Music

Since Britney Spears spoke out in court on June 23, when she called the conservatorship “abusive” and said she wants it to end, there has been a flurry of filings in the case. These are some of the questions that could be decided by the probate judge, Brenda Penny, on Wednesday. The hearing is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. ET.Will Jamie Spears Be Removed as Conservator? In July, less than two weeks after Mathew S. Rosengart was approved as Ms. Spears’s lawyer, he moved to have James P. Spears, the singer’s father, removed from the conservatorship.In an additional filing last week, Mr. Rosengart wrote: “It is clear that Mr. Spears cannot be permitted to hold a position of control over his daughter for another day,” adding, “Every day Mr. Spears clings to his post is another day of anguish and harm to his daughter.”Ms. Spears’s lawyer has moved to replace her father on a temporary basis with John Zabel, a certified public accountant in California who has worked in Hollywood, “until the conservatorship is completely and inevitably terminated this fall.”Mr. Spears maintained in filings this week that while there is “no adequate basis” for his suspension or removal as conservator of the estate, the court should instead focus on terminating the conservatorship — something that is now “opposed by no one” and should take priority. (His lawyers also argued that Mr. Zabel “does not appear to have the background and experience required to take over a complex, $60 million” estate.)Will the Conservatorship Be Terminated Altogether? At this point, Ms. Spears has not officially filed to end the conservatorship, although her lawyer said last week that she “fully consents” to its termination.In a twist this month, lawyers for Mr. Spears, who had long maintained that the conservatorship was voluntary and necessary, filed to end it, citing the singer’s stated wishes and recent shows of independence: “If Ms. Spears wants to terminate the conservatorship and believes that she can handle her own life, Mr. Spears believes that she should get that chance.”But experts have said that terminating a conservatorship without a medical evaluation — as Ms. Spears and now her father have asked for — is unlikely, and there is no public record of the judge calling for a psychiatric evaluation recently.In his filing last week, Mr. Rosengart said that in addition to Ms. Spears’s support for terminating the conservatorship, the singer’s personal conservator since 2019, Jodi Montgomery, backed it as well, “subject to proper transition and asset protection.”Will Mr. Spears and Others Be Investigated Further? Following Ms. Spears’s comments in June — in which she said she had been forced to take medication and was unable to remove a birth-control device — her father asked the court to investigate the claims, denying his own culpability and instead calling into question the actions of Ms. Montgomery and others.Mr. Rosengart has since asked for a future hearing on outstanding financial issues involving the conservatorship, calling mismanagement of Ms. Spears’s estate by her father “evident and ongoing.” He said that in August, Mr. Spears had been served a request for discovery and to sit for a sworn deposition, before he filed to end the conservatorship. More

She started out a country singer, but she found fame and pop-chart success in the early 1960s with catchy novelty songs, as well as the occasional ballad.Sue Thompson, who after more than a decade of moderate success as a country singer found pop stardom in the early 1960s with hook-laden novelty hits like “Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)” and “Norman,” died on Thursday at the home of her daughter and caregiver, Julie Jennings, in Pahrump, Nev. She was 96.Her son, Greg Penny, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.With a clear, somewhat girlish voice that brought sass to humorous ditties but that could also be used to good effect on a ballad, Ms. Thompson was part of a wave of female vocalists, like Connie Francis and Brenda Lee, who had hits in the late 1950s and early ’60s.Her breakthrough came when she was paired with the songwriter John D. Loudermilk, who wrote her first big hit, “Sad Movies,” a done-me-wrong tune about a woman who goes to a movie alone when her boyfriend says he has to work late, only to see him walk in with her best friend on his arm.The song cracked the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the fall of 1961, and before long she was back in the Top 10 with another Loudermilk song, “Norman,” in which she turned that rather unglamorous male name into an earworm. (“Norman, Norman my love,” Ms. Thompson cooed in the chorus, surrounding the name with oohs and hmms.)Mr. Loudermilk also wrote an elopement novelty, “James (Hold the Ladder Steady),” which did moderately well for Ms. Thompson in 1962. That year she also showed what she could do with a ballad, having modest success with “Have a Good Time,” a song, by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, Tony Bennett recorded a decade earlier.The British Invasion soon eclipsed this kind of light fare, but Ms. Thompson had one more pop success, in 1964, with Mr. Loudermilk’s “Paper Tiger.”In 1966 she traveled to Vietnam to entertain the troops. Because she was accompanied by only a trio, she could go to more remote bases than bigger U.S.O. acts, exposing her to greater danger.“Tonight we are at Can Tho, a huge American air base,” she wrote to her parents. “You can see the fighting (flashes from guns), hear the mortars, etc.”“We’re fairly secure most of the time,” she continued, “but must be aware that things can pop right in our midst.”The trip left her shaken.