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      Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen's Podcast to Become a Book

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      Crown is publishing “Renegades: Born in the USA,” a book adaptation of the podcast conversations.In “Renegades,” a podcast collaboration between Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, the former president acknowledged that it was, at a glance, an odd partnership.“On the surface, Bruce and I don’t have a lot in common,” he said. “He’s a white guy from a small town in Jersey; I’m a Black guy of mixed race, born in Hawaii, with a childhood that took me around the world. He’s a rock ‘n’ roll icon. I’m a lawyer and politician — not as cool.”But they have become vacation buddies and avid collaborators whose podcast — a series of frank conversations about race, fatherhood, social justice and American identity — became one of the podcasts with the most listeners around the world on Spotify.Now, they will be co-authors of sorts, with the coming release of a book of their conversations. This October, Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is publishing “Renegades: Born in the USA,” a book adaptation of the podcast. The 320-page book includes introductions by Obama and Springsteen, more than 350 photos and illustrations, and archival material such as Springsteen’s handwritten lyrics and Obama’s annotated speeches.In his introduction, Obama describes how the conversations grew out of “our ongoing effort to figure out how it is that we got here, and how we can tell a more unifying story that starts to close the gap between America’s ideals and its reality.”As salable book ideas go, a collaboration between a rock star and a former president seems a sure bet. (Crown is suggesting a list price of $50 in the United States and $65 in Canada.)Springsteen’s memoir, “Born to Run,” which was released by Simon & Schuster in 2016, was a hit, selling nearly half a million hardcover copies in its first few months on sale. Obama’s 2020 memoir, “A Promised Land,” which was published by Crown, has sold 8.2 million copies globally, and nearly five million in North America.The book version of “Renegades” also marks the latest release from the Obamas’ growing media empire. It is being produced in partnership with Higher Ground, the company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, which has struck exclusive production deals with Netflix for film and television and with Spotify for podcasts. The Obamas sold their memoirs to Crown in 2017 for a record-breaking $65 million. Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” sold more than 16 million copies globally since its release in 2018.Obama and Springsteen got to know each other in 2008 while Obama was campaigning, and became friends over the years. Springsteen performed at the White House in January 2017, as Obama was preparing to leave office.In their podcast conversations, the pair largely focused on personal stories about their lives and avoided partisan politics, but spoke generally about the urgent need to understand and address divisions in American society.“This is a time of vigilance when who we are is being seriously tested,” Springsteen writes in his introduction to “Renegades.” “Hard conversations about who we are and who we want to become can perhaps serve as a small guiding map for some of our fellow citizens.” More

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      Jack Antonoff Doesn’t Want to Just Take Up Space

