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      Cobi Narita, Tireless Jazz Promoter and Benefactor, Dies at 97

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      She produced concerts, helped musicians find work and started a women’s jazz festival. “Jazz in New York would not have been the same without Cobi,” one musician said.Cobi Narita, an indefatigable jazz impresario who for more than 40 years in New York City produced concerts, celebrated female artists in an annual festival and ran performance spaces, died on Nov. 8 in Los Angeles. She was 97.Her death, at the home of a granddaughter, was confirmed by her son Robert Narita.Ms. Narita — who grew up in California, spent most of World War II with her family in an Arizona internment camp for Japanese Americans, and moved to New York in her early 40s — was a unifying force in local jazz circles.“Jazz in New York would not have been the same without Cobi,” the saxophonist Jimmy Heath told the website All About Jazz in 2006.Loren Schoenberg, the founding director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, called Ms. Narita a respected benefactor who provided much-needed opportunities for performers in New York — a role that was later more formally adopted, at least in part, by Jazz at Lincoln Center.“She started at a time when there was no organized world of jazz institutions to give financial aid to musicians,” Mr. Schoenberg said by phone. “Everybody was out in the ocean doing their own little projects. But Cobi had all these things going, and she handed out money to support people.”He added, “Her affect was low-key, but she had charisma and a gravitational field around her.”In 1976, Ms. Narita started the nonprofit Universal Jazz Coalition, an umbrella organization that for about 10 years helped musicians manage their careers, promoted and produced concerts, and distributed a newsletter about local jazz events.Seven years later, she opened the Jazz Center of New York in a rented loft in Lower Manhattan, on Lafayette Street, where famous musicians like Dizzy Gillespie as well as up-and-comers performed. In 2002, she opened Cobi’s Place, on West 48th Street near Seventh Avenue, as a venue for singers, instrumentalists and dancers.Cobi’s Place stayed in business for about a decade. The Jazz Center of New York closed recently but she had retired during the pandemic.Over the years, Ms. Narita produced concerts and performances by, among others, the singers Abbey Lincoln and Dakota Staton, the saxophonist Henry Threadgill and the trumpeter Clark Terry.“Without producers like Cobi,” Ms. Lincoln told The Daily News of New York in 1993, “musicians like me would have a hard time having careers.”In 1978, Ms. Narita organized the four-day Salute to Women in Jazz, which was renamed the New York Women’s Jazz Festival the next year and ran for more than 10 years. The event was held at the disco Casablanca 2, on the original site of the jazz club Birdland, on Broadway between 52nd and 53rd Streets. The event made news when Robert Tirado, the disco’s owner, abruptly increased the rent after two successful nights. Ms. Narita could not meet his demand, and he locked the festival out.Ms. Narita quickly regrouped. The musicians played outdoors near the club for the third and fourth nights, using electricity from a nearby parking lot, instruments and a public address system from the Sam Ash Musical Instruments store a few blocks away, and chairs from the Roseland Ballroom. The pianist Mary Lou Williams and the singer Helen Merrill were among those who performed.“A thousand people had to have lined up on the street,” Ms. Narita told All About Jazz. “It was amazing.”George Wein, the producer of the Newport Jazz Festival, happened to be walking by and was stunned when he came upon the unscheduled street concert. He paid for Ms. Narita to use Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) for a bonus fifth night.Ms. Narita’s financial backer in most of her ventures was Paul Ash, whose family owns the Sam Ash chain of musical instrument stores; Cobi’s Place was located above Manny’s Music, which was owned by Sam Ash. Ms. Narita and Mr. Ash met in 1973 and married in 1989. He died in 2014.“They were like magnets, man, from the start,” her son Robert said. “Soul mates.”Nobuko Emoto was born on March 3, 1926, in San Pedro, Calif. Her father, Kazumasa Emoto, was a farmer who brought fresh vegetables to Los Angeles markets. Her mother, Kimiko (Hamamoto) Emoto, was a homemaker.Nobuko, her parents, her two sisters and her two brothers were among the estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated during World War II to internment camps, mostly in Western states. Mr. Emoto lost his trucks, his equipment and his land.During her incarceration at the Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona, Nobuko wrote a newsletter about goings-on at the camp.She and her family were released in 1945, and she finished high school. She soon married Masao Narita, with whom she would have seven children. She entered Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania in 1948 and studied theater there, but left after one year.After Ms. Narita and her husband divorced in the mid-1950s, she worked in various jobs in the Long Beach, Calif., area. Looking for a better career opportunity, she left for New York City in 1969, taking a job with the International Council of Shopping Centers.Soon after her move, she was walking in Central Park when she heard jazz being played. One of the musicians, the bassist Gene Taylor, urged her to volunteer for the renowned jazz ministry at St. Peter’s Church, on Lexington Avenue near East 54th Street. (In later years the church would be the site of her annual birthday party, which featured live jazz.)In 1972, Ms. Narita was hired as the executive director of Collective Black Artists, a repertory orchestra and support group for needy musicians. But after two and a half years, after raising more than $100,000 for the organization’s projects, she was fired — because, she said, she was not Black.“They really thought a male Black person should be in that job; it just looked better than an Asian woman,” she was quoted as saying in a profile of her on the Library of Congress website.She recovered from that setback by studying corporate organization on a fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That program built her skills in time to start the Universal Jazz Coalition.In addition to her son Robert, Ms. Narita is survived by her daughters, Susan Narita-Law and Judith, Charlene, Jude, Lisa and Patricia Narita; another son, Richard; 13 grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and a sister, Therese Nakagawa.Ms. Narita said that one of her lasting goals was to help lesser-known women and budding young artists build jazz careers.“There were a thousand struggling musicians who never got concerts or promotional help so they could build their own names,” she told The Daily News in 1982. “All these young people who seem to have come to a stopping point after going to school: Where do they play?” More

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      Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ Movie Bonus, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Hurray for the Riff Raff, Tyla, Lana Del Rey and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Beyoncé, ‘My House’Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour film opens in theaters on Friday, and a brand-new song plays over the closing credits: the bold, brassy and bass-heavy “My House.” Fusing ’90s house music with more hard-edge, futuristic sounds, the track draws from several of the different eras of dance music Beyoncé honored on her kaleidoscopic 2022 album “Renaissance,” with a little of the marching band flair of “Homecoming” thrown in for good measure. “Don’t make me get up out of my seat,” Bey growls with an extra curl in her lip. “Don’t make me come up off of this beat.” You heard her! LINDSAY ZOLADZTyla, ‘Truth or Dare’Tyla, from South Africa, is courting global audiences by bringing the breathy tunefulness of R&B singers like Aaliyah to songs that fuse sleek electronic 1990s R&B with current African beats. She’s nominated for a Grammy for her international hit, “Water.” In her new song, “Truth or Dare,” she glides above an amapiano groove to address an on-again, off-again affair that’s complicated by past disappearances and her newfound success: “Would you still want me if I didn’t have it all?” Singing “care” and “dare” as two-syllable words are just one of the hooks. JON PARELESOxlade, ‘Katigori’The Nigerian hitmaker Oxlade presents his success as a higher mission in his new single “Katigori,” gently crooning, “So many mysteries I gots to unfold/The music legacy I gots to uphold.” He goes on to dismiss imitators and backbiters, but Afrobeats syncopations, three rising chords and a panoply of vocal harmonies keep him sounding more sincere than smug. PARELESHurray for the Riff Raff, ‘Alibi’Alynda Segarra, who makes music as Hurray for the Riff Raff, recorded the forthcoming album “The Past Is Still Alive” shortly after the death of their father. “Alibi,” the opening track and first single, takes a unique, ultimately poignant approach to grief: “You don’t have to die if you don’t want to die,” Segarra sings in a tough-talking voice that always threatens to break, caught halfway between denial and bargaining. The tempo is stomping and insistent, like the too-quick march of time. ZOLADZLana Del Rey, ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’On “The Grants,” the opening song off Lana Del Rey’s last album, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” the (other) elusive chanteuse pays tribute to “‘Rocky Mountain High,’ the way John Denver sang.” She’s now released another tribute to Denver: a cover of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Leave it to Del Rey to take a ubiquitous piece of Americana and make it seem hauntingly new. She slightly slows Denver’s jaunty pace, swapping out acoustic guitar for melancholy piano. But just when you think she’s made this anthem too much of a downer for a singalong to break out, a warm chorus of other voices joins in and leads her home. ZOLADZEnglish Teacher, ‘Mastermind Specialism’English Teacher, a indie-rock band from Leeds, often spins terse little contrapuntal patterns that can grow into a post-punk blare. But on its new single, “Mastermind Specialism,” it stays fairly restrained and folky. The song is a waltz, with its patterns picked at first on acoustic guitars, while Lily Fontaine sings about the difficulty of making choices: “Bittersweet and less is more/Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” The song swells but stays appropriately inconclusive. PARELESOscar Peterson, ‘My One and Only Love’Oscar Peterson and his classic, airtight trio — with Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums — were more than five years into their life as a group when they performed in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1964. A recording of that concert recently resurfaced, and was released last week for the first time as an LP, “Con Alma.” Peterson plays the standard ballad “My One and Only Love” with his usual flair, splicing in moments of fond hesitation with lightning-speed dashes down the keyboard, wedging in an extended Gershwin reference (at 3:40) and ending with a quote from Bach. You get the idea: If it could be done on the keyboard, he could do it. And it was never anything but a marvel to hear him go. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOLea Bertucci featuring Quartetto Maurice, ‘Vapours (Radio Edit)’The saxophonist, clarinetist and experimental sound artist Lea Bertucci uses musical systems both avant-garde and ancient to make music that leaves notions of harmony, rhythm and melody outside the door. Instead she’s focused on the resonance and slow disappearance of sound, in a moment when so much of our digital existence feels both immaterial and overwhelming. On “Vapours,” from her new album “Of Shadow and Substance,” she works with Quartetto Maurice, an Italian string quartet, using a semi-composed, semi-improvised compositional method to create a sense of pressure and release. The song’s title is a reference to the “pseudo-scientific term” that was once used “to diagnose types of hysteria in women,” as Bertucci writes in the album notes. In the spirit of modernists like Morton Feldman or minimalists like Éliane Radigue, she has developed a powerfully patient musical language, paying homage and also bidding good riddance to a world in decay. Call it music to let go by. RUSSONELLOAndré 3000, ‘That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … Sh¥t Was Wild’A wordless album from a great rapper? That’s what André 3000, from Outkast, decided to release with “New Blue Sun,” an 87-minute instrumental-verging-on-ambient album featuring acoustic and electronic breath-powered instruments. The 10-minute “That Night in Hawaii …” hints at Native American music with a muffled six-beat drum pulse, assorted percussion and slowly unfolding flute improvisations, at once deliberate and open-ended. PARELESO., ‘ATM’O. is a raucous jazz-rock-psychedelic-noise duo that goes by first names only: Joe on saxophone and Tash on drums, bolstered by electronics and effects. In “ATM,” Joe’s baritone saxophone moves among squalls, barks, trills and shrieks when it’s not touching down in a low, brawny riff. Tash maintains a brisk, galloping beat — sometimes tapping, sometimes bashing — until the last full minute of the track, a slow meltdown that’s engulfed in electronic entropy. PARELES More

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      ‘American Symphony’ Review: Intimate Harmony

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      This portrait of the musician Jon Batiste and the author Suleika Jaouad follows an artistic couple through ambition and adversity.Partway through “American Symphony,” the musician Jon Batiste pokes gentle fun at the coverage he received in advance of the 2022 Grammys. The breadth of his 11 nominations, which bridged pop, jazz and classical categories, made him tough to label. He ultimately fended off Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish to win album of the year.This documentary, directed by Matthew Heineman, is likewise deceptively tricky to peg. In the broad strokes, it is a process film, following Batiste, who grew up in the New Orleans area and trained at Juilliard, as he prepares a wildly original symphony that shares a title with the movie. “My ambition for composing this symphony is massive,” he says. “I’m trying to expand the canon of symphonic music, break through long-gatekept spaces.”(Ben Sisario, writing in The New York Times, described the piece, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2022, as a “Whitmanesque canvas of funk, Dixieland jazz, operatic vocals and Native American drums.”)But this is also a movie about two artists, their love, their creative attitudes and how, as a couple, they approach living a “life of contrasts.” That description comes from the writer Suleika Jaouad, Batiste’s partner (they marry during the film), whose best-selling memoir, “Between Two Kingdoms,” was published in 2021 and who, before college, studied at Juilliard herself, with a specialization in double bass.As Batiste gets ready for his Grammy and Carnegie Hall coups, Jaouad undergoes a bone marrow transplant after a recurrence of cancer. (She received her first leukemia diagnosis at 22, and from 2012 to 2015 wrote in The Times about her experiences.)While some of the backstage material has an official feel (Batiste and Jaouad are listed among the many executive producers, along with Barack and Michelle Obama), the documentary does not shy from showing private moments. It captures Batiste hiding his head under a pillow as he talks on the phone with his therapist and sits in with the couple as a doctor discusses the open-ended course of chemotherapy he is recommending. When it comes to the music, too, the film is unafraid to dwell on a drawn-out silence or phrase.American SymphonyRated PG-13 Potentially upsetting medical scenes. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Antonia Bennett Used to Sing With Tony. Now She’s Carrying on Solo.

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      The crooner’s daughter is ramping up her music career once again, and plotting a new album. On Friday, she’ll perform two sets at Dizzy’s Club in New York.Antonia Bennett’s childhood had some unique charms. There were the parties, where the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé would gather around the piano and sing. There were the times Bennett’s father, Tony, took her to work, beginning when she was about 5, and gave her an early taste of the spotlight.“My dad would just bring me up onstage, and we would sing together,” Bennett recalled in a recent interview. “I guess it started with ‘The Hokey Pokey’ and ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,’ and then I graduated to ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz,’ and we just kept going from there, you know?”Bennett, 49, is the younger of the crooner’s two daughters by the second of his three wives, the actress Sandra Grant Bennett. Over the years, she too has sung professionally, releasing a 2014 album, “Embrace Me,” and an earlier EP that mixed traditional pop standards with a cover of Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield.” For the first time since her father’s death in July at 96, she is preparing to take the New York stage — and start her career anew.“It was such a privilege to be able to get to know my dad in my adult life, and to spend so much time traveling and performing with him,” said Bennett, who regularly opened for her father and was his featured duet partner at major venues and festivals until his retirement from the stage. “And I learned so much from him.”On Thursday, she will play two shows at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club. Earlier this month she released a new single, “Right on Time,” a breezy slice of jazz-tinged pop she co-wrote with her frequent collaborator Cliff Goldmacher, a Nashville veteran who has teamed with artists including Keb’ Mo’ and Kesha. “I don’t really have a timeline, because I look at my dad and I think, he just kept reinventing himself and going on and on,” Bennett said of her own career.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesThe tune is one of several originals that will be included on a forthcoming album she has produced with the noted jazz pianist and arranger Christian Jacob, with vocals produced by Mark Renk. There are also covers, of course, of standards such as “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Exactly Like You,” set to elegant, playful jazz arrangements that flaunt her influences, which extend to pop bards like Randy Newman.“I pull from everything,” Bennett said in a video interview from her Los Angeles home, showing off a lush mane of red hair and a girlish smile that matches her lissome, tangy singing voice, which The Times critic Stephen Holden once described as having “echoes of Billie Holiday and Rickie Lee Jones (with a hint of Betty Boop).” Bennett studied at Berklee College of Music and also plays piano, although “not in public,” she noted. She said the treatments on the new album are jazz “because that’s where I come from.”At Dizzy’s, Bennett will appear with the pianist Todd Hunter’s trio, featuring the bassist Ian Martin and the drummer Chris Wabich. “She knows what she’s looking for, but she’s also very open to collaboration,” Hunter said in an interview. “And she’s got a lot of great stories — though I don’t know if there are any I could actually repeat.”Jason Olaine, vice president of programming at Jazz at Lincoln Center, which will celebrate Tony Bennett in a concert gala next April, has known Antonia for years, and praised her “fresh, direct” vocal approach. “It feels very honest, without a lot of ornamentation,” he said. “I’ve seen her on the East Coast with other groups, and it will be nice to have her in a small group setting, with people she’s intimately familiar with.”While her album doesn’t have a firm release date, Bennett has more live concerts planned for February in Chicago. “I don’t really have a timeline, because I look at my dad and I think, he just kept reinventing himself and going on and on,” she said.Bennett also credits her light touch musically in part to her father’s influence: “He would always give me this great advice, which is to sing the way you speak.” She added, “I think the most important thing I absorbed from my dad was how much he loved what he did — how much he got from the audience, and how much he gave in return.”After her father learned he had Alzheimer’s disease, his work became therapeutic, she said. “I think just being in that routine of singing and performing was important for him. Sometimes he would repeat a song, but nobody ever cared — he always sang like it like he was singing it for the first time. It was beautiful to watch him do something he really loved. Even after he stopped singing in concert halls, he would get together with his piano player and go through songs.”Bennett is already carrying on a family tradition, inviting her own daughter, Maya, 7, onstage during performances. “I’ll let her sing the parts she knows, and if I think she doesn’t know a part I’ll just sneak the words in,” she said.For Bennett, something more than maternal pride is at work in such moments. “I feel very confident now,” she said. “I feel like this is my time; I’ve been honing my craft for many years, and I feel whatever I put out now will be a good reflection of who I am — like a page in a book that I can keep building on. I’d really like to be able to do this forever and ever.” More