“A heartbreaking — and heartwarming — experience,” she wrote. “I will never be the same. I saw and learned unbelievable things.”Mr. Penny said that his mother was ill for weeks afterward, and that she long suspected that she had been exposed to Agent Orange. She underwent a sort of awakening, he said, becoming a vegetarian and developing an interest in spiritual traditions, Eastern as well as Western.Despite becoming ill after the first trip, she went on other tours to entertain troops, including one the next year on which Mr. Penny, just a boy, accompanied her. They traveled to Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and elsewhere. Vietnam had also been on the itinerary, but that part of the trip never happened.“I remember getting the communication while we were on the road in Okinawa,” Mr. Penny said in a phone interview. “They said it was just too dangerous.”When Ms. Thompson returned to performing stateside, she also returned to country music, releasing a number of records — including a string recorded with Don Gibson — and leaving behind the little-girl sound of her hits.“I don’t want to be ‘itty bitty’ anymore,” she told The Times of San Mateo, Calif., in 1974. “I want to project love and convey a more mature sound and a more meaningful message.” Country music, she said, was a better vehicle for that because “country fans pay more attention to what is being said in a song.”Ms. Thompson performing at a Country Music Association luncheon in New York in 1963.PoPsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesEva Sue McKee (she picked her stage name out of a phone book) was born on July 19, 1925, in Nevada, Mo. Her father, Vurl, was a laborer, and her mother, Pearl Ova (Fields) McKee, was a nurse. In 1937, during the Depression, her parents moved to California to escape the Dust Bowl, settling north of Sacramento. When she was in high school the family moved again, to San Jose.As a child Ms. Thompson was entranced by Gene Autry, and she grew up envisioning herself as a singing cowgirl. Her mother found her a secondhand guitar for her seventh birthday, and she performed at every opportunity as she went through high school.In 1944 she married Tom Gamboa, and while he fought in World War II, she had their daughter, Ms. Jennings. She also worked in a defense factory, Mr. Penny said.Her wartime marriage ended in divorce in 1947, but her singing career soon began in earnest. Ms. Thompson won a talent show at a San Jose theater, which led to appearances on local radio and television programs, including those of Dude Martin, a radio star in the Bay Area who had a Western swing band, Dude Martin’s Roundup Gang.In the early 1950s she became the lead vocalist on a TV show that Mr. Martin had introduced in the Los Angeles market, and she cut several records with his band, including, in 1952, one of the first versions of the ballad “You Belong to Me.” Later that year it became a hit for Jo Stafford, and in the 1960s it was covered by the Duprees.Ms. Thompson and Mr. Martin married in December 1952, but they divorced a year later, and Ms. Thompson soon married another Western swing star with his own local TV show, Hank Penny. That marriage ended in divorce in 1963, but the two continued to perform together occasionally for decades.The country records Ms. Thompson made on the Mercury label in the 1950s never gained much traction, but that changed when she signed with Hickory early in 1961. “Angel, Angel,” another ballad by the Bryants, garnered some attention — Billboard compared it to the Brenda Lee hit “I Want to Be Wanted” — and then came “Sad Movies.”That breakthrough hit was something of an accident. In a 2010 interview on the South Australian radio show “The Doo Wop Corner,” Ms. Thompson said she recorded it only after another singer had decided not to.“I inherited the song,” she said, “and I was really happy and excited when it turned out to be such a hit for me.”Even before her pop hits Ms. Thompson was a familiar sight on stages in Nashville and Nevada as well as on the country fair circuit, and the hits made her even more in demand in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Nev., and elsewhere. Gravitating between country and pop came easily.“Most popular songs actually are country-and-western songs with a modern instrumental background,” she told The Reno Gazette-Journal in 1963.Ms. Thompson said her favorite among the songs she recorded was “You Belong to Me.” About a decade ago, when she was in her 80s, Greg Penny, a record producer who has worked with Elton John and other top stars, recorded her singing the song to a guitar accompaniment. Carmen Kaye, host of “The Doo Wop Corner,” gave the demo its radio premiere during the 2010 interview, Ms. Thompson still sounding sweet and clear.Her fourth husband, Ted Serna, whom she had known in high school and married in 1993, died in 2013. In addition to Ms. Jennings and Mr. Penny, she is survived by eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.Ms. Jennings, in a phone interview, told about a time when her mother, on tour in Vietnam, asked to visit soldiers in the infirmary who couldn’t come to her stage show. One badly injured young man, when introduced to her, said, “I don’t give a darn who’s here; I just want my mama.” Ms. Thompson sat with him for a long while, asking all about his mother, helping him conjure good memories.“Three years later,” Ms. Jennings said, “my mother was working in Hawaii, and he brought his mother in there and introduced her to my mom.” More