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      As he prepares to release his third album with Bleachers, the musician and producer explores how his cultural must-haves intersect with his creative impulses.To the outside observer, Jack Antonoff might seem like something of a workaholic.A widely trusted collaborator whose fingerprints are all over contemporary pop, Antonoff has already worked on a number of this year’s notable releases by Lana Del Rey, Clairo and Lorde. “Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night,” the third studio album from Antonoff’s band Bleachers, is due July 30, lest anyone forget he also makes music of his own.But the portrait of Jack Antonoff, ubiquitous workhorse, isn’t familiar to Antonoff himself. “I don’t see myself doing anything different than any of the people I know,” he said. “I’ve actually put an amazing importance the past couple years on my own time and my family. And I’ve realized that sitting in the studio all night is kind of a hoax. You might be better off going to dinner with your friends.”Antonoff, 37, has been splitting his time between New York and his home state of New Jersey. Both places are woven into “Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night,” an album Antonoff wrote around the idea of falling in love and taking a new partner back home, “as a metaphor for showing them your truest self.” In promoting the record, Antonoff has made this passage extremely literal, performing his new songs while crossing state lines on a moving bus; while perched inside the Holland Tunnel; and, in the case of the single “Chinatown,” while in a car with one of his influences, Bruce Springsteen (who also lends vocals to the track).Calling from his Brooklyn apartment, Antonoff shared 10 of his much-loved cultural items — and tried to keep it honest. “When people make these lists, it always seems like they’re punching one notch above what they actually feel,” he noted. “I just jotted down a bunch of things I really like.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Martha” by Tom WaitsI’ve never heard more longing in a song. There are plenty of songs about love and regret, and there are plenty of sad chords. And then every once in a while, you hear something that is so much bigger than the sum of its parts. In high school, I had this girlfriend, and she would put on “Foreign Affairs” and we would make out. This song isn’t on that album, but I fell in love with his voice and when that relationship ended, I took Tom Waits with me.2. John F. Kennedy MemorabiliaI have a lot of it around my house. Growing up, we had this J.F.K. bust; I don’t know where my dad got it. Then I started collecting J.F.K. busts, and all these great J.F.K. speech compilation LPs. There’s just such a heavy cultural context that comes along with it that makes you think of so many hopeful, tragic, bizarre elements of what it is to be an American. He’s become a really interesting symbol to me, in his complication.3. “The Ben Stiller Show”It was a sketch show on MTV with Ben Stiller, Andy Dick, Bob Odenkirk and Janeane Garofalo that was so incredibly far ahead of its time. I see it as kind of the architecture for a lot of more bizarre comedy that has gotten really popular in the past 10 years. And it just isn’t culturally recognized in the way that you can throw it into a conversation the same way you can “Kids in the Hall” or Upright Citizens Brigade or even “The State” — those things people have a context for.4. Martín RamírezHe was part of a field of outsider artists. There’s a great book called “American Self-Taught” that highlights a lot of this stuff: Henry Darger, Bill Traylor, William Hawkins. All these artists mean a great deal to me, because there’s something really incredible about seeing work that nobody asked anyone to make. It just comes from the desire to make it. Martín Ramírez had some real mental health issues; I don’t have much in common with him or his story, but when I look at his work, it really feels like the inside of his brain.5. Magic: The GatheringA couple of years ago, my manager and I were walking by this comic shop. When I was growing up, everyone bought Magic cards — it was a big deal, at least in my corner of Jewish New Jersey. We went in and started talking to this guy behind the counter, who was talking about Magic in this really beautiful way. So we bought some cards and started playing and got obsessed with it. There’s such an art of putting together your deck. It’s a crazy meditation on your life: You make these choices, and you put all these theories and road maps into it, but then you shuffle your deck and hope one of them will pan out. It’s just a beautiful game that requires so much of your intellect and soul. And I’ve only scratched the surface. But it’s fun to be a part of something that you could never get to the end of. That’s a bit how I feel about music: The goal is not to master this thing, the goal is to be a part of it.6. Afghan HoundsI’m enamored with them. I’ve never had one, and I’ve only met a few. But there’s a version of my life where I just need to be around one. This one is a little bit more of a free association: I thought I’d throw something in that’s entirely unexamined and coming from some deep place. I just fantasize about Afghan Hounds being around.7. @NJGov on TwitterThere’s this whole culture of brands having a snarky Twitter, and sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s kind of cooked, but this is just right on. If I go on social media and look around, that doesn’t necessarily feel like a cozy place to me, but when I see New Jersey government tweets, I feel a joy and a calmness. It’s just a job well done — that’s not as common as we act like it is. It’s so infectious when someone’s just killing it. Such a part of making records is sort of like, “Why are we doing this? We should only do this if we’re all in, not just to take up space.” The New Jersey government Twitter does not take up space.8. Sam DewHe’s an artist, someone I collaborate with a lot, a friend. He might have the best voice in the world. Every once in a while, you’re in the presence of someone who was just dropped on this earth with an ability that nobody else has. That’s not even something that I usually gravitate toward; sometimes I’m more interested in all the messy things that people can put together that make something very beautiful in the end. But if you can ever be in a room and watch him sing, it’s a life-changing experience.9. Not SpeakingHere’s how I feel about not speaking: I forget to think sometimes, and everything good in my life has come from thinking. The concept of being alone can’t be a catchall for thinking. Everyone’s like, “Spend time alone, get to know yourself,” and, like, what the [expletive] does that mean? Just because you’re alone, it doesn’t mean you’re thinking. I love being in public or around people I know and not speaking, because if you can crest past that feeling of needing to be entertaining or keep some sort of vibe going, you do real thinking when you’re around people but not speaking. Probably part of why I love the city is the ability to be around people and not speak.10. John Darnielle’s LyricsHe’s our Dylan. It’s amazing when you hear a beautiful [Mountain Goats] song about loss or love, and it makes you think of the person that you lost or loved. That’s magical. But every once in a while, you’ll hear something that pulls at a part of you that you don’t even know where it is, you just know it’s there because it’s being pulled. That’s the highest form of this work, when you’re connecting in a way that is truly beyond words, beyond anecdotes, beyond “this song makes me think of this summer with this person.” It’s just on a whole other plane. More

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      Leon Bridges Brings Southern Soul Into the 21st Century

