatbush, he was exposed to all of this music by his mother, Adriane, who directed the youth choir at Emmanuel, and his father, Frank, who was the director of music there.Haye’s earliest musical memories involve playing drums and piano at the church, when he was only 3 or 4 years old. Seeing his father in action in front of large congregations sparked a real interest in music. “I feel like it played an important role in how I see people present music and how you interact with people,” he said during a lunch interview. “The whole idea of just music being more than just notes and harmony. It’s serving a bigger purpose, whether it’s bringing someone out of a wack week or bringing them closer to God.”Music can serve “a bigger purpose,” Haye said, “whether it’s bringing someone out of a wack week or bringing them closer to God.”Lindsay Perryman for The New York TimesAt home, he said, there were “mad musical instruments everywhere,” which made being an artist seem like the coolest job ever. He absorbed Baroque music, Stevie Wonder and other Motown soul, as well as old-school rap. (His mother grew up in the Bronx at the beginning of hip-hop culture and used to rhyme under the name Micki Dee.)Haye started thinking about blending genres during his freshman year at LaGuardia High School: His favorite rapper, Kendrick Lamar, merged rap and psychedelic jazz on his 2015 album “To Pimp a Butterfly,” and Glasper’s song “Portrait of an Angel” doubled as his alarm clock. “That really was the point where I was like, ‘I’m trying to do something very much like this,’” Haye said.He formed a jazz fusion band and started playing around the city. He began rapping as a student at Berklee, tinkering with the conversational cadences heard on “More Better” while releasing music on SoundCloud. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe we should just play this song with the band but put a trap groove over it,’” Haye recalled. “Slowly, it just started merging into what it is today.”He met the Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist Luke Titus over social media at the start of lockdown in 2020 and started sharing audio files with him, which led to the collaborative album “Some Things Take Time,” released two years later. “The narrative was definitely about being patient during a time with so much uncertainty,” Titus said over the phone. “It was about not forcing things and allowing things to come when they come.” Those themes are also relayed on “More Better” in Haye’s singular voice.“He draws from so much influence of being from New York,” Titus added, pointing to the city’s renowned jazz and rap scenes. “He might have all these jazz chops, but he’ll pick the simple melody and play what needs to be there in a very lyrical way.” He added, “He’s one of those rare guys who doesn’t overthink things too much.”Haye noted that while his album was born of the pandemic, it’s rooted in a sense of uplift rather than resignation. “It’s just like seeing the clouds in the distance, like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “It’s being able to say, ‘Oh, I can make it as long as I have faith.’ Even if it’s not a spiritual faith, if it’s just faith that things will get better, it will work out.” More

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      5 Minutes That Will Make You Love New Orleans Jazz

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      Many cities have rich jazz histories, but none goes back as far as New Orleans. We asked Wendell Pierce, Courtney Bryan and others what song they would play to get a friend to join the party.Over the past few months, The New York Times has asked experts to answer the question, What would you play a friend to make them fall in love with jazz? We’ve covered lots of artists, instruments and musical styles — but this time we’re tackling a whole city.The United States is full of cities with their own rich jazz histories, but none goes back as far as New Orleans. And the music remains very much a part of life there. To really discover the beauty of New Orleans jazz, the in-person experience is key. This is a participatory, effervescent music. But unless you’re about to book a trip, why not take five minutes to read and listen, and see if you get hooked?Jazz’s roots can be traced back to Congo Square, a plaza in central New Orleans that had been a gathering place for Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. In the antebellum era, enslaved Africans often gathered there to play music and dance, using whatever instruments they had — bamboula drums, horns, bells, banjos — and carrying their cultural traditions forward. After emancipation, the country blues being played on plantations across the South blended with the music played by New Orleans society orchestras and other African diasporic styles blowing in from the Caribbean, creating the polyphonic improvised sound we now know as early jazz.In the 100-plus years since then, New Orleans has remained something of a cultural anomaly in the United States: rooted in its own traditions, and fortified against broader commercial trends. Music has been its