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      For Freeman Vines, Guitar Making Is a Way of Life

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      Art of Craft is a series about specialists whose work rises to the level of art.Freeman Vines was chasing a sound.He couldn’t remember where he’d heard it, but it reverberated in his mind. His attempts to replicate it on mass-produced guitars were fruitless, so Mr. Vines took matters into his own hands: In 1958, he started to make guitars.“I didn’t care how the guitar looked. I didn’t care what color the guitar was,” Mr. Vines said in a 2020 documentary called “Hanging Tree Guitars: the Art of Freeman Vines,” produced by Music Maker Foundation, a nonprofit that supports Southern artists like Mr. Vines. “I was looking for a tone.”Freeman Vines in his store, with some of his creations. Mr. Vines, now 80, never did replicate the sound, but along the way he crafted dozens of unique guitars, using wood from barns, troughs and other unexpected — and meaningful — sources. A series of his guitars featured in a traveling exhibition (currently at the Maria V. Howard Arts Center at the Imperial Centre in Rocky Mount, N.C.) came from wood extracted from a tree that had been used to lynch Black people.Mr. Vines, who now works out of a storefront in Fountain, N.C., grew up on a plantation in nearby Greene County during the Jim Crow era, working alongside his mother in the fields for meager wages. When he got older, he toured for a bit as a jazz musician. But the quest to recreate that one sound proved to be the animating force of his life. He carved guitars in different shapes, with specific designs and electronic configurations. Some are crafted to look like traditional African masks.“These guitars here got a character and a sound of their own,” Mr. Vines said in a video accompanying his exhibition. “To somebody else, it’s just some wood glued together. To me, it’s something else.”Chris Bergson, a musician and associate professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, said there had been a big jump in independent guitar-making in recent years. “You’re going to get something really special and unique, like the opposite of a guitar you just buy off the rack.”Mr. Vines has multiple myeloma but hasn’t slowed down. “He cat naps a little bit and just keeps working, keeps creating,” said Timothy Duffy, founder of Music Maker Relief Foundation.Mr. Vines was recently discharged from a rehab facility after a stint in a cancer ward. “They really wanted him to stay there,” Mr. Duffy recalled. “He said, ‘Look, I can sit here and be bored. Or I can go back to my shop and tinker around. They say I’m dying, but you could be dead in three minutes. I’m living now.’”Mr. Vines said it’s important to “let the saw do the work” in shaping guitars.“It’s just like making biscuits. Ain’t no two biscuits look alike.”The wood used to make the “hanging tree guitars” has a “characteristic of its own,” Mr. Vines said. “All that stuff in there, people thought I carved and put in there — I didn’t do it. It was in there.”Mr. Vines’s storefront in Fountain, N.C.His sketchbook. On the right is his vision for an unusually shaped lap steel guitar.A photo of Mr. Vines, circa 1960.“Wood talks to me,” Mr. Vines is quoted as saying in the book “Hanging Tree Guitars.” “Wood has a character.”“There’s spirits in each one of these woods,” Mr. Duffy said of Mr. Vines’s philosophy.One of Mr. Vines’s creations.Mr. Vines, in his wheelchair. He toured as a jazz musician when he was younger.A wooded pond near Mr. Vines’s storefront. More

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      Alan Menken on ‘The Little Mermaid,’ New Songs and Revised Lyrics