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      12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear

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      Some of the best competitions are the under-the-radar ones. Listen to nominated songs by Bettye LaVette, Molly Tuttle, Tainy and more.The soul survivor Bettye LaVette, who’s up for best contemporary blues album.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesDear listeners,I’m Jon Pareles, sitting in for Lindsay this week because while she’s on vacation, we couldn’t let the Grammy Awards nominations go by without a playlist.Like a lot of critics, in and out of music, I’m pretty skeptical about awards shows. That’s not just because they rarely agree with my own taste. Awards shows have conflicted agendas and contradictory incentives. They trumpet artistic integrity but crave star power. They claim accountant-verified objectivity but often appear cliquish and stuck in industry bubbles.The one thing that makes me indulge the Grammys is an aspect that infuriates some other Grammy observers: the chronic sprawl of awards categories. There are 94 this year. That’s a lot, but fine: Let a hundred flowers bloom. The Recording Academy is forever trying to trim and adjust those categories, consolidating or renaming or expanding the list. But music keeps eluding them, changing styles and constituencies, while little Grammy voter pools — hopefully specialists, realistically partisans — battle to boost their candidates.It’s complicated, fluid, arbitrary, far from perfect. What, exactly, is “alternative jazz,” one of this year’s new categories? But down in the trenches of concert bookings, “Grammy-winning” can make a bigger difference for someone on a club or college tour than for an act with radio hits and arena gigs. The Grammys can be good for something.I regularly watch the pre-Grammy, non-network, un-prime-time “Grammy Premiere” livestream — just go to live.grammy.com or YouTube — where the unsung majority of Grammy Awards are given out before the prime-time show. They’re dorky and unpolished; some winners read their thank-yous from their cellphones, and they don’t always have designer outfits. But the pre-Grammys also book niche-category performers who tear the roof off, because that’s what happens beyond the controlled sphere of pop. Music can upend everything we expect.Here are a dozen down-category Grammy nominees, who are unlikely to show up in prime time. They’re not necessarily popular — though some were huge hits — or fashionable. They just made recordings worth noticing.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Kylie Minogue: “Padam Padam” (pop dance recording)Kylie Minogue conquered dance floors, yet again, in 2023 with “Padam Padam,” her breezily confident assertion that “I know you wanna take me home.” The title is a heartbeat rhythm, the production uses reverb to play with space, and Minogue sounds quite amenable to a tryst. (Listen on YouTube)2. Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane: “Scientists & Engineers” (rap performance)Multifaceted ideas about creativity — as a calling, a compulsion and a career — unite Killer Mike and his guests in this ambitious, changeable track. Enfolded in restlessly blipping synthesizers and Eryn Allen Kane’s ethereal vocal harmonies, André 3000 and Future muse over past and present before Killer Mike arrives with a closing barrage. (Listen on YouTube)3. Allison Russell: “Eve Was Black” (American roots performance)Racism and misogyny are Allison Russell’s direct targets in “Eve Was Black,” which transforms itself from Appalachian toe-tapper to eerie rocker to jazz excursion to gospel incantation and asks the unflinching question, “Do you hate or do you lust?” (Listen on YouTube)4. Jason Isbell: “Cast Iron Skillet” (American roots song)A tangle of bleak, likely interconnected narratives — murder, death in prison, a family shattered by interracial romance — mingles with homey advice in “Cast Iron Skillet,” a modest-sounding but far-reaching ballad. (Listen on YouTube)5. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway: “El Dorado” (bluegrass album)The songwriter and flatpicking guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle spins a brisk, minor-key chronicle of the Gold Rush. She sings about desperate characters and wonders, “Was it worth the blood and dirt to dig our lives away?” (Listen on YouTube)6. Bettye LaVette: “Hard to Be a Human” (contemporary blues album)The gritty-voiced, 77-year-old soul survivor Bettye LaVette embraces 1970s-style Nigerian Afrobeat, with its chattering saxophone and curlicued guitars, in “Hard to Be a Human,” as she wonders about humanity’s irredeemable flaws. (Listen on YouTube)7. Blind Boys of Alabama: “Work Until My Days Are Done” (roots gospel album)The Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel institution since the 1940s, bring their vintage-style harmonies to a traditional song that’s more about diligence than worship. The arrangement is a two-parter, an easygoing shuffle that revs up midway through to something like sanctified honky-tonk. (Listen on YouTube)8. Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas: “Lo Siento BB:/” (música urbana)Tainy, the Puerto Rican producer who’s an architect of reggaeton, racked up a billion streams across various platforms with “Lo Siento BB:/” (“Sorry Baby”). Julieta Venegas and Bad Bunny sing about her infatuation and his refusal to commit, juxtaposing cushy electronics and a blunt beat. (Listen on YouTube)9. Natalia Lafourcade: “De Todas las Flores” (Latin rock or alternative album)The Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade’s album “De Todas las Flores’ isn’t remotely rock. It’s richly retro pop that harks back decades, with acoustic instruments and some orchestral arrangements. The title track is a rueful, elegantly nostalgic lament for lost love. (Listen on YouTube)10. Davido featuring Musa Keys: “Unavailable” (African music performance)Davido is from Nigeria, but he has international aims. In “Unavailable,” he infuses Nigerian Afrobeats with a South African style, amapiano, and he’s joined by the South African singer Musa Keys. They’re both playing hard to get. (Listen on YouTube)11. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: ‘Dymaxion’ (large jazz ensemble album)The composer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society is an 18-piece big band that stokes suspense with dissonance, pinpoint timing and an arrangement that gets denser and denser throughout most of “Dymaxion.” Even when it eases back, the piece stays ominous. (Listen on YouTube)12. Ólafur Arnalds: “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)” (new age, ambient or chant album)“Woven Song” originally appeared on Ólafur Arnalds’s 2020 album, “Some Kind of Peace,” with an eerie, sliding, untempered vocal. The Polish pianist and singer Hania Rani makes it cozier and more consonant in her “rework,” but the ghost-waltz spirit of the original persists. (Listen on YouTube)And I’d like to thank the Academy …JonThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear” track listTrack 1: Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam”Track 2: Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”Track 3: Allison Russell, “Eve Was Black”Track 4: Jason Isbell, “Cast Iron Skillet”Track 5: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, “El Dorado”Track 6: Bettye LaVette, “Hard to Be a Human”Track 7: Blind Boys of Alabama, “Work Until My Days Are Done”Track 8: Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas, “Lo Siento BB:/”Track 9: Natalia Lafourcade, “De Todas la Flores”Track 10: Davido featuring Musa Keys, “Unavailable”Track 11: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Dymaxion”Track 12: Ólafur Arnalds, “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)”Bonus TracksCaryn the editor here flagging the rest of our Grammy coverage that’s gone live so far today:Ben Sisario’s big look at the field, with a spotlight on the top competitions.Our always-entertaining snubs and surprises, examining which genres were conspicuously absent from the biggest categories, and a delightful showdown between Olivia Rodrigo and the Rolling Stones.The full list of nominees: yes, all 94 categories. Yes, I formatted this myself.An interview with Victoria Monét, who has seven nominations (the second-most), and one for her toddler.And an interview with the indie-rock trio boygenius, who picked up six nods. More

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      2024 Grammy Nominations: Full List