strongest fortifier. Marching bands are heard at funerals and second-line parades on most weekends. On Mardi Gras and St. Joseph’s Day, culture-bearers in resplendent, feathery regalia march and perform in honor of the Native Americans who once sheltered fugitives fleeing slavery. And music is simply a way of life: Unless a storm is brewing, you won’t find a single night in New Orleans without multiple bands playing somewhere.While brass bands and traditional jazz lie at the core of this city’s traditions — and no conversation about them can ever go on too long without a mention (or three) of Louis Armstrong — New Orleans has also fostered greatness across the musical spectrum: from Black classical composers to post-bop royalty to avant-garde experimentalists. The songs below are just the tip of the iceberg. Find a playlist at the bottom of the article, and be sure to leave your own favorites in the comments.Wendell Pierce, actor“West End Blues” by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five“West End Blues” embodies the complexity of this music — which is what New Orleans is all about. It’s the American aesthetic of freedom within form: complex ideas that are also displayed in simple ways. We have technical proficiency, but at the same time uninhibited creative expression. The track starts off with one of the most famous clarion calls in music, one of the most famous licks in the world: Louis Armstrong, exhibiting pure genius and virtuosity, all alone for 12 seconds. Like a spiritual epiphany, this explosion of improvisation embodies the innate humanity of the music and foreshadows the brilliance of bebop yet to come. And then the band comes in and he goes into this simple, beautiful, languid, soulful encapsulation of what it’s like, for someone who’s never been to the West End of New Orleans, to sit out by Lake Pontchartrain on a Sunday afternoon. This is the “West End Blues.”Within the first 30 seconds of the song it gives you the best of what America can be, and what New Orleans is: that cacophony of all kinds of things, so many different influences becoming this one rich, complex dish. E pluribus unum. We are in America in New Orleans, but we are the northernmost Caribbean city, influenced by the French and the African, Germans and Native Americans. And it is the epitome of what America is supposed to be. That’s why jazz is the great American artistic form. A multitude of complexities, broken down into something so universally understood. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Ned Sublette, author and musician“Bouncing Around” by Piron’s New Orleans OrchestraI always go back to “Bouncing Around,” by A.J. Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra, a working New Orleans band, recorded 100 years ago in New York City. It’s jazz at an early stage: this is still the era of everyone-at-once polyphony. Every bit of the musical space is full of theme, counter-theme and rhythm, but we don’t have soloists yet. It’s clearly music for dancing, or at least for bouncing around. That word keeps coming back in New Orleans: bounce. I like the translated Spanish title, seen in parentheses on the 78: “Brincando Locamente” — bouncing madly. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Melissa A. Weber (a.k.a. Soul Sister), D.J. and scholar“Right Foot” by Rebirth Brass BandA special characteristic of New Orleans jazz is its function as dance music. It invites audience members to not spectate, but participate. In the New Orleans brass band jazz tradition, the pioneering Rebirth Brass Band has specialized in making people dance since the group formed 40 years ago, while its founding members were teenagers. In 2008, they rerecorded their original song “Put Your Right Foot Forward,” first released in the mid-1980s as a 45 on the local SYLA label. It’s a classic that other brass bands have added to their repertoires, whether on the stage or in the second-line streets. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Adonis Rose, drummer and bandleader“New Orleans” by Leroy JonesIt is very difficult to find songs that have the ability to transport the listener to a place or time, but I believe that “New Orleans,” written by Hoagy Carmichael, comes close. Although Carmichael was not a New Orleanian, the song melody and lyrics speak to the character and romanticism of the Crescent City. New Orleans is warm, culturally rich, diverse, charming and romantic. All of which is represented in this timeless classic.The song was not widely recorded, but there are a few versions of it that I really enjoy listening to. My favorite version is from the New Orleans jazz legend and trumpeter Leroy Jones, from his 1994 release “Mo’ Cream From the Crop.” This version of “New Orleans” is an original arrangement done by Leroy, and captures the beauty, intensity, creativeness, spontaneity and groove of what New Orleans is. Leroy interprets the song with deep passion and connection to the city. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Charlie Gabriel, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist“Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans” by Louis ArmstrongThe words of this song tell you about the weather in the city, and the city itself. It just explains to you that New Orleans is such a beautiful place to be, especially with its culture. You have to come to New Orleans to really enjoy it — and this song explains why you should. When Pops, Louis Armstrong, does the song, he tells it in such a way that you can almost feel the words. I’ve been playing in New Orleans since I was 11 or 12 years old. What happens is, you bring that along with you: the feeling of the city, the personality, the city itself, the faces. You carry that within your music. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Giovanni Russonello, Times jazz critic“None of My Jelly Roll” by Sweet Emma BarrettThe self-taught pianist and vocalist Emma Barrett was born in 1897 and came of age performing in the speakeasies and early “jass” orchestras that birthed the genre. It wasn’t uncommon for women to hold piano duties in these early New Orleans bands — but it took a particular kind of grace and confidence to endure the condescension (and worse) that was routinely directed their way. Maybe that attitude is what earned her the name “Sweet Emma.” Maybe it just looked good on a chalkboard outside the club. Her less well-known, more descriptive nickname was “The Bell Gal,” because of the bells that she wore on her red garters; they would jangle in time as she patted her foot and roughed up the keys. On “None of My Jelly Roll,” from a 1963 recording, Barrett sings an old blues lyric full of playful double entendre and shows off her rolling barroom piano style. This approach — developed from ragtime and Caribbean dance music; replicating the work of a full brass band in just two hands — would evolve through later legends like Professor Longhair, James Booker and Dr. John, and remains a calling card for Crescent City pianists today. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Courtney Bryan, composer and pianist“River Niger” by the Improvisational Arts QuintetThe legendary musician, educator and patriarch Sir Edward (Kidd) Jordan (1935-2023) lived by improvisation, and his music reverberated with sounds of freedom throughout his 87 years. In 1975, Jordan formed the Improvisational Arts Quintet with like-minded creative musicians from Louisiana and Mississippi. Jordan composed “River Niger,” inspired by a trip to West Africa, and recorded it with I.A.Q. on an album series produced by Kalamu ya Salaam: “The New New Orleans Music: New Music Jazz” (Rounder Records, 1988). “River Niger” has an infectious and captivating energy, rooted on a rhythmic B-flat minor ostinato, yet open in form with each soloist leading us on a journey throughout the recording.Jordan taught his students “River Niger,” and regardless of level, beginner or advanced, each student had an important role — whether playing the pentatonic scale according to his conduction or taking solo or collective free improvisations. Listen to “River Niger” and you might levitate. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆P.J. Morton, musician“On the Sunny Side of the Street” by Louis ArmstrongThe melody of “On the Sunny Side of the Street” always immediately makes me smile, and the way the other horns are dancing in this version — recorded in 1956 for the Decca label, with Armstrong backed by a 10-piece band — always reminds me of home. And of course, Louis Armstrong is so important to the story of New Orleans and to the world. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Tarriona (Tank) Ball, vocalist and bandleader“Groove City” by Chocolate MilkThis song is so nostalgic for me! It gives me all the feels, and really makes me feel so lucky to be from such a unique place as New Orleans. It also makes me think of my dad for some reason! Maybe when I was a small child he would play the record, but it makes me feel close to home and even closer to him.Chocolate Milk is a band from New Orleans that was active in the 1970s and early 1980s. “Groove City” was released in 1977 and I’ve been hooked since I heard it. The moment it comes on all I see is family barbecues, being on the lake in New Orleans, and just freedom. It talks about how you can forget your cares; it reminds you to not worry about your clothes and that “all you gotta do is let down your hair and be free,/No special pattern to follow, be what you wanna be.”I remember being in Amsterdam for my birthday, listening to this song nonstop, and I felt so close to home and my family though I was so far away. That’s why I would share this song with others — because it’s almost as if the lyrics tell a story of where you can go to have a really special time here. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆Marcus J. Moore, jazz writer“Guinnevere” by Chief Xian aTunde AdjuahI’m always taken by the unbridled force of Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah. I’ve seen plenty of his shows over the past decade; each time, he sizes up the microphone with his custom fluegelhorn, then attacks it with blistering chords, cutting through bar chatter and forks scraping porcelain plates. And he doesn’t mind challenging the audience: During one of his shows at the Blue Note last year, he made everyone get up from their seats — a rarity for that venue — and didn’t let us sit down until we danced and sang his lyrics back to him. It was done lovingly; his tapestry of Black music elicits a strong sense of community. When I think of his recorded work, I jump to the song “Guinnevere,” the almost 11-minute epic from his 2020 live album, “Axiom,” also performed at the Blue Note, but right at the start of the pandemic. It reimagines a Miles Davis song of the same name with quickened percussion and ascendant wails, brightening the “Bitches Brew”-era cut into a vigorous funk groove akin to the genre-bending compositions that epitomized jazz between the late ’60s and early ’70s. Adjuah’s intensity is palpable throughout, from the brief interplay with the percussionist Weedie Braimah shortly after the four-minute mark to the subtle, fluttering notes he plays near the end. At a time when the world didn’t know what to make of the air, Adjuah flipped uncertainty into something gorgeous. (Listen on YouTube)◆ ◆ ◆ More

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      Astrud Gilberto, ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ Singer, Dies at 83

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      It was the first song she ever recorded. And it played a key role in making the Brazilian sound known as bossa nova a phenomenon in the United States.Astrud Gilberto, whose soft and sexy vocal performance on “The Girl From Ipanema,” the first song she ever recorded, helped make the sway of Brazilian bossa nova a hit sound in the United States in the 1960s, died on Monday. She was 83.Listen to This ArticleFor more audio journalism and storytelling, More

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      Astrud Gilberto: 6 Essential Songs

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      The Brazilian singer radiated quiet poise and subtle undercurrents.Astrud Gilberto, who died on Monday at 83, brought the first, alluring taste of Brazilian bossa nova to countless listeners worldwide. Her collaborations — with Stan Getz, Gil Evans, Stanley Turrentine and others — also helped cement the connections of bossa nova and jazz.Her voice was disarmingly modest, sometimes hitting notes a little flat and often barely above a whisper; the effect was intimate and seemingly weightless. When she sang in English, her Brazilian accent gave her an endearing hint of awkwardness and approachability, even as her phrasing stayed supple, while the translated lyrics invited a wider audience to hear great Brazilian songwriters like Antonio Carlos Jobim. Her early recordings are her most radiant ones, steeped in the pensive, nostalgic longing that Brazilians call saudade.Here are six indelible Astrud Gilberto performances.Stan Getz featuring Astrud Gilberto: “The Girl From Ipanema” (1963)This was the bossa nova that seduced the world: a purposeful crossover collaboration by the American saxophonist Stan Getz, Jobim, Astrud Gilberto and her then-husband, the definitive bossa nova guitarist and singer João Gilberto. Its full version opened with João Gilberto singing the Portuguese lyrics, but the world-conquering single cuts quickly to Astrud Gilberto’s breathy voice in English, with Jobim on piano trickling just a few perfect notes to answer her.The New Stan Getz Quartet featuring Astrud Gilberto: “It Might as Well Be Spring” (1964)Gilberto doesn’t exactly sound “as jumpy as a puppet on a string” in this live performance of the Rodgers and Hammerstein standard with the Stan Getz Quartet. Instead, she’s poised and sure-footed, musing about the possibility of romance as Getz’s saxophone scurries and spirals around her.“Água de Beber” (1965)Jobim rejoined Gilberto as a collaborator on her luminous solo debut, “The Astrud Gilberto Album.” His voice shadows hers on their nonchalantly elegant version of his bossa nova standard “Água de Beber” (“Water to Drink”); as she sings about a love as essential as water, the song glows with mutual fondness.“The Shadow of Your Smile” (1965)A studio orchestra offers a hint of fanfare, then falls into an admiring hush behind Gilberto’s voice in this Oscar- and Grammy-winning song from the movie “The Sandpiper.” Written by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster, with strong bossa nova influences, the song’s arrangement ripples around Gilberto with little instrumental flourishes — strings, flutes, piano, vibraphone — but Gilberto’s voice maintains its serene wistfulness.“Berimbau” (1966)A berimbau, the one-stringed percussion instrument prized in Bahia, Brazil, twangs its way through this song by Baden Powell and Vinicius de Moraes. The brassy, slightly ominous arrangement by Gil Evans highlights the pinpoint syncopations of Gilberto’s vocal.“Maria Quiet” (1966)Gilberto sang most often about love as it arrives and disappears. But every so often she turned to other thoughts — like the feminist resentment in “Maria Quiet,” a brisk samba with lyrics (de Moraes translated by Norman Gimbel) about women’s endless work. Gilberto’s delivery is pointed, and quietly seething. More