He played bass on thousands of popular recordings, helping to create the uncluttered style that came to characterize the country music of the 1950s and ’60s.NASHVILLE — Bob Moore, an architect of the Nashville Sound of the 1950s and ’60s who played bass on thousands of popular recordings, including Elvis Presley’s “Return to Sender” and Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” died on Sept. 22 at a hospital here. He was 88.His death was confirmed by his wife, Kittra Bernstein Moore, who did not cite a cause.As a mainstay of the loose aggregation of first-call Nashville session professionals known as the A-Team, Mr. Moore played on many of the landmark country hits of his day, among them Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man,” Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”All were No. 1 country singles, and each typified the intuitive, uncluttered style of playing that came to characterize the less-is-more Nashville Sound.Mr. Moore, who mainly played the upright bass, also contributed the swaggering opening figure to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” as well as the indomitable bass line on Jeannie C. Riley’s skewering of hypocrisy, “Harper Valley P.T.A.” Both records were No. 1 country singles and major crossover hits, with Ms. Riley’s reaching the top of the pop chart in 1968.Over 40 years Mr. Moore elevated the bass in country music from a subordinate timekeeper to an instrument capable of considerable tonal and emotional reach. By turns restrained and robust, his imaginative phrasing revealed a gift for seizing the dramatic moment within a recording or arrangement.“No matter how good a musician you are technically, what really matters boils down to your taste in playing,” he once said. “A lot of guys can play a hundred notes a second; some can play one note, and it makes a lot better record.”Mr. Moore’s forceful, empathetic playing extended well beyond the precincts of country music to encompass the likes of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” and Brook Benton’s “Rainy Night in Georgia,” among other pop and soul hits, as well as several notable rockabilly records.As session leader at Monument Records, where he worked in the late 1950s, Mr. Moore created arrangements for recordings by Roy Orbison and others, including “Only the Lonely,” a Top 10 pop single for Mr. Orbison in 1960. The record stalled at No. 2 and might have gone on to occupy the top spot on the chart were it not for Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry.” Mr. Moore played bass on that one, too.He had a Top 10 pop record of his own: the Mariachi-flavored instrumental “Mexico” (1961), credited to Bob Moore and His Orchestra. (The song was composed by Boudleaux Bryant, who, with his wife, Felice, also wrote hits for Mr. Orbison and the Everly Brothers.)In 1960 Mr. Moore and some of his fellow A-Teamers received an invitation to appear at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. After a series of violent incidents in Newport, some set off by an angry crowd of concertgoers who had been shut out of sold-out shows, the festival ended prematurely and Mr. Moore was unable to perform, so he and a group billed as the Nashville All-Stars, which included the vibraphonist Gary Burton, recorded an album of instrumentals called “After the Riot at Newport.”“Anyone who has heard me play bass knows my soul,” Mr. Moore said, looking back on his career in a 2002 interview with the website Art of Slap Bass. “I am studied, solid, thorough, steadfast, bold and dependable.”In 2007, Mr. Moore and his fellow A-Team members were inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville.His son R. Stevie Moore is also a musician, having played a pioneering role in the lo-fi, or do-it-yourself, movement popularized by indie-rock artists like Pavement and Beck.“Anyone who has heard me play bass knows my soul,” Mr. Moore once said. “I am studied, solid, thorough, steadfast, bold and dependable.”Bill ForsheeBobby Loyce Moore was born on Nov. 30, 1932, in Nashville and raised by his maternal grandmother, Minnie Anderson Johnson, a widow.When he was 9, Bobby set up a shoeshine station outside the Ryman Auditorium, then home to the Grand Ole Opry. One of his regular customers was Jack Drake, the bass player for Ernest Tubb and his Texas Troubadours; Mr. Drake became an early mentor.Bobby appeared in local bands before going on tour at age 15 as a guitarist and stand-up bassist for the minstrels Jamup and Honey. Along with the future A-Team guitarists Hank Garland and Grady Martin, he spent time in the bands of the Opry stars Paul Howard and Little Jimmy Dickens before working with the singers Red Foley and Marty Robbins.Mr. Moore’s big break came in the early 1950s, when the Nashville bandleader Owen Bradley offered him steady employment with his dance orchestra. Even more auspicious, Mr. Bradley promised Mr. Moore, then weary of touring, steady work on the recording sessions he would soon be supervising as the newly established head of the local office of Decca Records.Over the next three decades Mr. Moore would appear on hits by Decca luminaries like Kitty Wells and Conway Twitty as well as others, like Jim Reeves and Earl Scruggs, who recorded for other labels. He appeared on virtually all of Patsy Cline’s 1960s recordings for Decca, including her hit “Crazy” in 1961, and much of Presley’s RCA output of the early to mid-’60s, including “Return to Sender,” released in 1962.As a new generation of session musicians began supplanting the original A-Team in the early ’80s, Mr. Moore pursued other projects, including a stint with Jerry Lee Lewis’s band. A hand injury forced his premature retirement from performing later that decade.In addition to his wife and his son Stevie, Mr. Moore is survived by a daughter, Linda Faye Moore, who is also a performing musician; two other sons, Gary and Harry; and two granddaughters.In the early 1950s, when Mr. Bradley offered him a career as a studio musician, Mr. Moore discovered a life-changing musical fellowship as a member of the A-Team.“We were like brothers,” he said in his Art of Slap Bass interview. “We had great musical chemistry and communication.” He continued: “We loved creating our music together. We were able to assert our personalities and express our feelings through our music in such an effective way that the public came to recognize our individual styles.” More