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      The Texas songwriter finds his groove in vulnerability on his third album, “Gold-Diggers Sound.”Tenacity is baked into Southern soul. It’s there in the grain and determination of the singing, in the patiently rolling grooves, in how its down-to-earth stories unfold. It’s there in the way the music holds on to blues and gospel roots connected to deeper African ancestry. And it’s there in the way the sound persists and adapts through decades, finding new rhythms but still testifying from the heart.“Gold-Diggers Sound,” the third album by the Texas songwriter Leon Bridges, offers his personalized survival strategy for Southern soul. Bridges sings about its classic topics in songs that take their time and revel in natural, unvarnished singing. He pledges sensual romance in “Magnolias,” does some cheating (with duet vocals from Atia “Ink” Boggs) in “Don’t Worry About Me” and affirms his faith in “Born Again.” Around him, the music uses synthetic textures, programmed beats and surreal layering to carry a decades-old tradition into the 21st century.“Sweeter,” which Bridges released in June 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd, draws grace from mourning. The narrator is a dead man with his mother, sisters and brothers weeping over him. “I thought we moved on from the darker days,” Bridges sings, over a pattering trap beat and Terrace Martin’s measured electric-piano chords; he adds, “Someone should hand you a felony/Because you stole from me my chance to be.”“I cannot and will not be silent any longer,” Bridges said in a statement at the time. “Just as Abel’s blood was crying out to God, George Floyd is crying out to me.”Bridges, 32, has worked his way forward through soul-music history. His first album, “Coming Home” in 2015, introduced a singer who harked back to an era well before he was born. His voice recalled the suavity of Sam Cooke and the grit of Otis Redding, and his music was unabashedly revivalist 1960s soul. Bridges moved the timeline forward with “Good Thing” in 2018, invoking 1980s “quiet storm” R&B and 1990s neo-soul. Both albums reached the Billboard Top 10, but they left the impression that Bridges was still doing genre studies, trying on established styles.“Gold-Diggers Sound” — named after the Los Angeles studio where the album was made — is more confidently single-minded. All of its songs are midtempo or slower, often verging on languid. Gently coiling, reverb-laden electric-guitar vamps, from Nate Mercereau, turn many of the songs into meditations, and all of the tracks, no matter how much is going on under the surface, defer to Bridges’s voice. Although the writing credits are full of collaborations — including pop song doctors like Dan Wilson and Justin Tranter — the songs present Bridges as a lonely figure in a desolate space, pleading and promising.Bridges and his producers, Ricky Reed and Mercereau, have clearly heard the slow grooves of D’Angelo, Prince, R. Kelly, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson. But there’s a different, melancholy side to Bridges’s songs and his voice: less assurance, more ache.He’s still a sweet talker, offering his lovers not only pleasure but also deeper empathy. In “Motorbike,” over a calmly plinking, African-tinged groove, he insists, “Don’t mean no pressure/I just wanna make you feel right.” A guitar vamps serenely in “Details” as he worries about a partner finding someone else; he reminds her how closely he’s paid attention to “How you look in the car when I’m driving a lil fast/How you pause when you talk when you’re trying not to laugh.”Throughout the album, Bridges dares to admit how needy he is. “Why Don’t You Touch Me” has the kind of ticking, undulating backdrop that another singer might use for an understated come-on. But Bridges’s song sees the passion ebbing out of his relationship, wonders what he might have done wrong and ends up begging: “Girl, make me feel wanted/Don’t leave me out here unfulfilled.” And Bridges ends the album not with romantic bliss, but with “Blue Mesas,” which confesses to a lingering depression that hasn’t been changed by success. It’s a contemporary choice — unexpectedly in line with the brooding sing-rap of songwriters like Polo G and Rod Wave. For Bridges, soul’s history is still unfolding.Leon Bridges“Gold-Diggers Sound”(Columbia) More

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      A Rap Song Lays Bare Israel’s Jewish-Arab Fracture — and Goes Viral