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      Lincoln Center, Seeking New Audiences, Plans to Remake Its West Edge

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      The center hopes a major renovation along Amsterdam Avenue will help shed its elitist image and forge closer ties with Black and Latino residents.Lincoln Center welcomes visitors at its main entrance facing Broadway with an elegant plaza, a majestic fountain and an array of travertine concert halls and theaters.But the view from the center’s western edge, along Amsterdam Avenue, is far less convivial: An imposing wall stretches across several blocks, giving the feel of a fortress.Now Lincoln Center, hoping to draw new audiences and promote closer ties with nearby public housing complexes, schools and community centers, is planning a major renovation of its western side, the organization’s leaders announced on Tuesday. The project will likely entail tearing down parts of the wall, building an outdoor stage and renovating Damrosch Park, at the corner of Amsterdam and West 62nd Street.“As welcoming as we are to the east, we should be to the west,” Henry Timms, the president and chief executive of Lincoln Center, said in an interview.The project is partly a response to Lincoln Center’s complicated history. A vibrant neighborhood known as San Juan Hill, home to many low-income Black and Latino residents, was razed to make way for the center’s construction in 1959.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times“It’s unclear in some places what might be behind these walls,” he added of the center’s west side. “The message is one of a different world, and I think that’s a mistake.”The renovation is the latest effort by Timms, whose tenure began in 2019, to shed Lincoln Center’s elitist image and to attract more diverse audiences, especially Black and Latino residents across the city. The center has in recent years worked to diversify its programming and expand access to its campus, including by experimenting with a choose-what-you-pay model for some events.The project is partly a response to Lincoln Center’s complicated history on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A vibrant neighborhood known as San Juan Hill, which was home to many low-income Black and Latino residents, was razed to make way for the center’s construction, which began in 1959.Lincoln Center’s leaders, invoking that history, said that getting public input for the renovation, by organizing workshops, walking tours and surveys, would be crucial. The center is working with NADAAA, a Boston architecture firm, and Hester Street, a nonprofit that specializes in urban planning and community development.In a statement, Katherine G. Farley, the departing chair of Lincoln Center’s board, said: “This process will engage the community on envisioning how we can create a beautiful and architectural welcome to our neighbors to the west, assuring that the campus beckons to everyone to come enjoy our offerings.”Across the street is LaGuardia High School, known for its music and performing arts programs, as well as six high schools inside the Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesLincoln Center did not provide an estimated cost or timeline for the project. Timms said that it was a major effort that would help define the modern legacy of Lincoln Center and that it was a natural next step after the recent $550 million renovation of David Geffen Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, which was also aimed, in part, at deepening community ties and attracting new audiences.“This is a very significant priority of the institution,” he said. “If we can get the idea right, I’m confident that we can work hard and get the necessary resources to create something amazing for New York City.”The area surrounding the western campus includes the Amsterdam Houses, a public housing complex that first opened in 1947 for World War II veterans. Across the street is LaGuardia High School, known for its music and performing arts programs, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex, which houses six high schools.Lincoln Center’s leaders said plans for the renovation would depend on public input, but they identified several broad aims. The area under exploration includes the stretch of Amsterdam Avenue from West 62nd to West 65th Street, as well as Damrosch Park and the northwest corner of campus, home to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.The area under exploration includes Amsterdam Avenue from West 62nd to West 65th Street, as well as Damrosch Park and the campus’s northwest corner, now home to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesTimms said the spirit of the project was in line with the original mission of Lincoln Center: to make the arts accessible to all.