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      Harvey Averne: obra de uno de los productores clave de la salsa

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      Ahora con 86 años, el productor reflexiona sobre su tiempo en la Fania Records, su tempestuosa relación creativa con Eddie Palmieri y su salida de la industria que ama.Harvey Averne comienza casi todos los días con un bialy, un panecillo polaco, y una ensalada de pescado blanco. Ve Morning Joe, juega con su gato, Coco Baby, y recibe llamadas de leyendas de la música latina como Joe Bataan en su ecléctico pero ordenado apartamento de Woodhaven, Queens.Un día bastante húmedo de mediados de marzo, se aconsejaban mutuamente sobre medicamentos recetados. Pero un vistazo al vestíbulo de Averne (decorado con premios, carteles de conciertos, recortes de periódico enmarcados y fotos, entre ellas una con Celia Cruz en un lugar destacado) cuenta una historia muy distinta a la de sus habituales tribulaciones cotidianas a los 86 años. Averne es uno de los últimos gigantes de la música latina: un chico judío del este de Nueva York que participó en el desarrollo de la música latina, desde los borscht belt, los populares centros turísticos de los judíos cercanos a Nueva York donde se tocaba música, hasta el bugalú y la salsa.“Me gusta el ritmo, me gusta el compás”, explica Averne. “No entendía ni una palabra de lo que decían, pero no importa: en la ópera no se entiende ni una palabra”.Como productor, mánager y músico, Averne tiene una larga trayectoria entre bastidores en algunos de los sellos de música latina más importantes de Nueva York. Fue el director de operaciones de la crucial Fania Records, donde produjo o supervisó discos de Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Ralfi Pagan y Ray Barretto. En su propia discográfica, Coco Records, que producía discos de jazz latino y salsa, el trabajo de Averne con el pianista Eddie Palmieri le valió los dos primeros premios Grammy para la música latina.“Era de esas personas que siempre tienen ideas”, afirma Bataan, amigo desde hace mucho tiempo y artista de Fania. “Siempre estaba activo; siempre ha sido ese tipo: el Phil Spector de la música latina”.Nacido en 1936, hijo de primera generación de padres polacos, Averne era el bufón del salón y un buscapleitos cuyos profesores solían mandar a Linden Boulevard a ver crecer las plantas en vez de interrumpir la clase. Lo único que le llamaba la atención era la música.Averne dijo que le encantaba el R&B, pero se dio cuenta de que “cada hotel y cada club tenía una banda latina”. No quería trabajar en una fábrica como su padre; además, en la música, “había muchas chicas”.A los 14 años, Averne dirigía una banda en el hotel Catskills cuando vio a otro empleado tocar la guitarra y cantar en español. Se sintió “hipnotizado”, recordó, y le pidió que le enseñara la canción. Se inspiró tanto que decidió cambió el nombre de su grupo llamado Harvey Averne Trio por el de Arvito and His Latin Rhythms y dio el salto de los escenarios de Catskills al Palladium, donde el grupo de adolescentes actuó como telonero de estrellas como Tito Puente, Machito y Tito Rodríguez.Antes de formar parte del negocio de la música, Averne “hacía mandados para los mafiosos del barrio”, dijo, trabajó en un servicio de pañales y en la venta de fotos familiares y tuvo un exitoso negocio propio de reparaciones domésticas. El astuto olfato para los negocios que desarrolló a lo largo de los años, incluso como director de orquesta adolescente, lo mantuvo a la vanguardia de la creciente y siempre diversificada escena de la música latina.“Harvey es uno de los mejores vendedores que he conocido”, dijo Andy Harlow, quien era un “chico de la banda” para el grupo de adolescentes de Averne, que llevaba los vibráfonos y otros equipos de Harvey a los conciertos y ensayos. “Era muy profesional; a todos siempre les pagaron”.Aunque él mismo no hizo un disco hasta los 30 años, Averne también dejó una marca con sus propias grabaciones y como músico de acordeón y vibráfono. Su sencillo de 1968 “Never Learned to Dance”, con la voz de Kenny Seymour Sr. (anteriormente de Little Anthony and the Imperials), es una gema codiciada que se vende por un promedio de 1300 dólares en el mercado de la música Discogs. “Nunca sentí competencia entre mis discos y los demás”, dijo Averne.Averne llegó a la Fania en 1966, cuando otro judío salsero, Larry Harlow, se lo presentó a Jerry Masucci —un abogado que acababa de fundar el sello discográfico— y los dos compaginaron al instante. Averne recuerda que llegó a la primera reunión en su Cadillac Seville con chofer, y vestido de manera impecable. Masucci no dudó en pedirle que dirigiera su empresa incipiente.El impacto de la Fania en la música latina a mediados de los sesenta es innegable. “Lo volamos todo”, afirmó Averne. El sello fue pionero en el soul latino y el bugalú, una fusión de estilos musicales latinos tradicionales con el R&B y el soul contemporáneos. Una de las producciones favoritas de Averne durante ese periodo fue el LP de bugalú de Barretto de 1968, Acid.