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      Artists, albums and songs competing for trophies at the 66th annual ceremony are being announced on Friday. The show will take place on Feb. 4 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.SZA is the top nominee for the 66th annual Grammy Awards with nine nods, all for her album “SOS,” which topped the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks.She leads a group of contenders that also includes Victoria Monét (with seven), as well as Jon Batiste, boygenius, Brandy Clark, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift (all with six apiece). Songs from the movie “Barbie” received 11 nods in seven categories. The producer Jack Antonoff and the engineer Serban Ghenea are also top nominees.The ceremony, which will take place on Feb. 4, 2024 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, will recognize recordings released from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 15, 2023.Here is a complete list of the nominations, which were announced on Friday by the Recording Academy.Record of the Year“Worship,” Jon Batiste“Not Strong Enough,” boygenius“Flowers,” Miley Cyrus“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie,” Billie Eilish“On My Mama,” Victoria Monét“Vampire,” Olivia Rodrigo“Anti-Hero,” Taylor Swift“Kill Bill,” SZAAlbum of the Year“World Music Radio,” Jon Batiste“The Record,” boygenius“Endless Summer Vacation,” Miley Cyrus“Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” Lana Del Rey“The Age of Pleasure,” Janelle Monáe“Guts,” Olivia Rodrigo“Midnights,” Taylor Swift“SOS,” SZASong of the Year“A&W,” Jack Antonoff, Lana Del Rey and Sam Dew, songwriters (Lana Del Rey)“Anti-Hero,” Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift, songwriters (Taylor Swift)“Butterfly,” Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson, songwriters (Jon Batiste)“Dance the Night” (From “Barbie: The Album”) Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Dua Lipa)“Flowers,” Miley Cyrus, Gregory Aldae Hein and Michael Pollack, songwriters (Miley Cyrus)“Kill Bill,” Rob Bisel, Carter Lang and Solána Rowe, songwriters (SZA)“Vampire,” Daniel Nigro and Olivia Rodrigo, songwriters (Olivia Rodrigo)“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie,” Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)Best New ArtistGracie AbramsFred again..Ice SpiceJelly RollCoco JonesNoah KahanVictoria MonétThe War and TreatyProducer of the Year, Non-ClassicalJack AntonoffDernst “D’Mile” Emile IIHit-BoyMetro BoominDaniel NigroSongwriter of the Year, Non-ClassicalEdgar BarreraJessie Jo DillonShane McAnallyTheron ThomasJustin TranterBest Pop Solo Performance“Flowers,” Miley Cyrus“Paint the Town Red,” Doja Cat“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie,” Billie Eilish“Vampire,” Olivia Rodrigo“Anti-Hero,” Taylor SwiftBest Pop Duo/Group Performance“Thousand Miles,” Miley Cyrus featuring Brandi Carlile“Candy Necklace,” Lana Del Rey featuring Jon Batiste“Never Felt So Alone,” Labrinth featuring Billie Eilish“Karma,” Taylor Swift featuring Ice Spice“Ghost in the Machine,” SZA featuring Phoebe BridgersBest Pop Vocal Album“Chemistry,” Kelly Clarkson“Endless Summer Vacation,” Miley Cyrus“Guts,” Olivia Rodrigo“-” (Subtract), Ed Sheeran“Midnights,” Taylor SwiftBest Dance/Electronic Recording“Blackbox Life Recorder 21F,” Aphex Twin“Loading,” James Blake“Higher Than Ever Before,” Disclosure“Strong,” Romy & Fred again..“Rumble,” Skrillex, Fred again.. and FlowdanBest Pop Dance Recording“Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray“Miracle,” Calvin Harris featuring Ellie Goulding“Padam Padam,” Kylie Minogue“One in a Million,” Bebe Rexha & David Guetta“Rush,” Troye SivanBest Dance/Electronic Music Album“Playing Robots Into Heaven,” James Blake“For That Beautiful Feeling,” the Chemical Brothers“Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022),” Fred again..“Kx5,” Kx5“Quest for Fire,” SkrillexBest Rock Performance“Sculptures of Anything Goes,” Arctic Monkeys”More Than a Love Song,” Black Pumas“Not Strong Enough,” boygenius“Rescued,” Foo Fighters“Lux Æterna,” MetallicaBest Metal Performance“Bad Man,” Disturbed“Phantom of the Opera,” Ghost“72 Seasons,” Metallica”Hive Mind,” Slipknot“Jaded,” SpiritboxBest Rock Song“Angry,” Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Andrew Watt, songwriters (the Rolling Stones)“Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” Daniel Nigro and Olivia Rodrigo, songwriters (Olivia Rodrigo)“Emotion Sickness,” Dean Fertita, Joshua Homme, Michael Shuman, Jon Theodore and Troy Van Leeuwen, songwriters (Queens of the Stone Age)“Not Strong Enough,” Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, songwriters (boygenius)“Rescued,” Dave Grohl, Rami Jaffee, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear, songwriters (Foo Fighters)Best Rock Album“But Here We Are,” Foo Fighters“Starcatcher,” Greta Van Fleet“72 Seasons,” Metallica“This Is Why,” Paramore“In Times New Roman…,” Queens of the Stone AgeBest Alternative Music Performance“Belinda Says,” Alvvays“Body Paint,” Arctic Monkeys“Cool About It,” boygenius“A&W,” Lana Del Rey“This Is Why,” ParamoreBest Alternative Music Album“The Car,” Arctic Monkeys“The Record,” boygenius“Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” Lana Del Rey“Cracker Island,” Gorillaz“I Inside the Old Year Dying,” PJ HarveyBest R&B Performance“Summer Too Hot,” Chris Brown“Back to Love,” Robert Glasper featuring SiR and Alex Isley“ICU,” Coco Jones“How Does It Make You Feel,” Victoria Monét“Kill Bill,” SZABest Traditional R&B Performance“Simple,” Babyface featuring Coco Jones“Lucky,” Kenyon Dixon“Hollywood,” Victoria Monét featuring Earth, Wind & Fire and Hazel Monét“Good Morning,” PJ Morton featuring Susan Carol“Love Language,” SZABest R&B Song“Angel,” Halle Bailey, Theron Feemster and Coleridge Tillman, songwriters (Halle)“Back to Love,” Darryl Andrew Farris, Robert Glasper and Alexandra Isley, songwriters (Robert Glasper Featuring SiR and Alex Isley)“ICU,” Darhyl Camper Jr., Courtney Jones, Raymond Komba and Roy Keisha Rockette, songwriters (Coco Jones)”On My Mama,” Dernst Emile II, Jeff Gitelman, Victoria Monét, Kyla Moscovich, Jamil Pierre and Charles Williams, songwriters (Victoria Monét)“Snooze,” Kenny B. Edmonds, Blair Ferguson, Khris Riddick-Tynes, Solána Rowe and Leon Thomas, songwriters (SZA)Best Progressive R&B Album“Since I Have a Lover,” 6lack“The Love Album: Off the Grid,” Diddy“Nova,” Terrace Martin and James Fauntleroy“The Age of Pleasure,” Janelle Monáe“SOS,” SZABest R&B Album“Girls Night Out,” Babyface“What I Didn’t Tell You (Deluxe),” Coco Jones“Special Occasion,” Emily King”Jaguar II,” Victoria Monét“Clear 2: Soft Life EP,” Summer WalkerBest Rap Performance“The Hillbillies,” Baby Keem featuring Kendrick Lamar“Love Letter,” Black Thought“Rich Flex,” Drake & 21 Savage“Scientists & Engineers,” Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane“Players,” Coi LerayBest Melodic Rap Performance“Sittin’ on Top of the World,” Burna Boy featuring 21 Savage“Attention,” Doja Cat“Spin Bout U,” Drake & 21 Savage“All My Life,” Lil Durk featuring J. Cole“Low,” SZABest Rap Song“Attention,” Rogét Chahayed, Amala Zandile Dlamini and Ari Starace, songwriters (Doja Cat)“Barbie World” from “Barbie: The Album,” Isis Naija Gaston, Ephrem Louis Lopez Jr. and Onika Maraj, songwriters (Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice featuring Aqua)“Just Wanna Rock,” Mohamad Camara, Symere Woods and Javier Mercado, songwriters (Lil Uzi Vert)“Rich Flex,” Brytavious Chambers, Isaac “Zac” De Boni, Aubrey Graham, J. Gwin, Anderson Hernandez, Michael “Finatik” Mule and Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, songwriters (Drake & 21 Savage)“Scientists & Engineers,” Andre Benjamin, Paul Beauregard, James Blake, Michael Render, Tim Moore and Dion Wilson, songwriters (Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane)Best Rap Album“Her Loss,” Drake & 21 Savage“Michael,” Killer Mike“Heroes & Villains,” Metro Boomin“King’s Disease III,” Nas“Utopia,” Travis ScottBest Spoken Word Poetry Album“A-You’re Not Wrong B-They’re Not Either: The Fukc-It Pill Revisited,” Queen Sheba“For Your Consideration’24 – The Album,” Prentice Powell and Shawn William“Grocery Shopping With My Mother,” Kevin Powell“The Light Inside,” J. Ivy“When the Poems Do What They Do,” Aja MonetBest Jazz Performance“Movement 18’ (Heroes),” Jon Batiste“Basquiat,” Lakecia Benjamin“Vulnerable (Live),” Adam Blackstone featuring the Baylor Project and Russell Ferranté“But Not for Me,” Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding“Tight,” Samara JoyBest Jazz Vocal Album“For Ella 2,” Patti Austin featuring Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band“Alive at the Village Vanguard,” Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding“Lean In,” Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke“Mélusine,” Cécile McLorin Salvant“How Love Begins,” Nicole ZuraitisBest Jazz Instrumental Album“The Source,” Kenny Barron”Phoenix,” Lakecia Benjamin“Legacy: The Instrumental Jawn,” Adam Blackstone“The Winds of Change,” Billy Childs“Dream Box,” Pat MethenyBest Large Jazz Ensemble Album“The Chick Corea Symphony Tribute – Ritmo,” ADDA Simfònica, Josep Vicent, Emilio Solla“Dynamic Maximum Tension,” Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society“Basie Swings the Blues,” The Count Basie Orchestra directed by Scotty Barnhart“Olympians,” Vince Mendoza and Metropole Orkest“The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions,” Mingus Big BandBest Latin Jazz Album“Quietude,” Eliane Elias“My Heart Speaks,” Ivan Lins with the Tblisi Symphony Orchestra“Vox Humana,” Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band“Cometa,” Luciana Souza and Trio Corrente“El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2,” Miguel Zenón and Luis PerdomoBest Alternative Jazz Album“Love in Exile,” Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily“Quality Over Opinion,” Louis Cole“SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree,” Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, SuperBlue“Live at the Piano,” Cory Henry“The Omnichord Real Book,” Meshell NdegeocelloBest Traditional Pop Vocal Album“To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim,” Liz Callaway“Pieces of Treasure,” Rickie Lee Jones“Bewitched,” Laufey“Holidays Around the World,” Pentatonix“Only the Strong Survive,” Bruce Springsteen“Sondheim Unplugged (The NYC Sessions), Vol. 3,” (Various Artists)Best Contemporary Instrumental Album“As We