“It’s not a new woke idea,” he said. “That was an idea at the founding — that the point of Lincoln Center was actually not to be exclusive, but to be inclusive.”Local officials praised the project, saying it was important for the city’s residents, especially those with a connection to the former San Juan Hill neighborhood, to be heard. Lincoln Center last year installed a mural on Amsterdam Avenue telling the story of the neighborhood, including its rich Afro-diasporic musical heritage.“Their stories and experiences are critical to establishing a strong foundation to a more inclusive future within the community spaces that serve this neighborhood,” Gale Brewer, a member of the New York City Council, said in a statement.Maria Guzman, a public housing resident who lives south of Lincoln Center, said she was hopeful the renovation would allow more low-income residents to experience the arts.“We used to call that wall the great divide because it felt like Lincoln Center just wanted to divide the neighborhood,” she said in an interview. “The fact that they’re finally — hopefully — tearing this wall out, I think it’s wonderful. And I think the community will welcome it.” More

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      7 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Listen to Jorja Smith, Silvana Estrada, Miya Folick and more recent highlights.Jorja Smith has carved out a lane slightly below the mainstream with her moody, sophisticated R&B and pop.Liz Johnson ArturDear listeners,There’s “weekly,” “biweekly,” even “triweekly” — but is there a word for something that happens once every four weeks?I’m talking about a word more precise than “monthly.” Quadriweekly? Bi-fortnightly? Whatever it is, that is how frequently I’ve been sending out these dispatches of new music culled from the best of our weekly Playlists.And since another two fortnights hath passed since I last sent one, the time has come again for me to tell you about some more songs you should hear right now. Yes, this very instant!As usual, it’s an eclectic selection, mixing perhaps a few familiar names with some new ones. It’s somewhat varied in language and geography, too: two songs in Spanish (gracias a Silvana Estrada and Lido Pimienta), two from across the pond (courtesy of Blur and Anohni and the Johnsons), and at least one from each country in North America, plus a Moose and a cockroach. Just trust me on that.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Anohni and the Johnsons: “It Must Change”Though the heart-wrenching vocalist Anohni has released powerful solo music in the past decade — most notably the political and poetic electronic album “Hopelessness” in 2016 — her new single “It Must Change” is the first time since 2010 that she has released music with her backing band the Johnsons. That doesn’t mean it’s a retread, though. Soulful, slinky and thematically subversive, “It Must Change” is at once a demand for respect — “The way you talk to me, it must change,” Anohni sings — and a call to accept the constant fluidity of all things. (Listen on YouTube)2. Silvana Estrada: “Milagro y Desastre”I always appreciate Jon Pareles keeping an ear out for new artists from a vast variety of cultures and musical traditions. I have him to thank for introducing me to the Mexican singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada, who won best new artist at last year’s Latin Grammys. Usually known for her sparse, guitar-driven folk songs, “Milagro y Desastre” — miracle and disaster — is something new for Estrada: a song composed largely with looped, layered fragments of her own voice. (See also: her recent, charming cover of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner.”) The cooed, percussive notes that provide the song’s rhythmic backbone remind me a bit of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman,” but Estrada’s impassioned singing and distinct ear for melody ultimately take “Milagro y Desastre” somewhere unique. (Listen on YouTube)3. Rob Moose featuring Phoebe Bridgers: “Wasted”What a name: Rob Moose. A prolific string player and arranger for artists like Bon Iver, Brittany Howard and, yes, Phoebe Bridgers, Mr. Moose will, on Aug. 11, release the EP “Inflorescence.” It features guest vocals from all those aforementioned artists, but so far my favorite track is his collaboration with Bridgers, the moody, nocturnal “Wasted.” Though Bridgers has been playing a version of it live for years, Moose’s contributions kick it up a notch — his anxiously plucked notes and graceful crescendos give her existential dread an almost cinematic sweep. (Listen on YouTube)4. Blur: “The Narcissist”Regular Amplifier readers will know about this one already — in its honor, I composed an entire newsletter featuring some of my favorite Blur songs. The British band’s first new single in eight years is, I think, eminently enjoyable; the push and pull between Damon Albarn’s downcast deadpan and Graham Coxon’s cheery backing vocals is classic Blur. (Listen on YouTube)5. Miya Folick, “Cockroach”I’ve been really digging the Los Angeles singer-songwriter Miya Folick’s recently released sophomore album, “Roach.” “Cockroach” is one of its more subdued songs, but it still showcases Folick’s off-kilter edge and her penchant for surprising, emotionally loaded turns of phrase. Though comparing oneself to a cockroach