“Ray fue uno de los primeros que en verdad vio mi potencial”, dijo Averne del percusionista. “Produje Acid, pero Ray Barretto produjo a Harvey Averne. Fue el artista más preparado con el que trabajé”.Aunque Averne no había trabajado nunca en un sello discográfico, comercializó con dinamismo (y éxito) a sus artistas utilizando las tácticas de venta que perfeccionó en su adolescencia y cuando tenía veintitantos, lo que amplió el atractivo de los miembros de la Fania y de la música latina más allá de la zona triestatal. Bobby Marín, compositor, productor e intérprete que trabajó con la Fania, afirma: “Era un gran portavoz de todos aquellos con los que decidía trabajar”.Averne hizo sonar “Gypsy Woman” de Bataan en WWRL en Nueva York (“cuando no estaba de moda tener música latina en una estación negra”, señaló Bataan) después de un encuentro casual con un DJ en una zapatería italiana, eventualmente desarrollando una relación con el director musical de la estación. Mientras manejaba al cantante Ralfi Pagan, cuya versión de 1971 de “Make It With You” fue un éxito cruzado para la Fania, Averne convenció a Don Cornelius de contratar a Pagan como el raro cuarto acto de Soul Train, convirtiéndolo en uno de los primeros artistas latinos en participar en el programa.Averne dice que rompió con la Fania alrededor de 1970 debido, en parte, a que Pagan firmó un contrato de gestión con Masucci, y no perdió tiempo en planear sus próximos movimientos. Fue nombrado gerente general y vicepresidente ejecutivo de la división de música latina de United Artists —“Donde realmente aprendí a dirigir una verdadera compañía discográfica”, dijo— contratando artistas y desarrollando una distribución más amplia. Durante el mismo período, se convirtió en el líder de gira de la banda Chakachas, un grupo de estudio belga cuyo “Jungle Fever” vendió más de un millón de copias en EE. UU.En 1972, Arverne fundó Coco Records y su primer artista fue Palmieri, un pionero del jazz latino que continúa presentándose en todo el mundo. Sus dos discos más importantes —The Sun of Latin Music y Unfinished Masterpiece— constituyeron un paso monumental para alejarse de la música latina de baile y ampliaron aún más el sonido de la música latina popular.Aunque su colaboración fue un éxito profesional y de crítica, ambos discreparon sobre el sonido, los contratos y los pagos, según Averne. “Unfinished Masterpiece fue una guerra entre Eddie y yo”, dijo Averne. Palmieri, que ahora tiene 86 años, no quiso hacer comentarios.En 1976, cada uno tomó su rumbo y Averne se dedicó a los álbumes de Eydie Gormé y Machito, así como a los discos con Cortijo y Su Combo Original. Sin embargo, para finales de esa década, el sello Coco estaba en la ruina, según Averne, por problemas financieros.Su última incursión en el negocio discográfico fue como socio de la discográfica Prism Records (precursora del sello de hip hop Cold Chillin’ Records), durante la cual conoció a una joven Madonna (dice que aún conserva algunas de sus primeras maquetas).A principios de los ochenta, cuando se terminó su carrera en los sellos discográficos, Averne cayó en un periodo oscuro.“Todo se vino abajo”, dijo. “Durante un par de años ni siquiera contesté el teléfono”.Cuando Carlos Vera, un DJ y entusiasta del bugalú que ha colaborado de cerca con Averne en los últimos años, lo conoció en la década de 2010, “no se estaba cuidando”, dijo, y el joven viajaba desde su casa en el Upper West Side hasta el apartamento de Averne en Queens varios días a la semana. Lo ayudó a renovar su apartamento, organizó sus artículos de época y le ayudó a tener acceso a internet. “Lo presioné para que comiera bien y se cuidara más. Tardé mucho en convencerlo”.Ahora, Averne está de mejor ánimo. “Sigo ganando dinero con la música”, dice. “Sigo teniendo mi propia disquera y he escrito más de 50 canciones”. Pero, sobre todo, está retirado. “Tenía esta sensación de: ‘Harvey, lo lograste. Te lo demostraste a ti mismo’”.Y aunque la mayoría de sus amigos ya no están (entre ellos Larry Harlow que murió en 2021 y el locutor de radio salsero Polito Vega este marzo), Averne dice: “Nunca me he sentido solo. Cuando tenía mucha gente alrededor, no era porque los necesitara. Era porque así lo quería”.“Estoy relajado. Estoy tranquilo”, añadió. Pero “si llegara el proyecto musical adecuado e interesante para mí, lo haría sin dudarlo”. More

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      12 New Songs From Janelle Monáe, Rosalía, PinkPantheress and More