He became a swaggering star in the late 1960s, when Addis Ababa experienced a golden age of night life and music. Decades later, he was rediscovered.Alemayehu Eshete, a soulful Ethiopian pop singer widely known as the “Abyssinian Elvis” who became a star in the 1960s when a cultural revolution took hold of Addis Ababa, died on Sept. 2 at a hospital there. He was 80.Gilles Fruchaux, the president of Mr. Eshete’s reissue label, Buda Musique, confirmed the death.For years under Haile Selassie’s imperial rule, Ethiopia’s music industry was controlled by the state. Orchestras dutifully performed patriotic songs at government events, while defiant bands played Little Richard songs at night in clubs. It was forbidden to record and distribute music independently.“All the musicians used to work for the government,” Mr. Eshete said in a 2017 documentary about the era, “Ethiopiques: Revolt of the Soul.” “When they told you to perform, you had to perform. We were treated like average workers, not like real artists.”But in the late 1960s, as Selassie grew old and the grip of his rule loosened, Addis Ababa experienced a golden age of night life and music, and Mr. Eshete became a swaggering star of the so-called “swinging Addis” era.The sound that dominated this period was distinct: an infectious blend of Western-imported blues and R&B with traditional Ethiopian folk music. It was typified by hypnotic saxophone lines, funky electric guitar stabs and grooving piano riffs.As a teenager, Mr. Eshete was smitten with American rock ‘n’ roll, and his idol was Elvis Presley, so when he started singing in the clubs of Addis he imitated his hero. He sported a pompadour and wore big collared shirts as he gyrated onstage.“I dressed like an American, grew my hair, sang ‘Jailhouse Rock,’” he told The Guardian in 2008. “But the moment that I started singing Amharic songs, my popularity shot up.”He was soon enlisted in the fabled Police Orchestra, a state-run band composed of Ethiopia’s finest musicians, and he began playing with the ensemble at government functions in the city. After hours, he found refuge in the underground music scene.In 1969, the defiant act of Mr. Eshete and a young record shop owner named Amha Eshete (no relation) galvanized the scene.The acclaimed “Éthiopiques” album series, begun in 1997, ignited international interest in Ethiopian music. Two releases in the series are devoted to Mr. Eshete’s work.Buda MusiqueAmha Eshete decided to found a label, Amha Records, to commit to vinyl the Ethiopian pop music that bands were performing in clubs. Few musicians were willing to flout the law with him until Alemayehu Eshete stepped forward and offered to record the funky tune “Timarkialesh,” and Amha then had it manufactured as a 45 r.p.m. single in India.When copies of the record arrived, and Amha played it from a loudspeaker in his Harambee Music Shop, people started dancing outside and stopped traffic. The single became a hit, and when the government turned a blind eye toward this transgression, the city’s musical revolution exploded.Amha Records went on to release the work of giants of Ethiopian music like the vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed and the composer Mulatu Astatke. Mr. Eshete went on to found the Alem-Girma Band with the pianist and arranger Girma Beyene. He also became known for writing socially conscious songs, like “Temar Lije” (“Study, My Son”), which stressed the importance of education.But a Communist military junta, the Derg, took control of Ethiopia in the mid-1970s, and the swing in Addis came to an end.In what became known as the Ethiopian Red Terror, the Derg ousted Selassie, and thousands were massacred. A curfew extinguished night life in Addis and musicians left the country in droves, creating a lost generation of Ethiopian musical stars.Amha Eshete, who died in April, opened a nightclub and restaurant in Washington; Girma Beyene, who also landed there, became a gas station attendant. Alemayehu Eshete remained in Ethiopia to raise his family. He continued working as a musician under the Derg and returned to singing patriotic songs at state-sponsored events.“That time was hell,” he told The Guardian. “I was ordered to sing a song in Korean for Kim Il-sung, which I learned, though I had no idea what I was singing.”When the regime was overthrown nearly two decades later, much of the world didn’t know what had transpired musically in swinging Addis.But that changed in 1997 when a French musicologist, Francis Falceto, produced the first album in the acclaimed series “Éthiopiques,” which compiled the era’s lost treasures. Released on the Buda Musique label, the project, which now consists of 30 titles, ignited international interest in Ethiopian music. Two releases in the series are devoted to Mr. Eshete’s work.“Alemayehu is an icon of that era,” Mr. Falceto said in a phone interview. “He is a legend of the music of modern Ethiopia.”Alemayehu Eshete Andarge was born in June 1941 in Addis Ababa. His father, Eshete Andarge, was a taxi driver. His mother, Belaynesh Yusuf, was a homemaker.As a boy, Alemayehu liked watching Elvis Presley movies and singing Presley songs for his friends at school. Dreaming of stardom in Hollywood, he once ran away from home, hitching a ride to a port city in Eritrea, where he hoped to board a ship bound for America. His mission was foiled when someone got in touch with his family and he was sent home.Mr. Eshete is survived by his wife, Ayehu Kebede Desta; seven children; and six grandchildren.As Addis Ababa entered the new millennium, its musical past was revisited as part of a cultural revival. Young musicians played the old songs with reverence, and lost classics became radio hits again. Mr. Eshete began performing every Wednesday at a venue called the Jazzamba Lounge.In 2008, Mr. Eshete and three other notable Ethiopian musicians, Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu Astatke and the saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya, performed together at the Barbican in London and at the Glastonbury festival. In New York, backed by the New England-based Either/Orchestra, Mr. Eshete played at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park.