is usually an expression of self-loathing, here Folick employs it as a symbol of grimy resilience: “You can’t kill me.” (Listen on YouTube)6. Jorja Smith, “Little Things”Like many people, I first became aware of the British vocalist Jorja Smith in 2017, when she appeared on Drake’s mixtape “More Life” (“Get It Together” very much still goes). Since then, she’s carved out a lane slightly below the mainstream releasing moody, sophisticated R&B and pop. “Little Things,” which will appear on her upcoming album “Falling or Flying,” is a relatively carefree and kinetic track for Smith — conjuring a sweaty summer night on the dance floor — but that jazzy piano riff adds a signature touch of elegance. (Listen on YouTube)7. Lido Pimienta, “Ein Sof, Infinito”The visionary Colombian-Canadian musician Lido Pimienta wrote this song for “Ein Sof,” a brightly hued short film by the director Orly Anan. Atop a playful though gradually transcendent arrangement of pizzicato strings and soaring synthesizers, Pimienta repeatedly sings with all her heart “cuando sueño contigo” (“when I dream of you”) — a welcome invitation into her vivid imagination. (Listen on YouTube)Quadrilaterally yours,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“7 New Songs You Should Hear Now” track listTrack 1: Anohni and the Johnsons, “It Must Change”Track 2: Silvana Estrada, “Milagro y Desastre”Track 3: Rob Moose featuring Phoebe Bridgers, “Wasted”Track 4: Blur, “The Narcissist”Track 5: Miya Folick, “Cockroach”Track 6: Jorja Smith, “Little Things”Track 7: Lido Pimienta, “Ein Sof, Infinito”Bonus tracks: Your Pride songsHappy L.G.B.T.Q.+ Pride Month, everyone! Later this month, well be publishing a special Pride installment of The Amplifier featuring some of your stories and song suggestions. So, tell me: Was there a certain song that first gave you the courage to come out? Or is there a particular track that, to you, embodies the spirit of Pride? Share your answers here, and you just might be featured in an upcoming newsletter. More

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      The New York Philharmonic’s Season of Mixed Boons

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      The orchestra’s renovated hall and Gustavo Dudamel, its next leader, have kept ticket sales robust, but cool acoustics curb the music’s impact.David Geffen Hall, the New York Philharmonic’s gut-renovated home at Lincoln Center, isn’t perfect.The decorating tends cheesy and clashing — even if seating that wraps around the stage has done wonders for intimacy. And the sound, for all its improvements on the old acoustics, leans coolly antiseptic.But for the orchestra, which ends its first season in what is essentially a new hall this weekend, Geffen has been a kind of talisman.Last fall, when performing arts groups around the country were blindsided by theaters half-full (and worse), the excitement of the hall’s reopening insulated the Philharmonic from a similar fate. Sales have been robust all season.In February, another talisman appeared: the star conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who was named the orchestra’s next music director. Though Dudamel won’t raise his baton at Geffen next season — and though classical music’s bizarrely stretched planning cycles mean he won’t officially start until 2026 — there was already a clear sense of his power as an audience draw in his three sold-out concerts in May.Dudamel is probably the only figure capable of putting such an exclamation point on the unveiling of the hall, a $550 million project. And an exclamation point on the season, as he conducted Mahler’s Ninth Symphony — an extreme and emotional, expansive yet focused piece particularly treasured by this orchestra, which its composer conducted for a brief but memorable stint just before his death in 1911.Gustavo Dudamel, who will succeed van Zweden as music director, conducted Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in May.James Estrin/The New York TimesI attended all three performances, trying to get the fullest possible sense of what might come from the relationship of this maestro to this orchestra and this space. The message was mixed.The first performance, a Friday evening, sounded fine, the players poised. But poise is hardly the takeaway you want from Mahler’s harrowing Ninth; there was nothing intense or uncomfortable about this interpretation, nothing personal or inexorable.The first movement progressed with bland serenity. The middle movements danced pleasantly, without a hint of the manic. The Adagio finale, its own epic journey of agony and relief, was mild-mannered. The third performance, a Sunday matinee, was much the same.But the middle go, on Saturday night, offered a glimpse of a more vital alchemy. The quality of the playing remained high — and was now infused with some of Dudamel’s oft-mentioned but not always apparent vibrancy.Those inner movements had taken on menacing bite, whipping between contrasting sections; the Adagio was a deeper evocation of stillness and fragility. This was not profound or moving Mahler, but it had a spark.At these concerts, as throughout