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      Hear tracks from Rosalía, L’Rain, Romy 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.PinkPantheress, ‘Angel’“One day my baby just went away,” the British pop star PinkPantheress sings on “Angel,” an aching, bittersweet new track from the soundtrack to the upcoming movie “Barbie.” No grand tragedy has occurred here — just some run-of-the-mill ghosting. Still, PinkPantheress manages to squeeze pathos out of the story, thanks to a dreamy melody and a vocal delivery that blends wide-eyed optimism with creeping doubt: “Everyone tells me life was hard but it’s a piece of cake,” she sings, “even if Johnny hasn’t answered in a couple days.” Ken would never! LINDSAY ZOLADZRosalía, ‘Tuya’“Tuya” (“Yours”) is the kind of song Rosalía can apparently toss off at will: a lilting tune carrying a cheerful, amorous boast. “Sex with me is mind-blowing,” she promises. The production, as usual, goes genre hopping: plucked notes on a Japanese koto, a reggaeton beat, some flamenco handclaps and vocal quavers and, for the big finale, a slamming gabber techno beat and hyperpop pitch-shifted vocals. For Rosalía, they’re all within easy reach. JON PARELESRomy, ‘Loveher’A private, intimate confidence goes happily public in “Loveher” by Romy Madley Croft from the xx. “Hold my hand under the table,” she sings with quiet, breathy intensity. “It’s not that I’m not proud in the company of strangers/It’s just some things are for us.” The production — by Jamie xx, Stuart Price and Fred again.. — coaxes her into a proclamation. It evolves from sparse piano notes and a subdued four-on-the-floor beat to full-scale, chord-pounding house, while Romy’s vocal rises into an ecstatic loop: “I love her, I love her.” The beat suddenly falls away at the end, leaving Romy almost a cappella as she insists, “When they ask me I’ll tell them/Won’t be ashamed.” PARELESMadeline Kenney, ‘I Drew a Line’The Oakland singer-songwriter Madeline Kenney fills her sonic canvas with bold, angular shapes on “I Drew a Line,” the latest single from her upcoming album, “A New Reality Mind.” “Had an idea of who to be,” Kenney sings on this tale of self-revision and emotional growth, as a silky saxophone solo suddenly takes the song in a new direction. ZOLADZJanelle Monáe featuring Doechii, ‘Phenomenal’Janelle Monáe’s new album announces its intentions in its title: “The Age of Pleasure.” It’s all about physical, carnal joy as self-affirmation, underlined by Monáe’s full-spectrum mastery of African-diaspora music. “She’s a mystic sexy creature,” Monáe sings in “Phenomenal,” adding, “She’s a god and I’m a believer.” The groove is spring-loaded, Caribbean-tinged and jazzy, and it works through ever-changing variations — with call-and-response vocals, teasing guitar lines, electronics and horns — on the way to a seamless segue into the next song, “Haute.” PARELESJessie Murph and Maren Morris, ‘Texas’Maren Morris has made it her business to prove that country singers listen outside that limited format. Her latest collaboration is with the broody goth-pop songwriter Jessie Murph, and they take mutual delight in slinging radio-unfriendly words in “Texas,” one of Murph’s typically dark, unhappy accusations. Murph and Morris sing about consequences that a man has shrugged off. “I’m cold, I’m lost, I’m ruined/And you go back to Texas,” Murph sings. The video is set at a rodeo, but cowboy hats, mandolin and fiddle can’t lift the darkness. PARELESShamir, ‘Oversized Sweater’In a folk-rock fortress built around steady-strummed guitar, Shamir’s falsetto is simultaneously piercing and doleful as he sings about getting through a heartbreak. His palliatives are binge-watching TV, getting “higher than Mariah’s head” (voice), cuddling up in an oversized sweater and singing “until I believe in love again.” The marching, chiming production suggests he will. PARELESL’Rain, ‘New Year’s UnResolution’Echoes ripple across “New Year’s UnResolution,” a richly unmoored track by Taja Cheek, who records as L’Rain. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in love,” she sings in a blur of reverb, guitar swoops and harmony vocals over a programmed beat. The song ponders longing, time perception and memory, reaching no conclusion but raising evocative questions. PARELESNora Stanley and Benny Bock, ‘Peaches’A lot of the music on “Distance of the Moon” — the debut album from the baby-faced duo of Nora Stanley and Benny Bock — has been added in layers, via laptop, on the second or the 15th pass. They’re working with tons of instruments here: analog synths, Fender Rhodes, digitally programmed percussion, baritone guitar, saxophones, kalimba. Still, the result feels organic and bleary-eyed and miniature, not overworked. Stanley lives in New York, and Bock in Los Angeles, and the sound reflects that distance: This is music with a sense of focus and intimacy, yet a kind of unknowability too. It’s gentle and lovely, but not settled. On “Peaches,” Stanley’s vibrato-heavy saxophone trembles in harmony with a wavy synth, over minimalist drum programming and an undressed two-chord vamp. Fans of Sam Gendel or Alabaster dePlume or (going back further) Jimmy Giuffre will dig the mellow saxophone; anyone who trances out to Laraaji will probably feel the hypnotic pull of the electronic vamp. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOLaura Misch, ‘Portals’The English songwriter and electronic-music producer Laura Misch celebrates a mystical communion of people, nature and art in “Portals” from an album due in October, “Sample the Sky.” Harplike plinks and clicking percussion rise around her voice, enfolded in instrumental and vocal harmonies as she sings that “portals open as you slowly drift through/surrounded by our love.” PARELESBlack Duck, ‘Lemon Treasure’One repeated note and an increasingly assertive beat propel “Lemon Treasure,” a drone and slide-guitar jam from the Chicago trio Black Duck: the bassist Douglas McCombs from Tortoise and Eleventh Dream Day, the guitarist Bill MacKay and the drummer Charles Rumback. McCombs can’t resist hopping through an occasional arpeggio, and Rumback’s drumming grows splashier and more insistent along the way, but the track is MacKay’s showcase. He bears down on chords, lofts raga-tinged scales, hints at the blues and bends and stretches sustained notes; his guitar both rides the beat and taunts it. PARELESRoxana Amed and Frank Carlberg, ‘Pido El Silencio’“Los Trabajos y Las Noches” is a 10-part song cycle that the Argentine vocalist Roxana Amed and the New York pianist Frank Carlberg wrote, using the poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik — a literary hero in mid-20th-century Argentina — as lyrics. Pizarnik’s verse, like Miles Davis’s trumpet playing, was known for its strategic use of silence and restraint. So the album’s first track, “Pido El Silencio,” (“I Beg for Silence”), is an apt opener: nine minutes of forbearance and cycling harmonies and non-resolution. Amed sings the short, mysterious poem repeatedly (in English, it’s: “Although it is late, it is nighttime,/and you’re unable./Sing as if nothing’s happened./Nothing happens”), then she sings in harmony with Carlberg’s piano and Adam Kolker’s tenor saxophone on a wordless bridge. The pianist starts a looming octave chime in the upper register and the band fixes upon a sequence of obscured, sometimes-mucky harmonies, until he finally breaks out into a lyrical solo. But even when Carlberg gets going, there are savory chunks of hesitation embedded in his phrases. RUSSONELLO More

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      Popcast Mailbag! Frank Ocean, Peso Pluma, A.I. Grimes and More

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe Popcast crew assembles for a semiannual mailbag episode, touching on many of the pressing pop music issues of the moment, including the controversy surrounding Frank Ocean’s Coachella set; the challenges faced by even the biggest pop stars (Sam Smith, Miley Cyrus) trying to follow massive singles; the sudden arrival of artificial intelligence in pop music and evolving notions of authorship; the startling recent growth in the popularity and visibility of música Mexicana and corridos tumbados, with stars like Grupo Frontera and Peso Pluma; and how the framework of genre continues to have meaning even in a universal-jukebox universe.Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Time’s chief pop music criticJoe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterLindsay Zoladz, The New York Times’s pop music criticCaryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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

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

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      Astrud Gilberto: 6 Essential Songs

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

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      Juan Carlos Formell, Buoyant Heir of Cuban Musical Legacy, Dies at 59

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      The son of Juan Formell, a giant of Cuban music, he found his own voice as a singer-songwriter. He died during a performance in New York.Juan Carlos Formell, an acclaimed singer-songwriter who settled in New York after defecting from Cuba and eventually took over as bassist for his famous father, Juan Formell, in Los Van Van, one of the most influential bands of post-Revolutionary Cuba, died on Saturday during a performance in New York City. He was 59.His death, from a heart attack he suffered onstage at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx, was confirmed by his romantic and musical partner, Danae Blanco. Mr. Formell, she said, had hypertension and arteriosclerosis.Since fleeing Cuba for New York City in 1993, Mr. Formell had charted his own musical course, releasing five solo albums and earning a Grammy nomination in 2000 for best traditional tropical Latin performance for his debut album, “Songs from a Little Blue House.”When his father died in 2014, Mr. Formell agreed to carry on his legacy as the bassist for Los Van Van, the Afro-Cuban dance band co-founded by his father. The band’s current lineup also includes his brother Samuel on drums and his sister Vanessa Formell Medina on vocals.The band was just a few numbers into an energetic set at the Lehman Center when Mr. Formell wandered away from his upright bass, doubled over as if to catch his breath, then lumbered toward the rear of the stage. As the band played on, Abdel