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    Irv Gotti: Key Milestones in the Life of the Rap Mogul

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    The producer, who died on Wednesday, built Murder Inc. into one of the most influential record labels of the early 2000s. His career was marred by a federal investigation and trial.Irv Gotti, who founded the record label Murder Inc. and helped shape the sound of hip-hop and R&B in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he shepherded the careers of Ja Rule and Ashanti, died on Wednesday at 54.Here is a brief look at how the rap entrepreneur and record executive worked his way from humble beginnings in Queens, N.Y., to the top of the charts before his momentum was marred by a federal investigation into the label in which he was charged with money laundering and acquitted.A Childhood in Queens, N.Y.Gotti was born Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr. in Queens, N.Y., in 1970. He was the youngest of eight children, according to “The Murder Inc Story,” a documentary about his life that aired on BET in 2022. His family, which he described as one that didn’t have much money but had plenty of love, recalled him as a “clown” who loved performing, dancing and entertaining, sometimes even for small change.His foray into music began as a preteen, when he played for hours with a turntable and a mixer that his siblings had purchased for him. By the age of 15, he had begun to make a name for himself as a D.J. at local parties.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Smurfs’ Trailer Shows Rihanna as Smurfette and Promises New Music

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      The first preview of the animated feature shows the singer in her “blue era” and assures fans that new songs from her will be featured on the soundtrack.Music superstar, beauty mogul, fashion designer and … Smurfette? Rihanna’s next big role may not be what you were expecting.On Thursday, Paramount released a trailer for “Smurfs,” giving us a first look at the singer as the elflike, blonde-haired, blue-skinned creature. In an animation style that blends smooth 3-D rendering with elements that evoke the classic hand-drawn cartoons, Smurfette leads her cohort into the real, live-action world on a quest to Paris to find Papa Smurf after he mysteriously disappears.The trailer begins with Rihanna, in human form, addressing the audience.“I can’t wait for you all to see it this summer,” she says, with sunglasses largely covering her Smurf-blue eye shadow. She had teased the trailer in an Instagram post on Wednesday, which was a short video captioned “in my blue era.”The animated movie also features an ensemble cast including Nick Offerman, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Sedaris, Nick Kroll and Dan Levy, and is directed by Chris Miller, who previously helmed “Shrek the Third” and “Puss in Boots.” It will be a musical-comedy reboot of ‘The Smurfs’ film franchise, which last had an installment with “Smurfs: The Lost Village” in 2017.In addition to playing Smurfette, Rihanna is a producer on the movie. But, in what will most likely be the biggest news for her fans, who have been clamoring for more music since her album “Anti” was released in 2016, the trailer ends with a message advising people to “presave” the movie’s soundtrack, which will feature new music from Rihanna.It also says the movie will include the song “Higher Love,” recorded by Desi Trill and featuring DJ Khaled, Cardi B, Natania and Subhi.“Smurfs” is set to release on July 18. More

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      Susan Alcorn, Voyager on Pedal Steel Guitar, Dies at 71

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      With a daring avant-garde approach, she pushed the frontiers of an instrument best known for speaking with a down-home accent.Susan Alcorn, an experimental composer and musician who pushed the pedal steel guitar, an instrument more often associated with the country music roadhouse, into the avant-garde, died on Friday in Baltimore. She was 71.Her husband, David Lobato, said the cause of death, in a hospital, had not been determined.A rare female virtuoso on an instrument long dominated by men, Ms. Alcorn erased boundaries for pedal steel guitar — a console-style electric guitar played face up, with pedals and knee levers to alter pitch, often used to create a forlorn, wailing twang. That made it a key instrument in country music.As hinted at by the title of her 2006 album, “And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar,” Ms. Alcorn steered the instrument into uncharted territory. Over the course of a career in which she mined and refigured countless genres, she released more than 20 albums, either as a solo artist or in collaboration with boundary-pushing musicians like the guitarist and banjo player Eugene Chadbourne, the saxophonist Caroline Kraabel and the guitarist Mary Halvorson.The title of Ms. Alcorn’s 2006 album, “And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar,” signaled that she was steering her instrument into uncharted territory.Olde English Spelling BeeMs. Alcorn’s 2003 album, “Curandera,” featured her interpretations of compositions by Curtis Mayfield and Messiaen.Uma SoundsHer album “Curandera,” released in 2003, featured cosmic interpretations of the Curtis Mayfield composition “People Get Ready” and Messiaen’s “O Sacrum Convivium.” Her 2023 album, “Canto,” was inspired by her travels in Chile, where she became entranced with nueva canción, a left-leaning folk music that had been repressed by the dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Daniel Barenboim Announces He Has Parkinson’s Disease