“Mr. Eshete was at his charismatic best,” Nate Chinen wrote in a review of that show in The New York Times. “Each verse began with a single clarion note and then plunged into rapid-fire patter. He tried a few other approaches in his set, like an insinuative croon and a bark befitting his nickname, the Ethiopian James Brown.”A funeral ceremony attended by hundreds was held for Mr. Eshete at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa. An orchestra played before his coffin was driven away. Just months earlier, Mr. Eshete’s music had echoed across the square when he performed there with a band and sang his song, “Addis Ababa Bete” (“Addis Ababa, My Home”).Mr. Eshete had recorded that tune, a funky love letter to his city, in 1971 with his fellow musical outlaw, Amha. They sold it from Amha’s defiant little record shop, where it quickly became a hit and set swinging Addis on fire. More

The choreographer Andrea Miller chose Lido Pimienta — “she’s a superstar” — to score her new piece for New York City Ballet. They talk about breaking new ground.“Arrghh, the pressure!” exclaimed the composer Lido Pimienta, after being told that she and the choreographer Andrea Miller were the first all-female team to be commissioned to create a piece for New York City Ballet.When that dance, “sky to hold,” with costumes by Esteban Cortázar, debuts at the company’s fall fashion gala on Thursday night, both women will be breaking new ground. For Miller, a contemporary choreographer who danced with the Batsheva Ensemble in Israel before founding her New York company, Gallim Dance, it will be the first time she has created a piece on pointe. And for Pimienta, a Canadian-Columbian singer-songwriter whose music incorporates Indigenous, Afro-Columbian and electronic elements, “sky to hold” is her first theatrical score.And more ground broken: Pimienta, who has incorporated her voice and songs, which she will perform live, into the score, is also the first female composer of color to create a piece at City Ballet. The score isn’t the company’s usual fare: it includes vallenato, a popular folk music genre from Colombia, and dembow (“heavy rhythm, very groovy,” Pimienta said) from the Dominican Republic, sometimes making unconventional use of classical instruments like the harp.Most of the collaboration between Miller, who lives in New Haven, and Pimienta, who lives in Toronto and London, Ontario, has been done remotely. But last week, Pimienta arrived in New York and at rehearsals.Pimienta (in back) rehearsing “sky to hold” with City Ballet dancers Sara Mearns and Taylor Stanley.Erin Baiano“It’s pretty cool to have her with us, watching and reacting to us as artists,” said the principal dancer Sara Mearns in a phone interview. “Andrea warned us, know the music, don’t rely solely on her voice because she might not do the same thing every show. I love that; you have to be out there, in the moment.”In a video interview, with Miller on a train and Pimienta in a temporary apartment, they discussed the evolution of the score and the choreography, and how Pimienta came to be performing in the work. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did this collaboration come about? Did you know each other?ANDREA MILLER I told a friend, who was working with Lido at the time, that I had a commission from City Ballet and really wanted to take the music seriously. She said, “Stop right there: It’s Lido Pimienta.” I knew Lido’s music, she is a superstar, so my jaw just dropped. My husband and I, and our kids, listen to her music all the time, and it’s so exciting, so inspiring, you want to dance to it with your headphones on.LIDO PIMIENTA It’s funny, when Andrea contacted me, I was working on music for my next album and really thinking about orchestration.It’s my first time doing something this big, and I am always fighting the feeling of impostor syndrome. But I told myself: Even if I have never composed for 66 musicians before, there are 66 channels in the music I produce. If Andrea thinks I’m worthy, it’s fine!Pimienta says, “I told myself: Even if I have never composed for 66 musicians before, there are 66 channels in the music I produce.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesHow did you begin? Did you discuss specific ideas, images or musical styles?PIMIENTA We were communicating constantly and dreaming together. I kept watching Andrea’s work, which was very inspiring for me. My songs are about me and my lived experience, but for this it also had to be about Andrea and the dancers, so I wanted to create a story with the music that we could all tap into.MILLER It was a specially dark time during the pandemic, and I was thinking of heat, the sun on my face, going dancing with strangers! I was craving the heat of intimacy, of summer, of warmth. I gave Lido a sense of that, and I also let her know which pieces of her music were very inspiring to me.PIMIENTA My job was to translate those ideas and feelings into music. As someone from Colombia, I know that feeling of the sun hitting your face as you lie in a hammock. That gave me an intro; a feeling of heat, but also of tension.I am a singer and I would say my work is about storytelling, so once I had that idea, in my head there was this whole movie happening. I thought, I should tell Andrea, so I sat down and wrote and illustrated the story I saw.It’s about a seed, who falls in love with a storm. To get to light and heat, you go through the storm, and that became the musical thread.Andrea, how did the evolution of the score affect the development of the choreography?MILLER Lido is so generous, and had let me listen without telling me how anything should be. But after receiving the