Rasalps Sotolongo, the Van Van singer known as Lele, and Javier León Peña, a sound engineer, were helping him offstage when he collapsed near the curtain.After a brief announcement that Mr. Formell was having a health problem, the band took a break of more than a half hour, then returned to finish the set, playing for nearly an hour in an apparent tribute to Mr. Formell, a friend, the musician Ned Sublette, who was present, said in a phone interview.Mr. Formell’s debut album, “Songs from a Little Blue House,” was nominated for a Grammy in 2000 for best traditional tropical Latin performance.Mr. Formell was a fourth-generation member of one of Cuba’s most famous musical families. His great-grandfather, Juan Francisco, was a popular bandleader. His grandfather, Francisco Formell, was a conductor of the Havana Philharmonic and the arranger for the Lecuona Cuban Boys, a popular big band starting in the 1930s.His father, Juan Formell, along with fellow giants of Cuban music, César Pedroso, known as Pupy, and José Luis Quintana, known as Changuito, founded Los Van Van in 1969, fusing traditional Afro-Cuban genres like son cubano with elements of rock, soul and disco.With the blessing of the Cuban government, the band toured the world for decades, developing a global following. It won a Grammy Award in 2000 for best salsa performance for their album “Llego…Van Van/Van Van is Here.”)Despite his family name, Mr. Formell’s path to musical success was not easy.Juan Carlos Formell was born in Havana on Feb. 18, 1964, the eldest of three children of Juan Formell and the cabaret singer Natalia Alfonso.When he was three weeks old, his parents sent him to live on the outskirts of Havana with his paternal grandparents. His grandfather, the conductor, had been ostracized by the Castro government for being part of the old guard. Mr. Formell told The Los Angeles Times in 2000 that he had been teased by other children for having holes in his shoes.Even so, he set his course toward music, studying at the Alejandro García Caturla and Amadeo Roldán conservatories in Havana, and later at Cuba’s National Art School.Influenced by Afrocubanismo, the Cuban artistic movement focused on Black identity, as well as the negrista movement in poetry, particularly the work of Nicolás Guillén, Mr. Formell was already composing by his teens and studying bass with Andres Escalona of the Havana Symphony Orchestra. He went on to play bass with the jazz pianist Emiliano Salvador.He was also a talented guitarist and hoped to carve out a career as a singer-songwriter, but felt unable to express himself freely under the restrictions of the government-controlled Cuban music industry, his former wife, Dita Sullivan, said in a phone interview.“While still in my 20s, at a time when most musicians are full of hope,” he once said, “I was resigned to a future of marginalization.”In 1993, while on tour with the dance band Rumbavana in Mexico, he defected, crossing the Rio Grande near Laredo, Texas, and eventually settling in New York City. The transition was not easy.Los Van Van performing in New York in 2010. Mr. Formell joined the band in 2014, after his father, the band’s bassist and co-founder, died.Brian Harkin for The New York Times“When you leave Cuba, you don’t exist,” Mr. Formell said in a 2005 interview with The Chicago Sun-Times. “You come here, you’re invisible. You come here and no one cares. If you want to defect, you’d better have a support system.”Even so, he built a career performing solo and with various ensembles at New York jazz clubs like the Blue Note and Birdland before releasing his Grammy-nominated debut. Mr. Formell followed with “Las Calles del Paraíso” (“The Streets of Paradise”) in 2002 and “Cemeteries of Desire,” a 2005 rumination on the Latin musical flavorings of New Orleans, along with “Son Radical” (2006) and “Johnny’s Dream Club” (2008), which a Village Voice review said wove “an unforgettable spell.”His music, rooted in filin, a romantic, jazz-inflected genre of Cuban popular music, as well as son cubano, a traditional style mixing Spanish and African influences, celebrated the natural beauty of his homeland as well as its complicated history, including of slavery and revolution.“Although my songs don’t specifically talk about politics,” he said in a 1996 interview, “they reflect the reality of Cuba from my perspective and not from the perspective of the system.”In addition to Samuel and Vanessa, his survivors include his other sisters, Elisa Formell Alfonso and Paloma Formell Delgado, and another brother, Lorenzo Formell González. He and Ms. Sullivan separated in 2012 and divorced in 2021.In a Facebook post announcing his death, Los Van Van said it would continue its tour of the United States, “paying tribute to Juan Carlos in every performance, every musical note, in every Vanvanero choice as Juanca would have wanted.” More

