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    New York’s Pop-Up Concerts Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination Site

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York’s Pop-Up Concerts Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination SiteThe musician Jon Batiste led a band through the Javits Center to begin half a year of unannounced performances throughout the state.Jon Batiste (center) and his band Stay Human march through the Javits Center during the first NY PopsUp event on Saturday.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2021It seemed at first like a small, no-frills concert in a carefully controlled environment: The jazz musician Jon Batiste sitting at a piano in an auditorium at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side, performing for an audience of about 50 health care workers seated in evenly spaced rows — some wearing scrubs, others Army fatigues.The dancer Ayodele Casel began tapping, with no musical accompaniment except a recording of her own voice, her amplified cramp rolls filling the room. And the opera singer Anthony Roth Costanzo performed “Ave Maria” in a countertenor’s angelic tones.Ayodele Casel tapping.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAnd an appreciative audience of health care workers.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBatiste on melodica as the indoor parade passes by.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBut about half an hour in, the performers stepped off the stage and exited the room, turning what had begun as a formal concert into a rollicking procession of music and dancing that grooved through the sterile building — the convention center was turned into a field hospital early in the pandemic and is now a mass vaccination site — where hundreds of hopeful people had come on Saturday afternoon to get their shots.Batiste switched to the melodica, a toylike, hand-held reed instrument with a keyboard, and the troupe of musicians — which had expanded to include a horn section and percussionists — paraded up the escalator and through the convention center, eventually reaching a high-ceilinged room where dozens of people sat waiting quietly for the requisite 15 minutes after getting their vaccinations.This concert-turned-roaming-party was the first in a series of “pop-up” shows in New York intended to give the arts a jolt by providing artists with paid work and audiences with opportunities to see live performance after nearly a year of darkened theaters and concert halls. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced plans for the series, called “NY PopsUp,” last month, declaring that “we must bring arts and culture back to life,” and adding that their revival would be crucial to the economic revival of New York City. The shows are getting underway as he finds himself under fire for the state’s handling of Covid-19 deaths of nursing home residents.Health care workers and vaccine recipients provided and audience for the surprise concert on Saturday at the Javits Center, the first of a series called NY PopsUp.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBatiste, getting serious.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe band, appropriately masked, propels itself through the center on Saturday.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBecause the program is wary of drawing crowds, most of the performances will be unannounced, emerging suddenly at parks, museums, parking lots and street corners. The idea is to inject a dose of inspiration into the lives of New Yorkers — a moment in which they can pause their scheduled lives and witness art during a pandemic year that has limited human contact and imposed tight restrictions on people’s activities.“We need more spontaneity; that’s what the beauty of this is,” Batiste said in an interview. “You don’t know what’s around the corner.”As the troupe of musicians moved through the Javits Center, the audience of health care workers followed them, clapping to the beat and recording the spectacle on their phones. Batiste, who is the bandleader on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” propelled his musicians through the space (most of them have played with the show’s house band, including Endea Owens on bass, Tivon Pennicott on saxophone, and Joe Saylor and Nêgah Santos on percussion).Bre Williams, a 35-year-old nurse in blue scrubs who had come from Savannah, Ga., to help out in New York, looked on wide-eyed.“Y’all do this stuff all the time up here?” she said, laughing.Shortly before the music ended, some of the health care workers rushed off to continue their work day (this concert was happening during their break time, after all).The series is put on by a public-private partnership led by the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, along with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. Zack Winokur, the director and interdisciplinary artist in charge of the programming, said the group is aiming to put on more than 300 pop-up performances through Labor Day, in every borough and around the state. The performers are chosen by a council of artists — among them Batiste, Casel and Costanzo — who are each asked to tap into their own networks to find participants.“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a live performance,” Winokur said in an interview. “It’s a profoundly needed experience right now.”A pop-up parade with free drinks from a coffee truck.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesOnlookers, some appreciative, peeked out of doorways and windows. At one point, however, objects were hurled at the musicians from an upper-story window.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe NY PopsUp parade takes over a lane in Brooklyn.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAfter the first performance at the Javits Center, the musicians headed to Brooklyn, where they began another flash-mob-style street jam, starting from Cadman Plaza Park and winding their way through Dumbo to end up at a skatepark, where teenagers stared at them curiously before hopping back on their skateboards. The free, mobile concerts are called “love riots” by Batiste, who has previously planned them on social media. This one traveled along sidewalks and slushy snow, sometimes slowing traffic.Prevented from tap dancing on the street, Casel banged out rhythms by clapping the metal plates on her tap shoes together with her hands; Costanzo danced along with the band and at one point grabbed the megaphone to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”While the music was intended to provide a spontaneous display for passers-by, the march itself was as tightly regulated as any pandemic-era event. Security personnel directed members of the musical entourage around uneven terrain and dog waste. Another employee asked onlookers to spread out when they started to break social distancing guidelines.Despite the logistics that went into it, the plan succeeded in being a spontaneous curiosity for the dozens of people who unexpectedly encountered the music. Moving down narrow alleyways and commercial streets, the band caused people to stop, stare and sometimes groove a little bit. Children peered through windows along Washington Street; a doorman darted out of an apartment building to see what all the noise was about; pharmacy employees leaned out of the doorway to film the procession down the sidewalk.Not everyone seemed to appreciate the music, though. At one point, someone inside an apartment building began throwing objects at the marchers from several floors up (one of the security staffers said he thought he saw an orange juice container and a trophy hit the snow).Accustomed to improvising, the band simply dodged the flying objects and marched a bit more quickly, the music never stopping.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Cuomo Announces Pop-Up Performances Across New York