the season, there was a sense that Geffen Hall, rather than bringing together this mass of instruments in a blooming blend, was etching the sound, hard, in the air.While orchestras take a good, long time to fully adjust to new homes, after a full season it can be said: Geffen’s acoustics seem lucid and balanced, but also stiff and stark, the sonic equivalent of the blond-wood auditorium’s cold, harsh lighting, which makes you squint a bit as you enter and floods the stage during performances.These qualities make it better suited to certain repertoire — Romantic sumptuousness is particularly hard to come by — and the Philharmonic is going to have to work hard to build the richness of its sound if the hall isn’t going to help.Susanna Mälkki conducting Claire Chase (on flute) and Esperanza Spalding (singing, on bass) in Felipe Lara’s Double Concerto.Chris LeeWhat also isn’t going to help, unfortunately, is the Philharmonic’s current music director, Jaap van Zweden, who has seemed an overshadowed guest at his own party since Geffen’s reopening and Dudamel’s appointment. Van Zweden, who finishes his short tenure next season, has a tough, blunt style — a “Pines of Rome” of bludgeoning volume in October, a sludgy “Turangalîla-Symphonie” in March — that emphasizes the hall’s acoustic shortcomings rather than relieving them.The concerts at which those shortcomings were least noticeable were, by and large, led by guests. The conductor Hannu Lintu made his Philharmonic debut in November with a cogent, precise program of Stravinsky, Bartok (the rarely played Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion), Kaija Saariaho and Sibelius. At the end of that month, the hall’s acoustics were actually a boon, helping cut the fat in what could have been an overly indulgent program of French works, led by Stéphane Denève with a kaleidoscopic sleekness well suited to the space.Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted a raucous rendition of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in February, a week before Thomas Adès’s superb 2008 piano concerto “In Seven Days” — which should be a repertory staple — returned to the Philharmonic for the first time in 12 years. Felipe Lara’s Double Concerto, an exuberant showcase for Claire Chase (on a battery of flutes) and Esperanza Spalding (singing and playing double bass), had a sensational New York premiere in March under Susanna Mälkki.Last month, a blistering program of Prokofiev’s Third Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, with the dazzling, preternaturally mature 19-year-old Yunchan Lim as soloist, was as much a showcase for the gifted conductor James Gaffigan as it was for Lim. When will Gaffigan get an American orchestra?The conductor James Gaffigan and the teenage pianist Yunchan Lim joined for Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto in May.Chris LeeBut there was no more poignant and musically stimulating spectacle this season than the return to the podium in February of Herbert Blomstedt, who, at 95, guided with utter control Ingvar Lidholm’s sternly elegant “Poesis,” a work whose premiere Blomstedt presided over in 1963.Back in those days, the Philharmonic’s then-new hall was already being criticized for its acoustics. For decades there didn’t seem to be the will to fix it, and the current leaders of the orchestra and Lincoln Center deserve great praise for finally bringing the project over the finish line.The public areas are roomier now, and capacity has been cut; you still wait for the bathroom at intermission, but not nearly as long as you used to. In quiet, glistening music, like some of John Adams’s “My Father Knew Charles Ives” in October, Geffen offers a transparent sonic window.But in concertos by composers as varied as Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev, whether for violinist or pianist, the soloists recede a bit too thoroughly into the orchestral textures. At top volume and density, there’s blare where there should be grandeur. And when real warmth is needed, as in the symphonies of Mahler or Florence Price, there’s the small but important lack of bloom and build, of resonance.The audiences and excitement are there in the hall. But the full impact of the music isn’t. More

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      What Are Your Pride Songs?

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      We’re asking readers about the songs that first gave them the courage to come out or that still inspire them to live their truth.June is L.G.B.T.Q.+ Pride month — and what’s a Pride celebration without the music?Later this month, The Times will be publishing a special Pride installment of The Amplifier newsletter featuring some of your stories and song suggestions.We’re asking readers: Was there a certain song that first gave you the courage to come out? Why did the song animate you? Or, is there a particular song that, to you, embodies the spirit of Pride? What is it about the song that speaks to you?To participate, you can fill out the form below. We may feature your response in an upcoming newsletter.Your Pride songs More