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      Dolly Parton Goes Arena Rock, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Jorja Smith, Rhiannon Giddens, Shakira 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.Dolly Parton, ‘World on Fire’Dolly Parton has announced an album due Nov. 17, “Rockstar,” that will be full of remakes of hits, often joined by the original performers. But she also brought some songs of her own including this one, her worried, indignant assessment of a “World on Fire” that’s full of lies and conflict. It’s Dolly gone arena-rock goth, with power-chord blasts and martial drums. A gospelly bridge asks, “Can’t we rise above/Can’t we show some love?,” but then it’s back to minor chords as Parton belts her best intentions — “Let’s heal the hurt/let kindness work” — against a grim, stomping, “We Will Rock You”-style chant: “Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?” Parton concludes by posing that same question. JON PARELESJoni Mitchell, ‘Both Sides Now (Live at the Newport Folk Festival 2022)’Joni Mitchell’s surprise appearance at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival, bolstered and surrounded by dedicated admirers like Brandi Carlile, was a demonstration not only of gumption, support and resilience, but of enduring musicianship and control. “Both Sides Now” previews an official live album, “At Newport,” due July 28. As a piano ripples and strings swell behind her, with Carlile and Lucius adding vocal harmonies, Mitchell makes each phrase purposeful, reflective and improvisatory, and her lowered, roughened but precise voice makes every word a life lesson. PARELESRhiannon Giddens, ‘You’re the One’Fresh off winning the Pulitzer Prize for music for her opera, “Omar,” Rhiannon Giddens releases “You’re the One,” the title song of her first full album of her own songs (though she has written, adapted and collaborated widely). As she sings about finding a love that turns “shades of gray” into “a new Technicolor world,” the song explodes out of her string-band foundations — banjo and fiddle — into full-tilt rock choruses, bursting with euphoria. PARELESJorja Smith, ‘Little Things’A jazzy piano lick and frenetic beat drive the English R&B artist Jorja Smith’s new single “Little Things,” which captures the atmosphere of a vibey, intimate house party with a densely populated dance floor. “Just a little thing for you and I,” Smith intones before shrugging with a cool nonchalance. “And if it’s meant to be than that’s all right.” LINDSAY ZOLADZFatoumata Diawara and Roberto Fonseca, ‘Blues’Fatoumata Diawara, from Mali, rides a galloping six-beat modal groove topped by the Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca in “Blues,” which is by far the rawest song on her new album of international fusions, “London Ko.” She produced it with Damon Albarn of Gorillaz. The lyrics, in Bambara and English, are about gratitude to her family; the spirit is centered and fierce. PARELESShakira, ‘Acróstico’Acróstico means acrostic, and the first letters of the five-line verses for Shakira’s new song spell out the names of her sons, Milan and Sasha. It’s the latest missive following her breakup with the soccer player Gerard Piqué, and it’s a declaration of unswerving maternal devotion through her own pain. “Even if life treats me this way/I will be strong for you alone,” she sings over steadfast piano chords. “All I want is your happiness/And to be with you.” There’s a hint of U2’s “Every Breaking Wave” in the chorus as it climbs to a tremulous peak: wounded but resolutely compassionate. PARELESChristine and the Queens, ‘Tears Can Be So Soft’Hélöise Letissier, a.k.a. Chris, the songwriter and voice of Christine and the Queens, plunges into separation and consolation in “Tears Can Be So Soft.” It’s built on a sample of the string arrangement from Marvin Gaye’s “Feel All My Love Inside”: an octave-leaping, tremulous swoop that changes from major to minor. Chris sings about missing family, friends and a lover and crying while driving on the freeway, with only the warmth and release of tears for comfort; a string section pays witness. PARELESRob Moose featuring Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Wasted’Rob Moose’s violin mirrors Phoebe Bridgers’s nocturnal anxiety on “Wasted,” a song from Moose’s upcoming EP, “Inflorescence.” Plucked notes echo her tense nerves while a groaning bed of strings brings an added pathos to the lyrics, which were written by Bridgers’s collaborator Marshall Vore. “I used to have the energy to get mad, used to know how to say sorry,” Bridgers sings with wry self-judgment and an escalating intensity. “But now I’m back with none of that.” ZOLADZNatural Wonder Beauty Concept, ‘Sword’A keyboard loop that hints at harpsichord or koto, pitch-shifted vocals, sporadic drum thuds, bits of static and the sound of a sword being unsheathed run through “Sword,” a stubbornly fragile track by the singer Ana Roxanne and the producer DJ Python. They have collaborated as Natural Wonder Beauty Concept for an album due July 14. “Sword” is at once transparent and elusive, with barely intelligible lyrics — “Everyone passes through,” Roxanne coos — and a willingness to tweak everything; the last section lowers and slows down every element but remains enigmatic. PARELESBen Chasny & Rick Tomlinson, ‘Waking of Insects’Ben Chasny records as Six Organs of Admittance; Rick Tomlinson records as, among other names, Voice of the Seven Woods. Both love minimalist repetition and gradual unfoldings, and in 2017 they made an album of duets. “Waking of Insects” was recorded live, just two acoustic guitars. They share interlocking fingerpicked patterns and, with moments of dissonance, nudge one another toward new ones, very gradually making their way from quick, fluttering interplay to tolling repose. PARELES More