story, I had so much more to say and discover. There was something in her story and drawings that reminded me of both the magical realism of Colombia and the symbolism and mysticism of Chagall, whose work I love.In the ballet, I do have a seed character, Taylor Stanley, and a storm, Sara Mearns, but I’m not worried about it making sense. The shape and feel of it are just there to absorb and take away, like looking at a painting.Pimienta: “I am a singer and I would say my work is about storytelling,”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesLido, how does it feel to see your work given a visual counterpart?PIMIENTA It feels potent, it feels extreme — I feel an abundance. When I see the dance responding to the rhythm, the sound, the melody, it’s very emotional for me. I told Andrea, you might have to get another singer, because I might cry throughout the ballet!Was it always part of the plan that you would sing onstage?PIMIENTA Never in a million years did I think I would be performing. But after Andrea got the first draft of the score, she said, where is your voice? I thought, OK, I’ll be in the pit, and she said, “We’ll put you onstage and give you some steps.” I said NOOOOO, so the compromise is that I’ll be on the side of the stage.Now, of course, I’m totally into the fantasy. I had my fitting yesterday, and I thought, how fabulous am I going to be? Maybe I will walk around the stage!Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThere’s pressure in being the first female composer-choreographer team to create an entirely new work for the company. (Violette Verdy created a dance to an existing score by Mary Jeanne van Appledorn, in 1988.) That’s still noteworthy; are things changing?MILLER There has been important progress, but I also feel sadness for all the talented women who didn’t get to choreograph or compose or get recognition in their time. And I’m always conscious that when we talk about things turning around, we’re not thinking globally.PIMIENTA I am South American, Indigenous, Black, brown, an immigrant — sometimes I feel like I am just those boxes being checked off. So to have this support and confidence is just incredible.It makes me feel sad for this world of classical music and ballet that it’s so remarkable that we are women because in my musical world I mostly work with women. But it’s not just that. Having more people like me is important because there is a class divide, too; people don’t necessarily feel at ease going to a symphony concert or a ballet. It’s a pity. For me, the classical world actually feels very contemporary, very much what is happening now. I want more people to understand how strong and inspiring it can be. More

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherMusic streaming services have become inadvertent and imperfect proxies for the infinite jukebox. But as younger listeners increasingly come to rely on them, missing artist catalogs leave historical holes that are difficult to fill.For many years, the most important albums in Aaliyah’s catalog were unavailable on streaming, but that has just recently changed. Blackground Records — the imprint to which Aaliyah, who died in 2001, was signed — has been releasing its full archive online. It is a long-needed remedy, and promises a path to understanding the work of an artist who, in her time, was already aiming far into the future.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the tug of war over Aaliyah’s musical legacy, how family tension shaped the business of the Aaliyah estate and the role her music — even though it was largely unavailable digitally — played in the evolution of contemporary R&B.Guests:Naima Cochrane, a music journalist and consultantGail Mitchell, executive director of R&B/hip-hop at BillboardDan Rys, senior writer at BillboardConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica More

“It’s Never Too Late” is a series that tells the stories of people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.Jocelyn Nicole Johnson has been a public school art teacher for 20 years, but she is not in her elementary classroom this fall in Charlottesville, Va. Her debut collection, “My Monticello” — five short stories and the book’s title novella — will be published on Oct. 5. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead has called “My Monticello” “nimble, knowing, and electrifying,” and Esquire named “My Monticello,” published by Henry Holt, one of the best books of the fall, writing that it “announces the arrival of an electric new literary voice.”To top that off, Netflix plans to turn the book’s title novella into a film. In the novella, which is set in the near future, a young woman who is descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and a band of largely Black and brown survivors take refuge from marauding white supremacists in Monticello, Jefferson’s homestead. The book is extraordinary for another reason. Ms. Johnson is 50 years old, not the average age of your typical debut author. To be more blunt, the publishing industry is viewed by some trade observers as too often fetishizing young writers, so while 50 is considered relatively young in many circles, for a first-time author to find her way onto the grand stage is a rarity.The author, who lives in Charlottesville with her husband, a software engineer and photographer, and their 15-year-old son, is excited for the book to be out in the world but she is also a little nervous. “As an art teacher I can tell myself the kind of things that I would absolutely tell my students,” she said. “You made something, but it’s not you.” (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)When did you first start writing?Writing and art were my main interests from a very early age. I recently found this book that I wrote in the fourth grade. We had to write a story, illustrate it and bind it, and mine was called “Prom Queen.” It has a