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      A Jew and a Palestinian sling slurs at each other, giving voice to hidden prejudice with the aim of overcoming it.BEIT YEHOSHUA, Israel — Uriya Rosenman grew up on Israeli military bases and served as an officer in an elite unit of the army. His father was a combat pilot. His grandfather led the paratroopers who captured the Western Wall from Jordan in 1967.Sameh Zakout, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, grew up in the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Ramla. His family was driven out of its home in the 1948 war of Israeli independence, known to Palestinians as the “Nakba,” or catastrophe. Many of his relatives fled to Gaza.Facing each other in a garage over a small plastic table, the two hurl ethnic insults and clichés at each other, tearing away the veneer of civility overlaying the seething resentments between the Jewish state and its Palestinian minority in a rap video that has gone viral in Israel.The video, “Let’s Talk Straight,” which has garnered more than four million views on social media since May, couldn’t have landed at a more apt time, after the eruption two months ago of Jewish-Arab violence that turned many mixed Israeli cities like Lod and Ramla into Jewish-Arab battlegrounds.By shouting each side’s prejudices at each other, at times seemingly on the verge of violence, Mr. Rosenman and Mr. Zakout have produced a work that dares listeners to move past stereotypes and discover their shared humanity.Mr. Rosenman, 31, says he wants to change Israel from within by challenging its most basic reflexes. “I think that we are scared and are controlled by fear,” he says.Mr. Zakout, 37, wants to change Israel by overcoming their forebears’ traumas. “I am not emphasizing my Palestinian identity,” he says. “I am a human being. Period. We are human beings first.”At first viewing, the video seems like anything but a humanistic enterprise.Mr. Rosenman, the first to speak, launches into a relentless three-minute anti-Palestinian tirade.“Don’t cry racism. Stop the whining. You live in clans, fire rifles at weddings,” he taunts, his body tensed. “Abuse your animals, steal cars, beat your own women. All you care about is Allah and the Nakba and jihad and the honor that controls your urges.”The camera circles them. A guitar screeches.Mr. Zakout tugs at his beard, looks away with disdain. He’s heard it all before, including that oft-repeated line: “I am not a racist, my gardener is Arab.”The duo recorded the song in March and the video in mid-April. Arab-Jewish riots broke out in Israeli cities soon after.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesThen Mr. Zakout, his voice rising, delivers the other side of the most intractable of Middle Eastern stories.“Enough,” he says. “I am a Palestinian and that’s it, so shut up. I don’t support terror, I’m against violence, but 70 years of occupation — of course there’ll be resistance. When you do a barbecue and celebrate independence, the Nakba is my grandmother’s reality. In 1948 you kicked out my family, the food was still warm on the table when you broke into our homes, occupying and then denying. You can’t speak Arabic, you know nothing of your neighbor, you don’t want us to live next to you, but we build your homes.”Mr. Rosenman fidgets. His assertive confidence drains away as he’s whisked through the looking-glass of Arab-Jewish incomprehension.The video pays homage to Joyner Lucas’s “I’m Not Racist,” a similar exploration of the stereotypes and blindness that lock in the Black-white fracture in the United States.Mr. Rosenman, an educator whose job was to explain the conflict to young Israeli soldiers, had grown increasingly frustrated with “how things, with the justification of past traumas for the Jews, were built on rotten foundations.”“Some things about my country are amazing and pure,” he said in an interview. “Some are very rotten. They are not discussed. We are motivated by trauma. We are a post-traumatic society. The Holocaust gives us some sort of back-way legitimacy to not plan for the future, not understand the full picture of the situation here, and to justify action we portray as defending ourselves.”For example, Israel, he believes, should stop building settlements “on what could potentially be a Palestinian state” in the West Bank, because that state is needed for peace.Looking for a way to hold a mirror to society and reveal its hypocrisies, Mr. Rosenman contacted a friend in the music industry, who suggested he meet Mr. Zakout, an actor and rapper.They started talking in June last year, meeting for hours on a dozen occasions, building trust. They recorded the song in Hebrew and Arabic in March and the video in mid-April.Their timing was impeccable. A few weeks later, the latest Gaza war broke out. Jews and Arabs clashed across Israel.Their early conversations were difficult.They argued over 1948. Mr. Zakout talked about his family in Gaza, how he missed them, how he wanted to get to know his relatives who lost their homes. He talked about the Jewish “arrogance that we feel as Arabs, the bigotry.”Mr. Zakout and Mr. Rosenman have become fast friends and are at work on a second project.Dan Balilty for The New York Times“My Israeli friends told me I put them in front of the mirror,” he said.Mr. Rosenman said he understood Mr. Zakout’s longing for a united family. That was natural. But why did Arab armies attack the Jews in 1948? “We were happy with what we got,” he said. “You know we had no other option.”The reaction to the video has been overwhelming, as if it bared something hidden in Israel. Invitations have poured in — to appear at conferences, to participate in documentaries, to host concerts, to record podcasts.“I’ve been waiting for someone to make this video for a long time,” said one commenter, Arik Carmi. “How can we fight each other when we are more like brothers than we will admit to ourselves? Change won’t come before we let go of the hate.”The two men, now friends, are at work on a second project, which will examine how self-criticism in a Jewish and Arab society might bring change. It will ask the question: How can you do better, rather than blaming the government?Mr. Zakout recently met Mr. Rosenman’s grandfather, Yoram Zamosh, who planted the Israeli flag at the Western Wall after Israeli paratroopers stormed into the Old City in Jerusalem during the 1967 war. Most of Mr. Zamosh’s family from Berlin was murdered by the Nazis at the Chelmno extermination camp.“He is a unique and special guy,” Mr. Zakout said of Mr. Zamosh. “He reminds me a little of my grandfather, Abdallah Zakout, his energy, his vibes. When we spoke about his history and pain, I understood his fear, and at the same time he understood my side.”The video aims to bring viewers to that same kind of understanding.“That’s the beginning,” Mr. Zakout said. “We are not going to solve this in a week. But at least it is something, the first step in a long journey.”Mr. Rosenman added: “What we do is meant to scream out loud that we are not scared anymore. We are letting go of our parents’ traumas and building a better future for everyone together.”The last words in the video, from Mr. Zakout, are: “We both have no other country, and this is where the change begins.”They turn to the table in front of them, and silently share a meal of pita and hummus. More

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      Kennedy Center Taps Joni Mitchell and Berry Gordy for Awards