Speak,” Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, featuring Rakesh Chaurasia“On Becoming,” House of Waters“Jazz Hands,” Bob James“The Layers,” Julian Lage“All One,” Ben WendelBest Musical Theater Album“Kimberly Akimbo,” John Clancy, David Stone and Jeanine Tesori, producers; Jeanine Tesori, composer; David Lindsay-Abaire, lyricist (Original Broadway Cast)“Parade,” Micaela Diamond, Alex Joseph Grayson, Jake Pedersen and Ben Platt, principal vocalists; Jason Robert Brown & Jeffrey Lesser, producers; Jason Robert Brown, composer and lyricist (2023 Broadway Cast)“Shucked,” Brandy Clark, Jason Howland, Shane McAnally and Billy Jay Stein, producers; Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, composers/lyricists (Original Broadway Cast)“Some Like It Hot,” Christian Borle, J. Harrison Ghee, Adrianna Hicks and NaTasha Yvette Williams, principal vocalists; Mary-Mitchell Campbell, Bryan Carter, Scott M. Riesett, Charlie Rosen and Marc Shaiman, producers; Scott Wittman, lyricist; Marc Shaiman, composer and lyricist (Original Broadway Cast)“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban, principal vocalists; Thomas Kail and Alex Lacamoire, producers (Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist) (2023 Broadway Cast)Best Country Solo Performance“In Your Love,” Tyler Childers“Buried,” Brandy Clark“Fast Car,” Luke Combs“The Last Thing on My Mind,” Dolly Parton“White Horse,” Chris StapletonBest Country Duo/Group Performance“High Note,” Dierks Bentley featuring Billy Strings“Nobody’s Nobody,” Brothers Osborne“I Remember Everything,” Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves“Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold),” Vince Gill and Paul Franklin“Save Me,” Jelly Roll with Lainey Wilson“We Don’t Fight Anymore,” Carly Pearce featuring Chris StapletonBest Country Song“Buried,” Brandy Clark and Jessie Jo Dillon, songwriters (Brandy Clark)“I Remember Everything,” Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves, songwriters (Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves)“In Your Love,” Tyler Childers and Geno Seale, songwriters (Tyler Childers)“Last Night.” John Byron, Ashley Gorley, Jacob Kasher Hindlin and Ryan Vojtesak, songwriters (Morgan Wallen)“White Horse,” Chris Stapleton and Dan Wilson, songwriters (Chris Stapleton)Best Country Album“Rolling Up the Welcome Mat,” Kelsea Ballerini“Brothers Osborne,” Brothers Osborne“Zach Bryan,” Zach Bryan“Rustin’ in the Rain,” Tyler Childers“Bell Bottom Country,” Lainey WilsonBest American Roots Performance“Butterfly,” Jon Batiste“Heaven Help Us All,” Blind Boys of Alabama“Inventing the Wheel,” Madison Cunningham“You Louisiana Man,” Rhiannon Giddens“Eve Was Black,” Allison RussellBest Americana Performance“Friendship,” Blind Boys of Alabama“Help Me Make It Through the Night,” Tyler Childers“Dear Insecurity,” Brandy Clark featuring Brandi Carlile“King of Oklahoma,” Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit“The Returner,” Allison RussellBest American Roots Song“Blank Page,” Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter, songwriters (The War and Treaty)“California Sober,” Aaron Allen, William Apostol and Jon Weisberger, songwriters (Billy Strings featuring Willie Nelson)“Cast Iron Skillet,” Jason Isbell, songwriter (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit)“Dear Insecurity,” Brandy Clark and Michael Pollack, songwriters (Brandy Clark featuring Brandi Carlile)“The Returner,” Drew Lindsay, JT Nero and Allison Russell, songwriters (Allison Russell)Best Americana Album“Brandy Clark,” Brandy Clark“The Chicago Sessions,” Rodney Crowell“You’re the One,” Rhiannon Giddens“Weathervanes,” Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit“The Returner,” Allison RussellBest Bluegrass Album“Radio John: Songs of John Hartford,” Sam Bush“Lovin’ of the Game,” Michael Cleveland“Mighty Poplar,” Mighty Poplar“Bluegrass,” Willie Nelson“Me/And/Dad,” Billy Strings“City of Gold,” Molly Tuttle & Golden HighwayBest Traditional Blues Album“Ridin’,” Eric Bibb“The Soul Side of Sipp,” Mr. Sipp“Life Don’t Miss Nobody,” Tracy Nelson“Teardrops for Magic Slim Live at Rosa’s Lounge,” John Primer“All My Love for You,” Bobby RushBest Contemporary Blues Album“Death Wish Blues,” Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton“Healing Time,” Ruthie Foster“Live in London,” Christone “Kingfish” Ingram“Blood Harmony,” Larkin Poe“LaVette!,” Bettye LaVetteBest Folk Album“Traveling Wildfire,” Dom Flemons”I Only See the Moon,” the Milk Carton Kids“Joni Mitchell at Newport (Live),” Joni Mitchell”Celebrants,” Nickel Creek“Jubilee,” Old Crow Medicine Show“Seven Psalms,” Paul Simon“Folkocracy,” Rufus WainwrightBest Regional Roots Music Album“New Beginnings,” Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. and the Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band“Live at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival,” Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers“Live: Orpheum Theater Nola,” Lost Bayou Ramblers and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra“Made in New Orleans,” New Breed Brass Band“Too Much to Hold,” New Orleans Nightcrawlers“Live at the Maple Leaf,” the Rumble featuring Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr.Best Gospel Performance/Song“God Is Good,” Stanley Brown featuring Hezekiah Walker, Kierra Sheard and Karen Clark Sheard; Stanley Brown, Karen V Clark Sheard, Kaylah Jiavanni Harvey, Rodney Jerkins, Elyse Victoria Johnson, J Drew Sheard II, Kierra Valencia Sheard and Hezekiah Walker, songwriters“Feel Alright (Blessed),” Erica Campbell; Erica Campbell, Warryn Campbell, William Weatherspoon, Juan Winans and Marvin L. Winans, songwriters“Lord Do It for Me (Live),” Zacardi Cortez; Marcus Calyen, Zacardi Cortez and Kerry Douglas, songwriters“God Is,” Melvin Crispell III“All Things,” Kirk Franklin; Kirk Franklin, songwriterBest Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song“Believe,” Blessing Offor; Hank Bentley and Blessing Offor, songwriters“Firm Foundation (He Won’t) (Live),” Cody Carnes“Thank God I Do,” Lauren Daigle; Lauren Daigle and Jason Ingram, songwriters“Love Me Like I Am,” For King & Country featuring Jordin Sparks“Your Power,” Lecrae and Tasha Cobbs Leonard“God Problems,” Maverick City Music, Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine; Daniel Bashta, Chris Davenport, Ryan Ellis and Naomi Raine, songwritersBest Gospel Album“I Love You,” Erica Campbell“Hymns (Live),” Tasha Cobbs Leonard“The Maverick Way,” Maverick City Music“My Truth,” Jonathan McReynolds“All Things New: Live in Orlando,” Tye TribbettBest Contemporary Christian Music Album“My Tribe,” Blessing Offor“Emanuel,” Da’ T.R.U.T.H.“Lauren Daigle,” Lauren Daigle“Church Clothes 4,” Lecrae“I Believe,” Phil WickhamBest Roots Gospel Album“Tribute to the King,” the Blackwood Brothers Quartet“Echoes of the South,” Blind Boys of Alabama“Songs That Pulled Me Through the Tough Times,” Becky Isaacs Bowman“Meet Me at the Cross,” Brian Free & Assurance“Shine: The Darker the Night the Brighter the Light,” Gaither Vocal BandBest Latin Pop Album“La Cuarta Hoja,” Pablo Alborán“Beautiful Humans, Vol. 1,” AleMor“A Ciegas,” Paula Arenas“La Neta,” Pedro Capó“Don Juan,” Maluma“X Mí (Vol. 1),” Gaby MorenoBest Música Urbana Album“Saturno,” Rauw Alejandro”Mañana Será Bonito,” Karol G“Data,” TainyBest Latin Rock or Alternative Album“Martínez,” Cabra“Leche De Tigre,” Diamante Eléctrico“Vida Cotidiana,” Juanes“De Todas Las Flores,” Natalia Lafourcade“EADDA9223,” Fito PaezBest Música Mexicana Album (Including Tejano)“Bordado a Mano,” Ana Bárbara“La Sánchez,” Lila Downs“Motherflower,” Flor de Toloache“Amor Como en Las Películas De Antes,” Lupita Infante“Génesis,” Peso PlumaBest Tropical Latin Album“Siembra: 45° Aniversario (En Vivo en el Coliseo de Puerto Rico, 14 de Mayo 2022),” Rubén Blades con Roberto Delgado and Orquesta“Voy a Ti,” Luis Figueroa“Niche Sinfónico,” Grupo Niche y Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia“Vida,” Omara Portuondo“Mimy & Tony,” Tony Succar, Mimy Succar“Escalona Nunca se Había Grabado Así,” Carlos VivesBest Global Music Performance“Shadow Forces,” Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily“Alone,” Burna Boy“Feel,” Davido“Milagro y Disastre,” Silvana Estrada“Abundance in Millets,” Falu and Gaurav Shah (featuring PM Narendra Modi)“Pashto,” Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain featuring Rakesh Chaurasia“Todo Colores,” Ibrahim Maalouf featuring Cimafunk and Tank and the BangasBest African Music Performance“Amapiano,” Asake and Olamide“City Boys,” Burna Boy“Unavailable,” Davido featuring Musa Keys“Rush,” Ayra Starr“Water,” TylaBest Global Music Album“Epifanías,” Susana Baca“History,” Bokanté“I Told Them…,” Burna Boy“Timeless,” Davido“This Moment,” ShaktiBest Reggae Album“Born for Greatness,” Buju Banton“Simma,” Beenie Man“Cali Roots Riddim 2023,” Collie Buddz“No Destroyer,” Burning Spear“Colors of Royal,” Julian Marley & AntaeusBest New Age, Ambient or Chant Album“Aquamarine,” Kirsten Agresta-Copely“Moments of Beauty,” Omar Akram“Some Kind of Peace (Piano Reworks),” Ólafur Arnalds“Ocean Dreaming Ocean,” David Darling and Hans Christian“So She Howls,” Carla Patullo featuring Tonality and the Scorchio QuartetBest Children’s Music Album“Ahhhhh!,” Andrew & Polly“Ancestars,” Pierce Freelon and Nnenna Freelon“Hip Hope for Kids!,” DJ Willy Wow!