lot of vengeance in it, which surprised me. Then, when I was a teenager, I read “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton, that rough coming-of-age story. And I learned that Hinton was published when she was 18 years old, so I decided to write a novel, and I did it. I wrote a book at age 16. I still have copies of that book in a drawer.Ms. Johnson says her book, “My Monticello,” is partially inspired by the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville, Va., where she lives. Matt Eich for The New York TimesWhen were you first published?After I was a teenager, I put the idea of publishing a book on the back burner until much later in life. But I did like writing — I wrote that whole time — I just wasn’t making steps toward publishing my work when I was younger.In 2017 I submitted a short story about a college professor secretly using his son for a research experiment regarding racism, “Control Negro,” to Guernica, and I was delighted when I learned that they were going to publish it. Then it was tweeted about by Roxane Gay, who went on to select it for Best American Short Stories, a prestigious annual collection which she guest edited that year. I would say that was the true beginning of this book, my debut, “My Monticello,” which will make me a 50-year-old literary debutante.Tell us about your life before this book?I have taught public school art for 20 years. Anyone who has taught public school will know that it is a very robust job. A very time consuming job. It is a job you really commit to.I was kind of the Mr. Rogers of teachers: standing at my door with a chime and a cardigan, welcoming this very broad and diverse group of students that we have here in Charlottesville into my classroom.What would you consider the first step you took toward publishing this collection?I had a moment after I published “Control Negro” where I realized how that story and other stories I was working on were connected. And that was through this idea of place, through this idea of Virginia. And through the lenses of racial and environmental anxiety. So that’s when I realized that I wanted to publish a collection.How did you find the courage and strength to take that initial step?The first step that led to this book — reaching out — came naturally to me because I had been sending my work out for so many years. So I had the habit of trying. I had the habit of persistence and trying — without a lot of expectation, which I think is a nice place to be in. A familiarity with rejection.Do you remember your first reaction when you found out you sold the collection? That it was going to be published?I was at home teaching virtually, because of the pandemic. It was June 2020 — the end of the 2020 school year.It was really exciting but also a little terrifying. A lot of writers, myself included, are introverts. And you work really hard to make your book be in the world, but there’s also a vulnerability that comes with that. So I sat in that moment, and then I took a walk around the block with my husband and we debriefed. Because we could see our lives changing. I had to decide whether I was going to keep teaching. Eventually I decided, between the book deal and the pandemic, to take a break from the classroom.Ms. Johnson is pictured with glimpses of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s homestead, which is the setting of her title novella. Her words of wisdom? “Embrace rejection and find your people.”Matt Eich for The New York TimesWhat were the biggest challenges in your journey to publication?I enjoy writing, but it’s not all enjoyable. You can see what you want it to be, but it takes a lot of time and experience — and luck — to get your writing to where you want it to be. You often fail. You come against your own limitations.I was writing about things that mattered a lot to me. Things that were difficult for our community here in Charlottesville. The collection is partially inspired by the deadly Unite the Right rally that took place here, as well as this country’s troubled histories going back to the time of the founding fathers. I wanted to make sure I did the best I could to be honest about my perspective. To write something that was hopefully useful and engaging to people.Do you wish you had done this book sooner or do you feel it was right on time?I am so pleased that this book is my debut. It incorporates so much more of my lived experience and my life and my aspirations and my hopes.What are your future plans?Apparently I’m going to write a second book — because I am under contract to write a second book. I’ve told myself so many times throughout the course of my life, “I think I’ll take a break from writing.” But I’m always writing. So I’m looking forward to what comes next and how I manage my expectations again as I set out. Because every book is it’s own project.What would you tell people who feel stuck and want to make a change?Try something small. Do something differently that’s manageable. But start. That’s what I would tell students. You have to start somewhere. Find support. Find community. And start small.Has this experience made you a different person?I think we’re constantly changing, and I think we should change. I’m a different person now than the teacher who greeted students at her door, or even different than the person who wrote “My Monticello.” And that’s exciting.Is there anything else you’d like to share about the trajectory that got you here?People help you all along the way. Even those people who don’t say, “Yes.” Your first book doesn’t get published. And your second book doesn’t get published. Maybe your third doesn’t. But that creates the conditions, in a way, for what happens next. The difficulties along the way make it more satisfying in the end.What lessons can people learn from your experience?Embrace rejection and find your people.We’re looking for people who decide that it’s never too late to switch gears, change their life and pursue dreams. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here. More