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      Bette Midler, Lorne Michaels and Justino Díaz will also receive tributes at a ceremony that is expected to look much more like it did before the pandemic.The last Kennedy Center Honors aired on television less than two months ago, but on Wednesday, the institution announced a new batch of honorees, taking a step toward getting the program back on schedule after the upheaval of the pandemic.The recipients include the folk singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell; the stage and screen performer Bette Midler; Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown; Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live”; and the opera singer Justino Díaz.Because of the pandemic, the 2020 honors were delayed until this year and the celebration did not at all resemble the event from prior years, when artists, politicians and other prominent figures packed into the opera house. Instead, the ceremony was split over several days, and television producers stitched together a combination of recorded at-home tributes and in-person performances that aired in June.This time, the ceremony, scheduled for Dec. 5, promises to look more like the Kennedy Center Honors of old, with the house at capacity and, if all goes well, President Biden in attendance. (President Trump was a no-show at the three ceremonies held during his time in office.)Throughout her career, Bette Midler released more than a dozen studio albums. Her starring role in the Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly!” earned her a Tony Award for best lead actress in a musical in 2017.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“It’s going to be the party to end all parties because we haven’t had one in so long,” said Deborah Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.The ceremony will air on CBS, but the date has not been set.The honorees, selected on the recommendation of an advisory committee that includes Kennedy Center officials and past award recipients, include two singer-songwriters, Mitchell and Midler, whose careers started to soar in the early 1970s, when they were in their 20s.Fifty years ago, Mitchell, 77, released “Blue,” her fourth album, which went on to have an enduring influence on singer-songwriters for decades to come. Mitchell, who helped shape an era of protest music with songs like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock,” said of the honor, “I wish my mother and father were alive to see this.”Midler’s debut album, “The Divine Miss M,” came out a year after “Blue,” and helped propel her into a career that spread to Broadway, television and film. Midler, 75, put out more than a dozen studio albums, and her run as Dolly Levi in the Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly!” earned her a Tony Award for best lead actress in a musical in 2017.Berry Gordy, right, onstage in 1981 with Smokey Robinson, one of the many singers discovered by Gordy.Joan Adlen/Getty ImagesIn Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, the Kennedy Center is honoring the figure behind an entire generation of musical talent. Gordy, now 91, once borrowed $800 from his family to start the record company and then went on to discover and help ignite the careers of Diana Ross and the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye and more.After announcing his retirement two years ago, Gordy said in an interview, he spends much of his time playing golf, tennis and chess.“Here we are 60 years later and Diana Ross and the Temptations are both coming out with new albums,” he said. “Motown’s legacy continues without me having to do anything.”This year is the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Center’s opening in 1971, more than a decade after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation creating a National Cultural Center. Shortly after the grand opening of the center, Díaz, then a 31-year-old opera singer, performed there as the male lead in Ginastera’s “Beatrix Cenci.” He played a villainous count and recalled handling two huge Mastiffs onstage during his first entrance.Now, at 81, Díaz, a bass-baritone who has performed for opera companies across the globe, will return to the opera house to see artists pay tribute to his career.Fifty years ago, Justino Díaz sang at one of the opening performances at the Kennedy Center. Now, he will return for a celebration of his career.Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan, via Getty Image“Little old me?” he said in an interview. He noted that despite his fame in the opera world, he is not a household name.“I say I’m an opera singer,” he said, “and immediately I have to follow with, ‘No, I’m not Plácido Domingo and I’m not Luciano Pavarotti.’”Rutter said that although the last ceremony was limited by social distancing requirements, there are aspects of it that she wishes to maintain. In particular, she said, there was a sense of intimacy in that celebration that had not been there before. At one point, she noted, as the artists mingled outside on a terrace, Rhiannon Giddens picked up her banjo, began playing, and Joan Baez started to dance.“It was spontaneous,” Rutter said. “The artists broke open their instruments and people started singing and dancing together.”(It is unclear whether the attendees this year will be required to wear masks, as they will be required to do for the Kennedy Center’s fall programming.)Michaels, 76, who created “S.N.L.” in 1975, was also forced by the pandemic to drastically rethink his show. In the spring of 2020, “S.N.L.” filmed sketches at its actors’ homes, allowing the audience to connect with the cast members in a new way. Now that they have returned to a live audience, they are thinking of ways to apply what they learned in quarantine.“Those shows had a strong homemade quality, which was part of their charm,” he said. “Once we went back to the audience, we kept pushing the limit of what we could do.” More

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      Roy Hargrove and Mulgrew Miller’s Glorious Duets