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      Chris Strachwitz, Who Dug Up the Roots of American Music, Dies at 91

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      Traveling the nation to discover little-known performers for the Arhoolie label, which he founded in 1960, he earned a nickname: El Fanático.Chris Strachwitz, who traveled in search of the roots of American music with the eagerness of a pilgrim, discovered traditional musicians with the skill of a detective, promoted their careers with the zeal of an ideologue and guarded their work with the care of a historian, died on Friday at an assisted living facility in San Rafael, Calif. He was 91.The cause was congestive heart failure, his brother, Hubert, said.Mr. Strachwitz (pronounced STRACK-wits) specialized in music passed down over generations — cotton-field music, orange-orchard music, mountain music, bayou music, barroom music, porch music. The songs came not only from before the era of the music industry but even from before the existence of mass culture itself.Like other leading musical folklorists of the modern recording era — among them Moses Asch, Alan Lomax and Harry Smith — Mr. Strachwitz rescued parts of that history before they vanished.But the extent of his devotion and the idiosyncrasy of his passions defy comparison.Mr. Strachwitz was the founder of Arhoolie Records (the name comes from a term for field hollers). In addition to recruiting his own artists, he did his own field recordings, music editing, production, liner notes, advertising and sales. In the company’s early years, he affixed the labels to the records and mailed them himself.He was a lifelong bachelor who said that having a family would have thwarted his career. On his journeys around the country to record new music, he had for company a manually operated orange juicer and 20-pound bags of oranges. The targets of his search included a highway grass cutter, a gravedigger and a janitor, all of whose musical talents were at the time basically unknown.He emigrated from Germany after growing up as a teenage count under Nazi rule and went on to explore the fullest reaches of American pluralism. He took an interest not just in the standard roots repertory of folk and blues, but also in norteño, Cajun, zydeco, klezmer, Hawaiian steel guitar, Ukrainian fiddle, Czech polka and Irish dance music, among countless other genres.To account for what united his passions, Mr. Strachwitz said he liked music that was “pure,” “hard-core” and “old-timey,” particularly if one of the musicians had a “spark.” His language grew more colorful when he defined his type of music negatively.“It ain’t wimpy, that’s for sure,” he said in a 2014 documentary about him. The movie took its title from Mr. Strachwitz’s ultimate insult, which he used to refer to anything that he considered commercial, artificial and soulless: “This Ain’t No Mouse Music!”The first Arhoolie album, released in 1960, was “Texas Sharecropper and Songster,” by the blues singer Mance Lipscomb. It vaulted Mr. Lipscomb into prominence during the 1960s folk revival.The first Arhoolie record, released in 1960, was “Texas Sharecropper and Songster,” by the blues singer Mance Lipscomb. Mr. Lipscomb’s music had never been recorded, and the new release vaulted him into prominence during the 1960s folk revival. Mr. Strachwitz went on to help revive the careers of other blues singers, including Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Big Mama Thornton.As both a record executive and a record collector, he made a particularly profound historical contribution to norteño, music from the Texas-Mexico border. The Smithsonian Institution last year called his archive of Mexican and Mexican American music “the largest collection of commercially produced vernacular recordings of its kind in existence,” noting that it contained many records that are “irreplaceable.”It was the result of about 60 years of collecting — yet Mr. Strachwitz never learned to speak Spanish. Norteño musicians nicknamed him El Fanático.Mr. Strachwitz might have been considered a preservationist, but he also shaped the worlds that he documented. That was particularly true of his recordings of Cajun musicians In 2000, the rock historian Ed Ward wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Strachwitz “helped prod the culture into what is now a full-blown renaissance.”Perhaps his most notable discovery in Louisiana was Clifton Chenier, who became known as the leading exponent of the mix of rhythm and blues, soul and Cajun music known as zydeco. During a visit to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as an older man, Mr. Chenier discussed his frustrations with the record industry.