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      “I am planning to maintain as many of my professional commitments as possible,” the conductor said.Daniel Barenboim, the eminent conductor and pianist who stepped back from engagements in recent years citing health concerns, said Thursday that he has Parkinson’s disease.Announcing the diagnosis in a short news release, Barenboim, 82, said that he still planned to fulfill “as many of my professional commitments as possible,” including concerts with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble he founded in 1999 to bring Israeli and Arab musicians together.“If I am unable to perform, it is because my health does not allow me to,” Barenboim said, adding that he was adjusting to “navigating this new reality” and that his focus “is on receiving the best available care.”Three years ago, Barenboim announced that he was suffering from a “serious neurological condition” that was affecting his work. In January 2023, he resigned as general music director of the Berlin State Opera because of poor health.A spokeswoman for the Daniel Barenboim Foundation said that the conductor was unavailable for interview. His next scheduled performance is in August as part of a West-Eastern Divan Orchestra summer tour, the spokeswoman said, adding that Barenboim was continuing to teach at the Barenboim-Said Academy, a music school he established in Berlin that brings together students from across the Middle East.Born to Jewish parents in Argentina, Barenboim has been a titan of classical music for almost seven decades, first as a piano prodigy and later as a conductor and music director. He took over the leadership of the Berlin State Opera in 1992 and transformed into one of the world’s leading houses, and he also held music director positions at the Orchestre de Paris, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan.Since the 1980s, Barenboim has also been an outspoken political figure, as much as a revered musical one — a rarity for a conductor. In 1989, just days after the Berlin Wall fell, Barenboim led the Berlin Philharmonic in a concert for East Germans. A decade later, along with the Palestinian scholar and writer Edward Said, he founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in the belief that music could lead Israelis and Arabs to mutual understanding.In his statement on Thursday, Barenboim said he considered the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra his “most important responsibility.”“It is essential for me to ensure the orchestra’s long-term stability and development,” he said. More

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      Fun Things to Do in NYC in February 2025

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      Looking for something to do in New York? Enjoy laughs with Liza Treyger, learn about Clara Schumann, or see the Urban Bush Women in a Great Migration love story.ComedyLiza Treyger, above in her new Netflix comedy special, “Night Owl,” will host a “Show and Tell” at Union Hall on Friday.Netflix‘Show and Tell With Liza Treyger’Feb. 7 at 10 p.m. at Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn; unionhallny.com.Hot off the heels of the debut of “Night Owl,” her hourlong comedy special on Netflix, Liza Treyger is presenting this showcase in which her funny friends joke about their most cherished possessions.Treyger, who was born in the former Soviet Union and grew up on the outskirts of Chicago, has made a name for herself in the New York City comedy scene over the past decade through her blunt appraisals of herself and society’s sexual politics. This reputation earned her an appearance on Netflix’s “Survival of the Thickest” and a consultant gig on “The Eric Andre Show.” She recently had a supporting role on an episode of the Amazon Prime Video series “Harlem.”Taking part in Treyger’s “Show and Tell” on Friday are Tommy McNamara, Drew Anderson, Marie Faustin and Molly Kearney. Tickets are $15 on Eventbrite. SEAN L. McCARTHYMusicFrom left, Why Bonnie’s Blair Howerton on guitar, Josh Malett on drums and Chance Williams on bass, in Boston in 2022. The band will be at Night Club 101 on Friday.Olivia LeonPop & RockWhy BonnieFeb. 7 at 8 p.m. at Night Club 101, 101 Avenue A, Manhattan; dice.fm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ Wins Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album

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      “Hell’s Kitchen,” a coming-of-age show inspired by the adolescent experiences of Alicia Keys and fueled by her music, won a Grammy Award on Sunday for best musical theater album.The album, produced by Keys along with Adam Blackstone and Tom Kitt, was released in June and features the original stars of the Broadway production, Maleah Joi Moon and Kecia Lewis, both of whom won Tony Awards for their performances, as well as Shoshana Bean and Brandon Victor Dixon.Keys was already a 16-time Grammy winner, and on Sunday she was also being honored with the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award presented by the Black Music Collective. She is both the composer and lyricist for the songs on the “Hell’s Kitchen” album.The show, which opened on Broadway last spring following an Off Broadway run at the Public Theater, is still running at the Shubert Theater and has been selling well, although its grosses softened last month. A North American tour is scheduled to begin at Playhouse Square in Cleveland in October.“Hell’s Kitchen” tells the story of a 17-year-old girl, Ali, being raised by a single mother in an apartment tower where most of the units are subsidized for performing artists; Ali, whose life has close parallels to that of Keys, is starting to find her way romantically and musically.This year’s six Grammy-nominated cast albums were all for musicals that opened on Broadway during the 2023-24 season.The other nominees were “Merrily We Roll Along,” a Tony-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s 1981 flop about the implosion of a three-way friendship; “The Notebook,” based on the much-loved 1996 Nicholas Sparks romance novel; “The Outsiders,” the Tony-winning musical based on the classic 1967 S.E. Hinton novel about two warring groups of adolescents in Tulsa, Okla.; “Suffs,” Shaina Taub’s exploration of the American women’s suffrage movement; and “The Wiz,” a revival of the 1975 show based on “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”“The Outsiders” won the Tony for best new musical, and “Merrily We Roll Along” won for best musical revival. Only “The Outsiders” and “Hell’s Kitchen” are still running on Broadway. More