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      Two performances by the trumpeter and pianist are collected on “In Harmony,” a new double album that takes on standards via a fresh lens.On a snowy evening in January 2006, the trumpeter Roy Hargrove sped from Newark Airport to Merkin Hall, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to play a rare duet concert with the esteemed pianist Mulgrew Miller. He got there just in time: There was no room for a rehearsal or even a proper soundcheck; they selected the set list while waiting in the wings, just before going onstage.The two had long been in each other’s orbit, but they’d hardly ever played alone together, so they chose almost entirely standards, the common tongue of the jazz tradition. Their instruments blended effortlessly — just as they did nearly two years later, when the musicians came together again at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, where Miller sometimes taught, for another duet.Those two performances are collected on “In Harmony,” a double album from the archival jazz label Resonance Records arriving on vinyl and CD. Only select tracks will be available on streaming services.The album is a low-key triumph, and a worthy addition to Black American music’s inventory of great trumpet-piano duet recordings, including the famous sides that Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines made in the 1920s, and the underrecognized LP that Oscar Peterson recorded with Clark Terry in 1975. There’s something satisfying about the neatness of the format — the clarity of the roles, the separation of powers — that allows a trumpeter and a pianist to let loose within the gift of structure.Both Hargrove and Miller died in recent years, at ages 49 and 57, but despite being relatively young, they’d each achieved a kind of hallowed-elder status. Both had moved to New York from the South, roughly a decade apart, and they became shaped by the straight-ahead jazz renaissance going on in Manhattan in the 1980s and ’90s. At the same time, they never fell out of touch with the blues and gospel traditions, which they had learned from the inside out as youngsters.On the opening track of “In Harmony,” a nine-minute sprint through Cole Porter’s “What Is This Thing Called Love,” Miller tosses together bluesy rumbles, fast-break bebop and the occasional passage of stride piano. Hargrove’s smartly dazzling solo is laced with bebop callbacks — to Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-Ning” and Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House” — yet his style transcends: He has a buttery and elegantly coiled attack that harks to Clifford Brown, and the acuity to follow Miller’s lead into postmodern harmonic leaps.Hargrove grew up in Texas, quiet and reclusive, but by his midteens he had found his vocation and was becoming known as a prodigy. He moved to New York at 20, and for months he spent almost every night at Bradley’s, a bustling jazz haunt in Greenwich Village with a luxurious grand piano but no drum kit. The club was a laboratory and a proving ground, and while there he grew close with various older musicians. Miller was one of them.Hailing from Mississippi by way of Memphis State University, Miller was a pianist who could fill any assignment. As his career went on, he tended to do the assigning himself: Throughout the 2000s, he led a trio that hewed to an acoustic-jazz format but left plenty of room for Miller’s vast palette of influences to shine — the stride of Art Tatum, the bebop of Bud Powell, the block chords of Erroll Garner, the soul piano of Donny Hathaway or Aretha Franklin, the gospel playing of James Cleveland.Like Hargrove, Miller moved to New York from the South and was shaped by the straight-ahead jazz renaissance of the 1980s and ’90s.Mark SheldonHe also took close notes on the non-pianists he worked with. Toward the beginning of his career, in the early 1980s, Miller spent three years playing in the band of the trumpeter Woody Shaw, who did more than perhaps any other musician of his era to expand the possibilities of harmony and imbrication in modern jazz. Miller learned to pour those lessons into his piano playing, and you can hear it across “In Harmony,” including on “Invitation,” the Bronislaw Kaper standard, when Hargrove and Miller trade fours in a high-velocity repartee. At times, Miller cycles through harmonies around a fixed point, and Hargrove cuts into them at an angle, traveling in leaps. In other cases, Miller improvises in chunky, rhythmic sequences of chords — no melody needed.Miller and Hargrove bring the same level of intense focus to the ballads they play, including Benny Golson’s “I Remember Clifford” and Monk’s “Ruby My Dear”; on most of those, Hargrove switches to the fuller-toned fluegelhorn. Throughout, both players are at the height of their powers, and it’s arresting to hear them up close, in such rich detail. It’s also rare, in today’s jazz generation, for musicians to approach standards with this level of hands-on commitment and devotion.“In Harmony” was recorded in far grander rooms than Bradley’s, before much-less-roisterous audiences, but it’ll leave you musing on what a night at the club might have felt like: the stripped-down instrumentation; the intimacy of the exchange; the standard jazz repertoire, renewed through camaraderie and fresh ideas.Roy Hargrove and Mulgrew Miller“In Harmony”(Resonance) More

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      A Violinist on How to Empower Asian Musicians