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCuomo Announces Pop-Up Performances Across New York“NY PopsUp” will kick off Feb. 20 and run through Labor Day.A festival celebrating Little Island, the parklike pier being built downtown in the Hudson River, will coincide with the last days of “NY PopsUp.”Credit…Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesFeb. 8, 2021, 3:18 p.m. ETGov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who has made it clear that he sees the return of art and culture as key components of the economic revival of the state, announced Monday that a series of more than 300 free pop-up performances, “NY PopsUp,” would begin Feb. 20 and run through Labor Day.Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, announced details of the city’s Open Culture program, which will permit outdoor performances on designated city streets this spring.The state’s pop-up events are part of a public-private partnership, New York Arts Revival, and will feature more than 150 artists including Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, Mandy Patinkin, Renée Fleming and Hugh Jackman.Since the state does not wish to draw large crowds in the pandemic, many of the events will not be announced in advance.“We’re trying to thread the needle,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We want the performances. We don’t want mass gatherings, we don’t want large crowds.”The events, the state said, will take place in parks, museums and parking lots, as well as on subway platforms and in transit stations. People can follow a new Twitter and Instagram account, @NYPopsUp, for details about upcoming performances. Many will be shown online.The series will be spearheaded by the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, along with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. It is part of an arts revival plan that the governor had announced during an address in January, when he had said the state would organize the pop-up performances beginning Feb. 4.The series will begin Feb. 20 at the Javits Center in New York City with a free performance for health care workers that will feature Jon Batiste, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Cecile McLorin Salvant and Ayodele Casel. The performers will travel across the city to all five boroughs, performing in parks and street corners, as well as at the footsteps of Elmhurst Hospital and St. Barnabas Hospital.Mr. Cuomo said some of the events would use flexible venues that do not have fixed seats, and could therefore be reconfigured to allow for social distancing, including the Shed, the Apollo Theater, Harlem Stage, La MaMa and the Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theater.In June, the opening of Little Island, the parklike pier being built downtown in the Hudson River by Barry Diller, and the Tribeca Film Festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary, will add to the expanding arts programming in the city.Little Island plans to hold its own festival from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5, which will coincide with the final weeks of “NY PopsUp” programming.Mr. de Blasio announced on Monday that the city would launch a new program to help some of the city’s cultural institutions apply for federal grants. The city’s effort, called “Curtains Up NYC,” will offer webinars and counseling to businesses and nonprofits that are connected in some way to live performances.“We have to make sure that New York City cultural institutions get the help that they need,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference.Asked whether any Broadway theaters could be allowed to reopen as his arts revival plans continue, Mr. Cuomo expressed hope.“I think that is where we are headed, right?” he said. “The overall effort is headed towards reopening with testing.”He announced last week that the state planned to issue guidance to begin allowing wedding ceremonies for up to 150 guests if attendees were tested beforehand.“Would I go see a play and sit in a playhouse with 150 people?” he said. “If the 150 people were tested and they were all negative, yes, I would do that. And the social distancing and the air ventilation system is proper? Yes, I would do that.”Commercial producers have repeatedly said that economics of Broadway preclude reopening at less than full capacity.New York reported at least 177 new coronavirus deaths and 9,923 new cases on Sunday. While the number of new cases has fallen from a post-holiday high last month, the average number of new daily cases and deaths is still far above where it was last summer and fall.Mr. Cuomo said that government had to take an active role to help the city and the state recover from the economic pain wrought by the pandemic. “It’s not going to be a situation where the economy is just going to come back,” he said. “We have to make it come back.”“New York leads,” he added. “And we’re going to lead in bringing back the arts.”Michael Gold contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    How Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Animates Jazz

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Animates JazzA look at the ways filmmakers and musicians collaborated to present an accurate view of players’ artistry.Concept art from the movie. The filmmakers consulted several players and worked with the pianist Jon Batiste to convey jazz musicianship.Credit…Pixar/DisneyPublished More