“Taste the Sky,” Uncle Jumbo“We Grow Together Preschool Songs,” 123 AndrésBest Comedy Album“I Wish You Would,” Trevor Noah“I’m an Entertainer,” Wanda Sykes“Selective Outrage,” Chris Rock”Someone You Love,” Sarah Silverman“What’s in a Name?,” Dave ChappelleBest Audiobook, Narration and Storytelling Recording“Big Tree,” Meryl Streep“Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder,” William Shatner“The Creative Act: A Way of Being,” Rick Rubin“It’s Ok to Be Angry About Capitalism,” Senator Bernie Sanders“The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times,” Michelle ObamaBest Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media“Aurora,” (Daisy Jones & the Six)“Barbie: The Album” (Various Artists)“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Music From and Inspired By” (Various Artists)“Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3: Awesome Mix, Vol. 3” (Various Artists)“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” Weird Al YankovicBest Score Soundtrack for Visual Media (Includes Film and Television)“Barbie,” Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, composers“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Ludwig Göransson, composer“The Fabelmans,” John Williams, composer“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” John Williams, composer“Oppenheimer,” Ludwig Göransson, composerBest Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II,” Sarah Schachner, composer“God of War Ragnarök,” Bear McCreary, composer“Hogwarts Legacy,” Peter Murray, J Scott Rakozy and Chuck E. Myers “Sea,” composers“Star Wars Jedi: Survivor,” Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab, composers“Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical,” Jess Serro, Tripod and Austin Wintory, composersBest Song Written for Visual Media“Barbie World” from “Barbie: The Album,” Naija Gaston, Ephrem Louis Lopez Jr. and Onika Maraj, songwriters (Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice featuring Aqua)“Dance the Night” from “Barbie: The Album,” Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Dua Lipa)“I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie: The Album,” Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Ryan Gosling)“Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — Music From and Inspired By,” Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göransson, Robyn Fenty and Temilade Openiyi, songwriters (Rihanna)“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie: The Album,” Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)Best Music Video“I’m Only Sleeping” (The Beatles), Em Cooper, video director; Jonathan Clyde, Sophie Hilton, Sue Loughlin and Laura Thomas, video producers“In Your Love” (Tyler Childers), Bryan Schlam, video director; Kacie Barton, Silas House, Nicholas Robespierre, Ian Thornton and Whitney Wolanin, video producers“What Was I Made For?” (Billie Eilish), Billie Eilish, video director; Michelle An, Chelsea Dodson and David Moore, video producers“Count Me Out” (Kendrick Lamar), Dave Free and Kendrick Lamar, video directors; Jason Baum and Jamie Rabineau, video producers“Rush” (Troye Sivan), Gordon Von Steiner, video director; Kelly McGee, video producerBest Music Film“Moonage Daydream” (David Bowie), Brett Morgen, video director; Brett Morgen, video producer“How I’m Feeling Now” (Lewis Capaldi), Joe Pearlman, video director; Sam Bridger, Isabel Davis and Alice Rhodes, video producers“Live From Paris, the Big Steppers Tour” (Kendrick Lamar), Mike Carson, Dave Free and Mark Ritchie, video directors; Cornell Brown, Debra Davis, Jared Heinke and Jamie Rabineau, video producers“I Am Everything” (Little Richard), Lisa Cortés, video director; Caryn Capotosto, Lisa Cortés, Robert Friedman and Liz Yale Marsh, video producers“Dear Mama” (Tupac Shakur), Allen Hughes, video director; Joshua Garcia, Loren Gomez, James Jenkins and Stef Smith, video producersBest Recording Package“The Art of Forgetting,” Caroline Rose, art director (Caroline Rose)“Cadenza 21’,” Hsing-Hui Cheng, art director (Ensemble Cadenza 21’)“Electrophonic Chronic,” Perry Shall, art director (The Arcs)“Gravity Falls,” Iam8bit, art director (Brad Breeck)“Migration,” Yu Wei, art director (Leaf Yeh)“Stumpwork,” Luke Brooks and James Theseus Buck, art directors (Dry Cleaning)Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package“The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel,” Jeff Mangum, Daniel Murphy and Mark Ohe, art directors (Neutral Milk Hotel)“For the Birds: The Birdsong Project,” Jeri Heiden and John Heiden, art directors (Various Artists)”Gieo,” Duy Dao, art director (Ngot)“Inside: Deluxe Box Set,” Bo Burnham and Daniel Calderwood, art directors (Bo Burnham)“Words & Music, May 1965 – Deluxe Edition,” Masaki Koike, art director (Lou Reed)Best Album Notes“Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy (Live),” Ashley Kahn, album notes writer (John Coltrane & Eric Dolphy)“I Can Almost See Houston: The Complete Howdy Glenn,” Scott B. Bomar, album notes writer (Howdy Glenn)“Mogadishu’s Finest: The Al Uruba Sessions,” Vik Sohonie, album notes writer (Iftin Band)“Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings From the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971,” Jeff Place and John Troutman, album notes writers (Various Artists)“Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos,” Robert Gordon and Deanie Parker, album notes writers (Various Artists)Best Historical Album“Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series, Vol. 17,” Steve Berkowitz and Jeff Rosen, compilation producers; Steve Addabbo, Greg Calbi, Steve Fallone, Chris Shaw and Mark Wilder, mastering engineers (Bob Dylan)“The Moaninest Moan of Them All: The Jazz Saxophone of Loren McMurray, 1920-1922,” Colin Hancock, Meagan Hennessey and Richard Martin, compilation producers; Richard Martin, mastering engineer; Richard Martin, restoration engineer (Various Artists)“Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings From the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971,” Jeff Place and John Troutman, compilation producers; Randy LeRoy and Charlie Pilzer, mastering engineers; Mike Petillo and Charlie Pilzer, restoration engineers (Various Artists)“Words & Music, May 1965 – Deluxe Edition,” Laurie Anderson, Don Fleming, Jason Stern, Matt Sulllivan and Hal Willner, compilation producers; John Baldwin, mastering engineer; John Baldwin, restoration engineer (Lou Reed)“Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos,” Robert Gordon, Deanie Parker, Cheryl Pawelski, Michele Smith and Mason Williams, compilation producers; Michael Graves, mastering engineer; Michael Graves, restoration engineer (Various Artists)Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical“Desire, I Want to Turn Into You,” Macks Faulkron, Daniel Harle, Caroline Polachek and Geoff Swan, engineers; Mike Bozzi and Chris Gehringer, mastering engineers (Caroline Polachek)“History,” Nic Hard, engineer; Dave McNair, mastering engineer (Bokanté)“Jaguar II,” John Kercy, Kyle Mann, Victoria Monét, Patrizio “Teezio” Pigliapoco, Neal H Pogue and Todd Robinson, engineers; Colin Leonard, mastering engineer (Victoria Monét)“Multitudes,” Michael Harris, Robbie Lackritz, Joseph Lorge and Blake Mills, engineers (Feist)“The Record,” Owen Lantz, Will Maclellan, Catherine Marks, Mike Mogis, Bobby Mota, Kaushlesh “Garry” Purohit and Sarah Tudzin, engineers; Pat Sullivan, mastering engineer (boygenius)Best Engineered Album, Classical“The Blue Hour,” Patrick Dillett, Mitchell Graham, Jesse Lewis, Kyle Pyke, Andrew Scheps and John Weston, engineers; Helge Sten, mastering engineer (Shara Nova and A Far Cry)”Contemporary American Composers,” David Frost & Charlie Post, engineers; Silas Brown, mastering engineer (Riccardo Muti and Chicago Symphony Orchestra)“Fandango,” Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay, engineers; Alexander Lipay and Dmitriy Lipay, mastering engineers (Gustavo Dudamel, Anne Akiko Meyers, Gustavo Castillo and Los Angeles Philharmonic)”Sanlikol: A Gentleman of Istanbul – Symphony for Strings, Percussion, Piano, Oud, Ney & Tenor,” Christopher Moretti & John Weston, engineers; Shauna Barravecchio & Jesse Lewis, mastering engineers (Mehmet Ali Sanlikol, George Lernis & A Far Cry)“Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Schulhoff: Five Pieces,” Mark Donahue, engineer; Mark Donahue, mastering engineer (Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra)Producer of the Year, ClassicalDavid FrostMorten LindbergDmitriy LipayElaine MartoneBrian PidgeonBest Remixed Recording“Alien Love Call,” Badbadnotgood, remixers (Turnstile and Badbadnotgood featuring Blood Orange)“New Gold (Dom Dolla Remix),” Dom Dolla, remixer (Gorillaz featuring Tame Impala and Bootie Brown)“Reviver (Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Remix),” Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, remixer (Lane 8)“Wagging Tongue (Wet Leg Remix),” Wet Leg, remixers (Depeche Mode)“Workin’ Hard (Terry Hunter Remix),” Terry Hunter, remixer (Mariah Carey)Best Immersive Audio Album“Act 3 (Immersive Edition),” Ryan Ulyate, immersive mix engineer; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Ryan Ulyate, immersive producer (Ryan Ulyate)“Blue Clear Sky,” Chuck Ainlay, immersive mix engineer; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Chuck Ainlay, immersive producer (George Strait)“The Diary of Alicia Keys,” George Massenburg and Eric Schilling, immersive mix engineers; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Alicia Keys and Ann Mincieli, immersive producers (Alicia Keys)“God of War Ragnarök (Original Soundtrack),” Eric Schilling, immersive mix engineer; Michael Romanowski, immersive mastering engineer; Kellogg Boynton, Peter Scaturro and Herbert Waltl, immersive producers (Bear McCreary)“Silence Between Songs,” Aaron Short, immersive mastering engineer (Madison Beer)Best Instrumental Composition“Amerikkan Skin,” Lakecia Benjamin, composer (Lakecia Benjamin featuring Angela Davis)“Can You Hear the Music,” Ludwig Göransson, composer (Ludwig Göransson)“Cutey and the Dragon,” Gordon Goodwin and Raymond Scott, composers (Quartet San Francisco featuring Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band)“Helena’s Theme,” John Williams, composer (John Williams)“Motion,” Edgar Meyer, composer (Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain featuring Rakesh Chaurasia)Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella“Angels We Have Heard on High,” Nkosilathi Emmanuel Sibanda, arranger (Just 6)“Can You Hear the Music,” Ludwig Göransson, arranger (Ludwig Göransson)“Folsom Prison Blues,” John Carter Cash, Tommy Emmanuel, Markus Illko, Janet Robin and Roberto Luis Rodriguez, arrangers (The String Revolution featuring Tommy Emmanuel)“I Remember,” Mingus Hilario Duran, arranger (Hilario Duran and His Latin Jazz Big Band featuring Paquito D’Rivera)“Paint It Black,” Esin Aydingoz, Chris Bacon and Alana Da Fonseca, arrangers (Wednesday Addams)Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals“April in Paris,” Gordon Goodwin, arranger (Patti Austin featuring Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band)“Com