“They wanted you to do what they wanted you to do, and I didn’t like that,” Mr. Chenier said. “Then I met Chris.”Mr. Strachwitz with Clifton Chenier, who was known as the king of zydeco. Other record companies “wanted you to do what they wanted you to do, and I didn’t like that,” Mr. Chenier said. “Then I met Chris.”via Arhoolie FoundationMainstream musicians also saw something exceptional in Mr. Strachwitz. In a 2010 profile of Mr. Strachwitz in The Times, the guitarist Ry Cooder said that Arhoolie’s second release, “Tough Times,” an LP by the blues musician Big Joe Williams, “started me on a path of living, the path I am still on.”Christian Alexander Maria Strachwitz was born on July 1, 1931, in Berlin. He grew up on a country estate called Gross Reichenau, located in what was then the Lower Silesia region of Germany (it is now a village called Bogaczow in southwest Poland). His father, Alexander Graf Strachwitz, and his mother, Friederike (von Bredow) Strachwitz, ran a vegetable and grain farm of about a couple hundred acres. The men of the family had the royal title of count.The family lived in a manor originally built during the time of Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia. The Nazis appointed Chris’s father a local game warden, and during World War II he joined the military and attained the rank of captain, though Hubert Strachwitz said his service was limited to escorting troop transports bound for Italy. On the family’s bucolic ancestral property, the war seemed far away to young Chris.That changed in February 1945. The family fled as the Russians invaded the estate. Chris and two of his sisters had left shortly beforehand on a train; his father escaped in a horse and buggy; Hubert, Chris’s other two sisters and his mother left on a tractor-trailer. Thanks to a wealthy relative in the United States, the family was able to reunite in Reno, Nev., by 1947.Chris served in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1956. Soon after being honorably discharged, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He taught high school German in the suburbs of San Jose for several years.In his free time, Mr. Strachwitz collected records, and he developed a particular interest in Lightnin’ Hopkins, whom he struggled to learn more about. There was no public information about whether Mr. Hopkins was even still alive.Mr. Strachwitz going through the Arhoolie archives in El Cerrito, Calif., in 2010.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesIn 1959, a fellow music enthusiast told Mr. Strachwitz that he had found the bluesman in Houston. When the school year ended, Mr. Strachwitz went on a road trip.He later recalled that he found Mr. Hopkins playing in “a little beer joint” — improvising songs in a conversational style, telling a woman in the crowd to quiet down, wondering in song about the man from California who had traveled all the way to Texas “to hear poor Lightnin’ sing.”Mr. Strachwitz believed that nobody had ever recorded a scene like that live. Following a tip from one of Mr. Hopkins’s songs, he returned to Texas the next year and found Mr. Lipscomb. This time, he brought a recorder.Meeting musicians where they lived and recording them where they liked to play, rather than in a studio, became Mr. Strachwitz’s signature style.He found unexpected commercial success when Country Joe and the Fish performed their “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” at Woodstock in 1969. Joe McDonald, the band’s lead singer and principal songwriter, had used Mr. Strachwitz’s equipment to record the song back in 1965 and given him publishing rights in exchange. With his share of the royalties, Mr. Strachwitz put a down payment on a building in El Cerrito, Calif., near Berkeley, that became the home of Arhoolie and a record outlet he called the Down Home Music Store.Aside from recording music, he drew attention to the artists he loved by collaborating with the filmmaker Les Blank on several music documentaries.As the record industry declined, Mr. Strachwitz focused on a nonprofit arm of Arhoolie that digitizes and exhibits his singular record collection. In 2016, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the nonprofit label of the Smithsonian Institution, acquired the Arhoolie catalog.In addition to his brother, Mr. Strachwitz is survived by three sisters, Rosy Schlueter, Barbara Steward and Frances Strachwitz.There was one word Mr. Strachwitz often used to describe success in his field. When he found an aged master of traditional music playing a song at a resonant time and place, he called it, as if he were hunting butterflies, a “catch.” More