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      Jennifer Koh, an acclaimed soloist, calls on classical music to make space for artists of Asian descent, who remain marginalized in the field.I have not been surprised by the recent violence toward Asian Americans. I palpably remember being afraid when I was a child in Illinois, in the 1980s.At that time, Japan was seen as a looming economic force invading the United States. In 1982, Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man, was beaten to death by two white men who thought he was Japanese, here to steal American jobs. The perpetrators received a $3,000 fine and probation for killing a man who looked like my father. The message was clear: Asian American lives had little value.This message trickled down to my elementary school, where my classmates broke eggs into my hair and hit me on an almost daily basis for five years because I was not white. And yet I was grateful to be Asian American. After all, we were the model minority.This myth that all Asian Americans are quiet, diligent and successful was invented to pit minority groups against each other, making racism palatable by giving Asians distorted praise and falsely promising them access to the white American dream. The myth defers the kind of solidarity between minorities that could threaten entrenched racial power structures.This myth also hides truths: Currently in New York City, nearly a quarter of the Asian population lives below the poverty line; Asian immigrants have among the highest poverty rates in the city.A beneficiary of changes to American immigration policies that had placed quotas on nonwhite immigrants, I am the daughter of Korean War refugees. During her childhood, my mother witnessed horrific violence and experienced overwhelming fear and hunger. Although my family’s history is a common one for Korean Americans, it is a part of Asian American history largely ignored in this country. But perhaps even less known is what it is like to be an Asian American woman in classical music.“In the beginning of my career, I was told by an influential conductor — who had never heard me play — that I could never be a true artist.”Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesHaving had few opportunities in their childhoods, my parents provided me with numerous extracurricular activities, one of which was violin lessons. But when I was growing up, I saw very few people in music who looked like me. In 1980, according to the League of American Orchestras, 96.6 percent of orchestral players in the country were white. At that time, the “Oriental presence in classical music,” as a New York Times article put it, was a topic of discussion.These days, Asians are often referred to as overrepresented minorities. In the League of American Orchestras’s most recent data, 86.8 percent of orchestral musicians are white and 9.1 percent are of Asian descent. Among executives in classical music, 91.7 percent are white. The percentage of ethnic Asians in these management positions is too small to be included.It is highly misleading to say that Asian Americans are overrepresented in what remains an overwhelmingly white and male field.Classical music is often called “universal,” but what does universality mean when the field was built for white men who still hold much of the power? In my nearly 30-year career, I have seen not even a handful of ethnic Asians — much less Asian American women — ascend to executive or leadership positions.I have witnessed throughout my career that those of us who are ethnically Asian but were born, raised or trained in America and Europe, are burdened with the belief that musicians of Asian descent are diligent, hard-working and technically perfect — but cannot understand the true essence of music, have no soul and ultimately cannot be true artists. In the beginning of my career, I was told by an influential conductor — who had never heard me play — that I could never be a true artist because he did not understand Chinese music and therefore Chinese people could never understand classical music.The American historian Grace Wang uses the term “innate capacity” to describe the belief that different types of music originate from, and therefore belong to, specific groups of people from specific places. The assumption that a musician can be a great interpreter of a composer because he or she is from the country where the composer once lived is often expressed, both implicitly and explicitly. Technique can be learned, according to this perspective, but the ability to truly understand the essence of classical music can only be acquired through bloodline and race.In 2007, it was revealed that Joyce Hatto, a white British pianist, had stolen recordings of other pianists — including those of Yuki Matsuzawa, a Japanese woman — and released them as her own. Tom Deacon, long considered a gatekeeper in classical music, a former record executive and a well-traveled competitions judge, had written on a classical music message board about both Hatto’s and Matsuzawa’s recordings, without knowing they were the same.Of what he believed to be Hatto, Deacon wrote: “My oh my, this is a beautiful recording of Chopin’s music. The pieces flow so naturally and so completely, without precious effects.” Hatto, he added, played “the octaves so incredibly smoothly that they seem to flow from her fingers”Of what was labeled, correctly, as Matsuzawa: “Faceless, typewriter, neat as a pin but utterly flaccid performances with small, tiny poetic gestures added like so much rouge on the face of a Russian doll.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Aside from the obvious contrast between his praise of Hatto and his loathing of Matsuzawa for the exact same performance, what fascinates me is the language. Deacon encapsulates nearly every stereotype of Asian musicians: He writes that Matsuzawa’s performances are “faceless,” while a white woman’s “flow naturally”; the Asian pianist is technically “neat as a pin,” a “typewriter,” not organically creative and only able to copy a European’s innate capacity.Classical music continues to perpetuate these and other stereotypes, including through the continued use of yellowface — white performers painted with yellow makeup and slanted eyes — in opera productions. Yellowface normalizes caricatures of Asians and fetishizes Asian women, exoticizing them through stereotypes of them as alternately submissive and hypersexual.So how can classical music empower and create space for all members of our community?Ask Asian Americans to curate programs and create work — not just about Asia, with token Lunar New Year concerts, but about our unique experiences and contributions as Americans of Asian descent.Hire and commission Asian and Asian American singers, instrumentalists, conductors and composers to break stereotypes and amplify our individualities and complexities.Mentor Asian Americans at the beginning of their musical careers. Sponsor and promote Asian Americans in arts management and administration. Recruit Asian Americans onto the boards of arts organizations.And, when you have Asian Americans on your boards, listen to them — empower them to reframe discussions about inclusion and equity, and give them the freedom to issue statements about violence against those who look like them. Learn the histories of Asian Americans and create paths to engage with all members of your community.My mentors fought for my inclusion in the classical world. It is now my responsibility to help build a more inclusive field for future generations. I invite musicians and musical institutions to create these new spaces with me and my forward-thinking colleagues. More

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      After 145 Years, Bayreuth Festival Has Its First Female Conductor