Que Voz (Live),” John Beasley and Maria Mendes, arrangers (Maria Mendes featuring John Beasley and Metropole Orkest)“Fenestra,” Godwin Louis, arranger (Cécile McLorin Salvant)“In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” Erin Bentlage, Jacob Collier, Sara Gazarek, Johnaye, Kendrick and Amanda Taylor, arrangers (säje Featuring Jacob Collier)“Lush Life,” Kendric McCallister, arranger (Samara Joy)Best Orchestral Performance“Adès: Dante,” Gustavo Dudamel, conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic)“Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Four Pieces,” Karina Canellakis, conductor (Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra)“Price: Symphony No. 4; Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony,” Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor (The Philadelphia Orchestra)“Scriabin: Symphony No. 2; The Poem of Ecstasy,” JoAnn Falletta, conductor (Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)“Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring,” Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)Best Opera Recording“Blanchard: Champion,” Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Ryan Speedo Green, Latonia Moore and Eric Owens; David Frost, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)“Corigliano: The Lord of Cries,” Gil Rose, conductor; Anthony Roth Costanzo, Kathryn Henry, Jarrett Ott and David Portillo; Gil Rose, producer (Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera Chorus)“Little: Black Lodge,” Timur; Andrew McKenna Lee and David T. Little, producers (the Dime Museum; Isaura String Quartet)Best Choral Performance“Carols After a Plague,” Donald Nally, conductor (The Crossing)“The House of Belonging,” Craig Hella Johnson, conductor (Miró Quartet; Conspirare)“Ligeti: Lux Aeterna,” Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor (San Francisco Symphony Chorus)“Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil,” Steven Fox, conductor (The Clarion Choir)“Saariaho: Reconnaissance,” Nils Schweckendiek, conductor (Uusinta Ensemble; Helsinki Chamber Choir)Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance“American Stories,” Anthony McGill and Pacifica Quartet“Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6, ‘Pastorale’ And Op. 1, No. 3,” Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos“Between Breaths,” Third Coast Percussion“Rough Magic,” Roomful of Teeth“Uncovered, Vol. 3: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still & George Walker,” Catalyst QuartetBest Classical Instrumental Solo“Adams, John Luther: Darkness and Scattered Light,” Robert Black“Akiho: Cylinders,” Andy Akiho“The American Project,” Yuja Wang; Teddy Abrams, conductor (Louisville Orchestra)“Difficult Grace,” Seth Parker Woods“Of Love,” Curtis StewartBest Classical Solo Vocal Album“Because,” Reginald Mobley, soloist; Baptiste Trotignon, pianist“Broken Branches,” Karim Sulayman, soloist; Sean Shibe, accompanist“40@40,” Laura Strickling, soloist; Daniel Schlosberg, pianist“Rising,” Lawrence Brownlee, soloist; Kevin J. Miller, pianist“Walking in the Dark,” Julia Bullock, soloist; Christian Reif, conductor (Philharmonia Orchestra)Best Classical Compendium“Fandango,” Anne Akiko Meyers; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Dmitriy Lipay, producer“Julius Eastman, Vol. 3: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?,” Christopher Rountree, conductor; Lewis Pesacov, producer“Mazzoli: Dark With Excessive Bright,” Peter Herresthal; Tim Weiss, conductor; Hans Kipfer, producer“Passion for Bach and Coltrane,” Alex Brown, Harlem Quartet, Imani Winds, Edward Perez, Neal Smith and A.B. Spellman; Silas Brown and Mark Dover, producers“Sardinia,” Chick Corea; Chick Corea and Bernie Kirsh, producers“Sculptures,” Andy Akiho; Andy Akiho and Sean Dixon, producers“Zodiac Suite,” Aaron Diehl Trio & the Knights; Eric Jacobsen, conductor; Aaron Diehl and Eric Jacobsen, producersBest Contemporary Classical Composition“Adès: Dante,” Thomas Adès, composer (Gustavo Dudamel and Los Angeles Philharmonic)“Akiho: In That Space, at That Time,” Andy Akiho, composer (Andy Akiho, Ankush Kumar Bahl and Omaha Symphony)“Brittelle: Psychedelics,” William Brittelle, composer (Roomful of Teeth)“Mazzoli: Dark With Excessive Bright,” Missy Mazzoli, composer (Peter Herresthal, James Gaffigan and Bergen Philharmonic)“Montgomery: Rounds,” Jessie Montgomery, composer (Awadagin Pratt, A Far Cry and Roomful of Teeth) More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s Haunting ‘Hunger Games’ Tune, and More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Megan Thee Stallion, Torres, Mount Kimbie and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Can’t Catch Me Now’A latticework of acoustic guitar and a building intensity drive “Can’t Catch Me Now,” Olivia Rodrigo’s brooding new song from soundtrack for (deep breath) “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” “You think that you got away,” Rodrigo sings through gritted teeth, adding an eerily pastoral feel to another of her signature tales of heartbreak and revenge. “But I’m in the trees, I’m in the breeze.” LINDSAY ZOLADZMegan Thee Stallion, ‘Cobra’Megan Thee Stallion’s raps have constructed a persona that’s carnal, competitive and invincible even on bad days. But on “Cobra” — her first self-released single after leaving her old label — she hits “rock bottom,” admitting, “Yes, I’m very depressed/How can someone so blessed wanna slit they wrist?” The video shows Megan shedding her skin, but the song itself doesn’t declare victory; instead, a rock-guitar outro summons the bitterness of grunge. JON PARELESTorres, ‘I Got the Fear’Torres — the stage name of the singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott — sullies organic folk sounds with a mechanized, industrial crunch on “I Got the Fear,” the second single from her sixth album, “What an Enormous Room,” due in January. Images of panic attacks and climate catastrophe haunt the song, but love provides a sliver of hope: “The dread doesn’t pay any rent money,” Torres sings, “But as long as it doesn’t get ahold of my honey, think I’ll be all right.” ZOLADZMount Kimbie, ‘Dumb Guitar’The English group Mount Kimbie keeps figuring out different ways to fuse meditation, confession and snarl. Its latest single, “Dumb Guitar,” promising a new album, taps through three chords with ever-evolving loops and waves of synthesizers, keyboards and guitars. As it churns ahead, Dominic Maker and Kai Campos sing lines like “Find a suit to wear out/Take the selfish side out,” “Another day I’ll kill myself” and “Lose it all in silence/Dig a hole in my mind.” The estrangement keeps growing, even as the music ebbs into a calm coda. PARELESWillow, ‘Alone’A shuffle rhythm, usually the sound of jaunty confidence, gets pushed and pulled into nervous, angular permutations in Willow’s “Alone,” a seething and then explosive two-minute distillation of a relationship full of need, betrayal and confusion. “I’m so tired of being a liar, it’s true,” Willow sings, well before the final rupture. PARELESEl Búho & Nita, ‘Cenizas de Agua’Robin Perkins, who records as El Búho (the Owl), is an English electronic producer who has devoted himself to Latin American rhythms, natural sounds and environmental activism. He collaborated with the flamenco-influenced Spanish singer and songwriter Nita (Cristina Manjón), from the group Fuel Fandango, on “Cenizas de Agua” (“Ashes of Water”). The track smolders with suppressed agitation about the fate of the planet. Over a subdued cumbia beat, surrounded by glimmering, time-reversed sounds, Nita’s lyrics contrast cherished memories with dire expectations: “I open my chest,” she sings. “I break the silence.” PARELESMajid Jordan, ‘Slip’Majid Jordan — the Canadian duo of the singer Majid Al-Maskati and the producer Jordan Ullman — makes hypnotically self-effacing R&B: pondering, contemplating, doubting, never raising its voice. In “Slip,” from the new album “Good People,” the beat is muffled and the keyboards are like distant radar blips as Al-Maskati struggles to stave off a temptation, though it’s clear he longs to succumb. PARELESJames Elkington, ‘A Round, a Bout’James Elkington, an English guitarist based in Chicago who has worked with Jeff Tweedy and Eleventh Dream Day, made his new instrumental album, “Me Neither (LP 1)” — the first of two parts — on his own, mostly with folky acoustic guitars but not ruling out electronics. In “A Round, a Bout,” melodies slowly materialize above, and then below, a serene picking pattern, sounding reticent but somehow inevitable. PARELESPeter Evans, ‘The Cell’On “The Cell,” Nick Jozwiak’s bass and Michael Shekwoaga Ode’s drums buckle in together, creating a pulpy beat for the trumpeter Peter Evans to dive beneath and around. Joel Ross finds the open space that’s left and lets his vibraphone ring there, one or two notes at a time. Ross and Evans are both dexterous players who can blow your hair back: The vibraphonist is known for his prolix soloing, and Evans for his extended technique. On “Ars Memoria,” the second album from the quartet that Evans calls Being & Becoming, both simmer down and submit themselves to the group imperative. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOAnthony Pirog featuring Wendy Eisenberg, ‘Night Winds’If you know Anthony Pirog, it’s probably as a fearless guitar slasher with a rack of effects pedals that let him encase himself in a turbulent cocoon. But on his newest album, “The Nepenthe Series, Vol. 1,” Pirog invites others to control the environment. During the pandemic, he asked peers and mentors to record one track each that they considered “ambient,” then he would play his way into the sound. The list of collaborators is impressive: Andy Summers, Nels Cline, John Frusciante. He made “Night Winds” with Wendy Eisenberg, another youngish guitar innovator; it is the album’s most cluttered and inclement-sounding track, and the most absorbing. Eisenberg’s growling, pseudo-industrial backdrop adds a high contrast to Pirog’s twinkly long tones, which pile up gradually until it all washes out into silence. RUSSONELLO More

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      Laufey’s Old-Time Pop Is Smooth. Its Relationship to Jazz Is Spikier.