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      in Music

      Zakir Hussain, Peerless Indian Tabla Player, Dies at 73

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      Considered a national treasure in his homeland, the percussionist transcended genres and brought classical Indian music to a global audience.Zakir Hussain, a peerless Indian tabla player who transcended genres and brought classical Indian music to a global audience, died on Sunday. He was 73.He died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease, in San Francisco, where he lived, his family said in a statement.Considered a national treasure in his native India, Mr. Hussain won four Grammy Awards and collaborated with a range of superstar artists that included the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the jazz master Charles Lloyd, the sitarist Ravi Shankar and George Harrison of the Beatles.He was born Zakir Allaraka Qureshi on March 9, 1951, in Bombay, now Mumbai. His father was the tabla master Alla Rakha Qureshi, better known as Alla Rakha or sometimes Allarakha. Zakir’s mother, Bavi Begum, changed his surname to Hussain a few days after he was born, on the advice of a Muslim saint, he said.Mr. Hussain was a child prodigy who began performing concerts on the tabla by age 7 and was touring by age 12, according to the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, which gave him a fellowship.Both father and son were given the honorific Ustad, which means master. Together, they helped elevate the status of the tabla, a pair of Indian drums played by hand, from an accompanying instrument to one played by virtuosos. In 2009, Zakir Hussain performed four sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York.Earlier this year, he won Grammy Awards for contemporary instrumental album, global music album and global music performance. In 2009, he won the best contemporary world music album award.Mr. Hussain is survived by his wife, Antonia Minnecola; his daughters, Anisa Qureshi and Isabella Qureshi; his brothers, Taufiq Qureshi, and Fazal Qureshi, also tabla players; and his sister, Khurshid Aulia, according to his family.A complete obituary will follow.Alexandra E. Petri More

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      Book Review: ‘Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words,’ by Michael Owen

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      In “Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words,” Michael Owen offers a sympathetic portrait of the lyricist, overshadowed in a life that had him tending the legacy of his younger sibling George.IRA GERSHWIN: A Life in Words, by Michael OwenThe lyricist Ira Gershwin once suggested his epitaph should be “Words Failed Me”: a joke tinged with ineffable sadness.Bespectacled and diminutive of stature, he was and will be forever overshadowed by his younger brother and collaborator George, the glamorous genius composer who died at 38 of a brain tumor many in his circle had dismissed as a nervous ailment.As has been told many times before, but not from the close P.O.V. that Michael Owen assumes in his new biography, “Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words,” this seismic event in musical history left his subject both bereft and, for the rest of his own much longer life, sweeping up after a fallen star while trying, faintly, to keep emitting his own light.Ira spent plenty of time vetting George biographers, whose number could populate a healthy chorus line. But his own “potpourri of musical memories,” titled “Lyrics on Several Occasions,” sold so poorly he bought up the remaining copies. A decade after his own death at 86 in 1983 came Philip Furla’s “Ira Gershwin,” which also focused to its detriment on the lyrics, not the man.Now Owen, an archivist who has previously published a biography of the torch singer Julie London, has stepped up to give this perpetual supporting player an infusion of main-character energy. He succeeds. “Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words” is dignified but not starchy, efficient but not shallow, and honest about grief’s unrelenting toll. It concerns family ups and downs as much as show business, and everyone — happy holidays! — has some of those.Ira was born Israel in 1896 to Russian Jewish immigrants to New York City, a name quickly switched to Isidore (Izzy or Iz) before he settled on one that, appropriately, can mean “watchful” in Hebrew. There would be four children, and their parents’ many business struggles and frequent moves left the oldest son cautious and introverted.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Timothée Chalamet Sings Live for the Bob Dylan Biopic, ‘A Complete Unknown’

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      The actor’s vocals so impressed the film’s director that he used the live recordings, instead of those prerecorded in a studio. Here’s a look at other actors who have hit their own high notes in musical biopics.In one trailer for the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” a fan pleads with the musician, played by Timothée Chalamet, saying that she can’t hear the music at his sold-out concert.Chalamet, his eyes hidden behind Dylan’s trademark Ray Ban sunglasses, his hair a frizzy mop, responds: “I’ll sing louder.”Biopics have often relied on creative license to portray a star, but Chalamet’s words are not just blowin’ in the wind. The songs in “Unknown,” directed by James Mangold, have resonated through generations, and Chalamet’s voice was so impressive that his live vocals — sung while performing in character — were kept for the final cut.That is not the industry standard. Some films use an original artist’s track while an actor lip-syncs. When actors in biopics do sing, it is common for them to record the vocals in a studio and then overdub them onscreen. Singing live on camera can leave a performance falling flat, especially if the actor is not a trained vocalist.But when done well, live vocals can add a touch of realism.“The idea was to get a little bit different sound in each different venue by using practical microphones from the period,” Tod Maitland, the sound mixer for “Unknown,” said in an interview with Variety this month. “That helped create a nice tapestry of sounds. But Timmy went 100 percent live. It was pretty amazing.”It’s not Chalamet’s first time at the mic — he sang in the 2023 film “Wonka,” and attended LaGuardia High School, a performing arts school in New York City.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More