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      Oksana Lyniv will open the festival, founded by Wagner to present his own operas, leading “Der Fliegende Holländer.”The Bayreuth Festival in Germany is one of the most venerable events in classical music. Richard Wagner founded it to present his own operas, and it’s been open most summers since 1876.But 2021 brings something new in the festival’s 145-year history: On Sunday, Oksana Lyniv will become the first woman to conduct a production there.A native of Brody, in western Ukraine, where she grew up in a family of musicians, Lyniv, 43, has spent the better part of the last two decades in German-speaking Europe. She was an assistant to the influential conductor Kirill Petrenko at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and from 2017 to 2020 was chief conductor of the Graz Opera and Graz Philharmonic Orchestra in Austria. She has also maintained strong musical ties to Ukraine, and is the founder and artistic director of LvivMozArt, a festival in Lviv inspired by that city’s 19th-century ties to Franz Xaver Mozart, the great composer’s son.“It was always my goal to come to Germany,” she said in a recent interview. “It was unimaginable for me to be a professional conductor without a connection to sources in the German language, which are very important when I prepare for concerts.”The first books she read in that language, she added, were Mozart’s letters.She spoke on a video call late last month from Bayreuth, where she was rehearsing for her debut leading the new production of “Der Fliegende Holländer.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Eric Cutler, right, sings Erik in the production of “Der Fliegende Holländer,” directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov.Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther FestspieleYou have been to Bayreuth before, as a member of the audience and an observer in the unusual covered orchestra pit. What is unique about the festival?Everything is different; there is really no comparison with anywhere else. The position of the orchestra members in the pit, for instance, was prescribed by Wagner. First violins sit on the right, and second violins sit on the left, with the double basses on either side of the strings. This all creates a special sound.And because of the construction of the pit, which is covered, the sound goes back to the wall then out to the audience, so there is a slight delay. As a conductor at Bayreuth, you’re very dependent on your assistants, who are sitting in the audience. There are phones near the podium, and we can all communicate the whole time about how the orchestra is sounding in the theater. In the pit itself, it’s rather tight, and the sound is very, very loud — but it’s really exciting.How are you getting ready for your debut?It was important for me to find out what Wagner was thinking when he created “Der Fliegende Holländer.” At the time he wrote it, he was in debt and artistically frustrated, but he had great ambition. He had moved to an apartment on the edge of Paris — angry at the whole world, feeling that no one understood him — and he wrote this opera to prove something. We hear that struggle in Act I, Scene 1, when a storm begins. I was in Paris recently, for my debut at the Opéra Bastille, and I went to look for the house where he composed the opera. This kind of history is very important for me.What do you make of Senta, the opera’s heroine?Wagner was creating a prototype of the modern woman in Senta. She doesn’t belong to her family, or to tradition. She doesn’t want to get married, or sit with the other village women and spin. And she doesn’t want to do what her father wants her to do; she has her own ideas. That was very unusual in the 19th century. In his operas, Wagner went on to create other women like this, such as Isolde or Brünnhilde, women who are gradually being emancipated, who are acting on their own.Dmitri Tcherniakov is directing and designing the production. Have you worked with him before? What is his interpretation of the piece?Yes, I got to know him when I was Kirill Petrenko’s assistant in Munich, and he staged “Lulu.” Tcherniakov likes to explore the psychological background of the characters. I can’t give too many specifics now, but I can say the production is not set in any particular period. And the focus is on the Dutchman. Tcherniakov likes to point out that other productions are focused on Senta: Why does she dream about the Dutchman? Why does she want to save him? Here, Tcherniakov is asking: Why is the Dutchman the way he is? Why was he driven out, and why can’t he go back? What is he looking for?Lyniv at a rehearsal. She is separately preparing two groups of musicians to have an alternate ensemble ready in case coronavirus cases are discovered in one.Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther FestspieleYou’re from western Ukraine, a former cultural crossroads. What was it like when you were growing up? Were you aware of the region’s vanished traditions?I was born during the Soviet period, when Russian and Soviet culture were imposed on us, but I like to read, and did my own research. I came across great names like Joseph Roth, Paul Celan and Stanislaw Lem, the Polish science- fiction writer who was born in Lviv.I also discovered that Leonard Bernstein’s parents were from Rovno, 100 kilometers from Brody, where I was born. Brody was once known as “the Jerusalem of Austria,” and there are still the ruins of a synagogue destroyed in the Second World War, which reminds us of the past in a very strong way. In 2019, I conducted a special concert there in memory of Joseph Roth, and we played Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony.Do you sing yourself?I started with piano. Then I played flute, studied violin a little, and then I studied singing. I have a high soprano voice, and I really liked singing in a choir. When I was young, I thought about being a choir director like my father, but then orchestra conducting prevailed. The sound of an orchestra fascinated me.What do you do before a performance? Do you have any habits or superstitions?It is important for me to have a coffee and something sweet, but I don’t really have any other needs. The most important thing for me is inspiration. I rely on finding out so much about the composers beforehand that I feel I know them personally, that they’re almost my friends.Do you sense resistance to female conductors today?In the last 15 years, everything has changed a lot. I don’t feel any hostility; in fact, just the opposite. There is a lot of interest and support: from the public, from orchestras, from managers and from the critics. Next season, I have some great things planned: In November, I will have my debut at Covent Garden in London with “Tosca,” and next May I will have my first concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, a Stravinsky program.How is the pandemic affecting Bayreuth this year?During the pandemic, I have had to deal with every kind of situation. In Frankfurt, we did a whole “I Puritani” with only 19 musicians in the orchestra pit. Now in Bayreuth, we’re playing with a full orchestra, but we have two groupings; I rehearse with each one in case something happens. We have 140 people in the chorus, and they are divided. Seventy are in a special room and their singing is broadcast into the theater, and the other 70 are onstage, like extras, but they can’t sing a note for safety reasons — though they’re meant to react the whole time as if they’re singing.Are you vaccinated?No, I have not yet been vaccinated, though I plan to. But we have PCR tests every day. And I don’t meet anybody or go anywhere — except rehearsal. More