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      The 24-year-old multi-instrumentalist found fame on TikTok with her nostalgic songs. But her dedication to her followers may be holding her music back.About 20 minutes into her set at Town Hall on Wednesday night — the first of two sold-out shows at the Midtown Manhattan theater — the nostalgic TikTok star Laufey put down her hollow-body electric guitar. With her hands free, she started singing “Dreamer,” the barbershop-pop tune that opens her second album, “Bewitched.” As she moved across the stage, she struck a new pose for each line: bending forward at the waist, as if to share a morsel of gossip; leg straight, hip bent; head turned sideways, as if mid-sigh.The act of posing is a key component in the Laufey equation. So is the big sigh.If you are one of the millions who have fallen for Laufey (pronounced LAY-vay) in the past 12 months, you are probably online enough to consume a good deal of your music through 15-second video clips; young enough to feel powerfully seen by a song about the catastrophe of a crush; and only vaguely aware of the midcentury pop repertoire that she so precisely draws upon.Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir, 24, is a cellist and multi-instrumentalist who grew up between Washington and Reykjavik. Half-Chinese and half-Icelandic, she is a third-generation musician, and as a youngster she often tagged along to her violinist mother’s orchestra rehearsals. She studied music business at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and when the pandemic sent students home, she returned to Iceland and began posting videos of herself covering tunes by Billie Eilish and Chet Baker — always in a throwback style swelling with overdubbed vocal harmonies and jazzy acoustic guitar. (Mind that word, jazzy. We’ll come back to it.) Amid the pandemic, this content was a comfort, and a following developed fast.Laufey likes to remind interviewers that she considers herself “old-fashioned.”Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesLaufey’s vibe is somehow both hopelessly nostalgic and ideally suited to our extremely online world, where huge feelings are best delivered in Pop Tart-size bites. Almost everything except her lyrics — which sometimes mention social media, or the disappointments of digital-age dating — would have sounded at home on the American radio waves between 1940 and the mid-1960s, before the Beatles and the Stones started breaking the rules.Before 2020, Laufey hadn’t written much original music, but as a talented, classically trained musician, she discovered a knack for piecing pleasant parts into a satisfying whole. (The jazz musician and YouTuber Adam Neely in September released an erudite explainer of the science of her music, and he had little trouble decoding its DNA.)One of the first original tunes Laufey wrote was “Street by Street,” which she recorded with the help of a music production major living across the hall, the day she left Berklee’s campus for lockdown. That song became popular in Iceland, and then all over the internet. It showed up on the EP that she released the following year, “Typical of Me,” which pulled some yellowy pages out of the old jazz and bossa nova books, but also felt lodged in a wishful dream of Laufey’s own making. With an unfussy drum machine sound and a Corinne Bailey Rae-adjacent grooviness, there was something distinct and precarious about this music. Like most of us in that moment, it wasn’t sure where it stood or what the future held.Since then, you could say that her process has become subsumed into her profile. She now has over three million followers on TikTok, plus another two million on Instagram, and her feed has gradually turned into a kind of direct-to-fan service. Putting a premium on relatability, posting almost daily, Laufey — who writes music primarily with the composing partner Spencer Stewart — says that her followers dictate much of what she writes and covers. When someone asked her to write a song about being a love interest’s second choice, she came up with “Second Best,” a doleful and catchy but hard-to-place tune from “Bewitched,” on which she laments, “You were my everything/I was your second best.”Onstage at Town Hall, Laufey sang in front of a dark-blue drape dotted with little stars and a set of big movie-set spotlights. It looked like a set from “La La Land.” (A follower recently said her music sounded “like if La La Land had a sequel”; she loved this feedback.) Joined by a four-piece band and a string quartet, she alternated between guitar, piano and cello, playing each one with an expert’s touch. She motored expediently through a set that fit 17 songs into almost exactly 75 minutes (not including a short encore).About 70 percent of the audience was in their 20s, but there was also a significant contingent of older listeners who seemed grateful to see that Laufey’s pleasant, everyday-can-be-Christmastime aesthetic had caught on with a younger crowd. We live, after all, in messy and anxious times. Laufey’s amalgam of bossa nova, romantic pop and show tunes is here to reassure us that, yes, some old standards do still apply. (Mid-set she played “I Wish You Love” and quoted “Misty.”)Laufey says that her followers dictate much of what she writes and covers. Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesLaufey likes to remind interviewers that she considers herself “old-fashioned,” a term that, on her lips, sounds like it’s splitting the difference between quirky and virtuous. She talks often about her love for Chet Baker and Ella Fitzgerald, and their influence is obvious. But the swooning syrup of her voice has a lot more to do with, say, Patti Page, the grande dame contralto of the 1950s, known for “Tennessee Waltz” and “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?”None of this is necessarily a problem. But it can be off-putting to hear Laufey (and her now formidable P.R. apparatus) proclaim herself an ambassador of jazz, a genre that she says has been “gate-kept” by an older crowd. “Jazz music was created in the first place as kind of like a deviation from rules, and something that was meant to be free and for everyone,” she told the podcast host Zach Sang recently. “So the fact that it’s become something that feels like it isn’t for everyone is kind of sad, actually. And I think is the death of the genre.”Equal access, openness, nonjudgmentalism. All important. And yes, it’s possible that her music will bring some listeners to the very much alive and wide-open creative landscape that is jazz. But Laufey — who does not improvise on her instrument, play music with even an ounce of swing rhythm or engage with the chancy collaborative spirit that is the real joy of jazz — is not the music’s ambassador. She is, in fact, making a kind of antiquated radio pop and calling it jazz — precisely the kind of thing that holds the music back, and leaves casual listeners confused about how jazz could possibly still be relevant.Meanwhile, there is a bumper crop of young, alchemical jazz singers who are smartly engaging with the past, reinventing it in the present, and trying to figure out how its values might translate in our increasingly isolated, digital future. Samara Joy, who won the Grammy for best new artist this year, knows what it means to celebrate the classics while pushing ahead. Esperanza Spalding has been doing it with peerless creativity for over a decade, and she too has caught on with young people by the millions. Melanie Charles’s live show is bold and joyous and well-crafted, but anything but careful or predictable.The biggest tell at Town Hall was how Laufey played her own tunes: more or less exactly as they appeared on record. It seemed not unrelated to her process on social media: When your followers are dictating what you make next, then you’re trapped in a loop of familiarity. What’s known of you is also what’s expected, and that becomes what you make. To take her music to another level, Laufey may want to take a cue from Mitski — a musician she has covered and for whom she’s expressed admiration — and log off for a while. More