As musical director for the bands behind Mr. Brown and also Van Morrison, Mr. Ellis helped forge new hybrids, meshing pop, jazz, R&B and more.Alfred (Pee Wee) Ellis, a saxophonist, arranger and composer who fused jazz, funk and soul as the musical director for James Brown and Van Morrison, died on Thursday. He was 80.The cause was “complications with his heart,” his Facebook page said. It did not say where he died; he lived in Dorset County, England.Mr. Ellis also performed, arranged and recorded extensively with his own jazz groups, in funk bands with fellow James Brown alumni and as a sideman for a broad array of musicians in jazz, R&B, pop, rock and African music. And his association with Mr. Morrison stretched across two decades.Mr. Ellis shared credit with Mr. Brown for writing 26 songs performed by Mr. Brown, including “Cold Sweat” and “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud.”He had a collaborative temperament that allowed him to get along with demanding performers like Mr. Brown, Mr. Morrison, Esther Phillips and the rock drummer Ginger Baker. “I’m not hard to get along with — and I’m a good mediator,” he said in a 2020 interview with The American magazine. “All their problems were their problems, not mine.”Alfred James Ellis was born on April 21, 1941, in Bradenton, Fla. He started playing piano, clarinet and saxophone as a youth, joining the marching band in junior high school. The family moved to Lubbock, Texas, in 1949 after his mother had married Ezell Ellis, who managed local musicians. Those musicians gave Alfred, who was a skinny child, his nickname, Pee Wee.Ezell Ellis was stabbed to death in a Texas club in 1955; a white woman had insisted on dancing with him, and the killer was infuriated at seeing an interracial couple.The family moved to Rochester, N.Y., when Alfred was a teenager, and he played jazz in high school groups and in clubs. He also spent time in New York City and studied at the Manhattan School of Music. He made his first recordings as a sideman.One day, in 1957, he was retrieving his saxophone from a repair shop when he ran into the jazz titan Sonny Rollins on Broadway and boldly asked him for lessons. Mr. Rollins agreed, and Mr. Ellis began making weekly trips to New York City to study with him. In a 2014 interview for the magazine Neon Nettle, Mr. Ellis likened working with Mr. Rollins to being “a sponge in deep water.”After high school he moved to Miami and became a full-time musician. Members of Mr. Brown’s band saw him performing at a motel there in 1965, and soon afterward he was hired to join the band. In a few months Mr. Ellis had become Mr. Brown’s musical director, writing arrangements and teaching them to the band.Mr. Brown in 2010. He made more than a dozen albums as a bandleader.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAfter a show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Mr. Brown summoned Mr. Ellis with an idea for a bass line. Then, in the band bus on the way to Cincinnati, Mr. Ellis constructed the rest of the music for what became “Cold Sweat,” a syncopated vamp with a two-note horn line that echoed Miles Davis’s “So What.”Fiercely polyrhythmic and untethered from blues or pop-song forms, the song became a cornerstone of funk. “‘Cold Sweat’ deeply affected the musicians I knew,” the producer Jerry Wexler said in the liner notes to “Star Time,” a James Brown boxed set. “It just freaked them out. For a time, no one could get a handle on what to do next.”Mr. Brown and Mr. Ellis wrote “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” another funk milestone, in response to the murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and the subsequent summer of racial unrest.“It was a music that heralded a new attitude,” Mr. Ellis said in a 2020 interview with Jazzwise magazine, “a new and distinctive Black culture, of street culture finding confidence and popularity outside and alongside the establishment. Sweeping into mainstream consciousness during the civil rights movement was unlike anything people had heard, and its positive energy united a new generation making them proud of their music, fashion and political tastes.”But relentless touring and recording with the James Brown band was grueling, and as the 1960s ended Mr. Ellis decided to return to jazz. In the 1970s he arranged and conducted the music for full albums by George Benson and Johnny Hammond; he also recorded with Esther Phillips, Leon Thomas, Hank Crawford, Shirley Scott, Sonny Stitt and Dave Liebman. He released his first full album as a leader, “Home in the Country,” in 1977.Mr. Ellis was invited to do horn arrangements for Van Morrison’s 1979 album, “Into the Music,” starting a lasting relationship. He appeared on Mr. Morrison’s albums for the next 20 years, and had stints as the musical director for Mr. Morrison in the 1980s and 1990s.In the ’90s and 2000s Mr. Ellis rejoined the saxophonist Maceo Parker and the trombonist Fred Wesley, bandmates from his years with Mr. Brown, to perform and make albums under various names, including the J.B. Horns and the J.B.’s Reunion.He led his own group, the Pee Wee Ellis Assembly, and made more than a dozen jazz albums as a leader. His touring projects included a stint in the 2010s with a quartet led by Mr. Baker, the drummer from Cream, and “Still Black Still Proud,” a James Brown tribute featuring African musicians.He also played sessions for, among many others, De La Soul, 10,000 Maniacs, Walter Wolfman Washington, Poncho Sanchez, Oumou Sangaré, Toumani Diabaté, Cheikh Lo and Ali Farka Touré. (Information on his survivors was not immediately available.)Mr. Ellis told The American that he was happiest when collaborating. “Part of the magic,” he said, “is joining forces and making something happen from nowhere.” More