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      The composer talked revisiting “The Little Mermaid” after nearly 35 years and the similarities between working with Howard Ashman and Lin-Manuel Miranda.Alan Menken composed the musical versions of “Little Shop of Horrors” and “A Bronx Tale,” but he is at peace with being known as a Disney composer.Mostly.“One of the areas where it got to me — you go to the Alan Menken Pandora station, and it’s all these little Disney tunes, and I go, ‘What is that?’” Menken said. Listeners could probably answer him: after all, he’s best known for the scores for beloved Disney animated films like “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and of course “The Little Mermaid.”Menken was speaking by video on a recent morning from his sunlit studio at his home in North Salem, N.Y. At 73, he is an EGOT winner with eight Oscars, 11 Grammys, an Emmy and a Tony prominently displayed in a glass case behind him. It was a few weeks before the release of the live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” and as with Disney’s other live-action and stage adaptations of the classic animated films he scored with the lyricist Howard Ashman, he collaborated with a new partner — in this case the “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda — to add a few more numbers to his original Oscar-winning tunes.In some ways, Menken said, working with Miranda reminded him of his decade-long partnership with Ashman, who died from AIDS in 1991 at age 40.“Sometimes your collaborator goes, ‘Oh, that’s the problem, because this is doing this and it’s overstepping emotionally here,’” Menken said. “It’s something that Howard had. I have those same moments with Lin where I go, ‘He knows.’”(The remake also includes a few adjustments to old songs. A verse in “Poor Unfortunate Souls” urging Ariel to keep quiet was dropped and a line in “Kiss the Girl” suggesting Prince Eric kiss her without asking was changed. Menken has said elsewhere that the filmmakers wanted to avoid suggesting both that the prince “would, in any way, force himself” on Ariel and that young girls might feel they shouldn’t use their voices.)In a recent interview, Menken discussed what it was like to revisit a score he wrote nearly 35 years ago, his experience working with Miranda on new songs and how he learned to embrace being known as a Disney composer. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.DisneyYou have approximately 10 million projects in development, among them “Animal Farm,” “Hercules,” “Nancy Drew” and “Night at the Museum” stage musicals; the live-action adaptation of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”; and a new animated musical film, “Spellbound.” Do you just have a spreadsheet?Yeah, kind of. [Laughs] After a while, you feel like a workaholic.Do you enjoy revisiting your older work, or do you do so more out of a sense of protectiveness?A little of both. These are my babies — I don’t want to walk away from them. Sometimes I’ll think, “What more do we have to say in the telling of this story?” And then it will be incumbent upon me to get to know the director, the book writer, and talk to them about the things they want to add. That’s where it becomes fun for me.What was it like working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on new songs for “The Little Mermaid”?It was a lot of fun — I knew about him because he went to the [Hunter College Elementary School] with my niece, and I would always hear about this little boy, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and how he was obsessed with “The Little Mermaid.”Of the three songs we did together, one is more in my and Howard’s wheelhouse, “Wild Uncharted Waters.” It’s a ballad sung by Prince Eric, and it’s the roiling inside him — it’s very emotional. “For the First Time,” which Ariel sings when she gets legs about all the things she’s noticing for the first time, is a real combination of our styles. I had given Lin a fragment from the score from the original animated movie, and he said, “Wait, can we put a 2 against the 3?” [referring to the tempo], and so it got that real rhythmic rub to it. And the one that was much more in Lin’s wheelhouse was “The Scuttlebutt,” which is sung by Scuttle and Sebastian [played by Awkwafina and Daveed Diggs]. I gave him a little Caribbean tune thinking he would lyricize that, and in fact, he rapped over it! It was just one of those moments where you sense somebody’s brilliance.In 1997, David Horn, now the executive producer of PBS’s “Great Performances” series, told The New York Times, “When there’s a Sondheim musical, everyone refers to it as a Sondheim musical. When it’s something Alan has done, they refer to it as a Disney musical.” Do you still mind your shows being known as Disney musicals?I sometimes would have a little resistance to simply being characterized as “Disney composer Alan Menken” because I already had a huge hit with “Little Shop of Horrors” before I went to Disney. And while I was at Disney, I wrote so many other outside projects — the “Christmas Carol” that was at Madison Square Garden for [nearly] 10 years with Lynn Ahrens, [stage shows] “Sister Act,” “A Bronx Tale,” “Leap of Faith,” [the series] “Galavant” — but there is no musical opportunity that is at the level of writing a musical for Disney. If you do your work right, you will have an experience that nothing else can match.What’s your favorite musical of all time?I remember when I saw the original “Chorus Line” — Blew. My. Mind. It pulled back the curtain in terms of the back story of people who work in theater, especially dancers and the ensemble. It was so powerful, and that was the stagecraft as much as anything else. Michael Bennett [the show’s creator] was such a genius.What dream project is still on your bucket list?Howard, before he died, wanted to do a musical based on a Damon Runyon story — [adapted for a] movie called “The Big Street” — and I took a number of cracks at writing it. The problem is, it has an unlikable central character. It’s challenging, and I still want to do it — maybe it should be an opera. I wrote, I think, a brilliant musical with David Spencer, “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” [previously a novel and a movie]. But it’s very hard to get that musical on — it’s thorny and challenging, but I don’t shy away from those. I just have to go with what happens. More

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      Gustavo Dudamel in New York: Selfies, Hugs and Mahler

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      Our photographer followed the maestro when he came to town to conduct Mahler’s Ninth — his first time leading the New York Philharmonic since being named its next music director.The violins were tuning, the woodwinds warming up and the trumpets blaring bits of Mahler. Then the musicians of the New York Philharmonic began to whistle and cheer.Gustavo Dudamel, one of the world’s biggest conducting stars, strode onto the stage this month for his first rehearsal with the Philharmonic since being named the ensemble’s next music director. On the program was Mahler’s epic Ninth Symphony.“I will have the opportunity in the next few days to hug everybody,” he told the musicians, smiling and pumping his fist. “I’m very honored to become part of the family.”As it happened, the orchestra’s new hall, the recently renovated David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, was occupied that day, so Dudamel’s first rehearsal took place at its old home, Carnegie Hall. Dudamel said he felt a connection to Mahler, who conducted the Philharmonic at Carnegie when he was its music director from 1909 to 1911.At his first rehearsal, in Carnegie Hall, Dudamel offered a mantra for his tenure: “We will have a lot of fun.”James Estrin/The New York TimesWhile the orchestra rehearsed Mahler, Dudamel rushed to the center of David Geffen Hall to briefly assess the acoustics.Dudamel, one of the world’s biggest conducting stars, is known for his bouncy curls and fiery baton.The violinist Ellen dePasquale warmed up backstage before a rehearsal of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, one of the repertory’s most sweeping and profound works.“This was Mahler’s orchestra,” he said, noting Mahler’s ties to New York when he wrote it. “Even if they are not the same musicians, they have that heritage of Mahler.”While Dudamel does not take the podium in New York until 2026, his five days with the Philharmonic this month, for rehearsals and performances of the Mahler, were an unofficial start. They came at a moment of transition for him in more ways then one: a week later he would announce that he was resigning as music director of the Paris Opera. But New York felt like a new beginning, and as he got to know the orchestra and the city, he offered a mantra for his tenure: “We will have a lot of fun.”Dudamel took a pause backstage before going to meet with percussionists during a break in rehearsal.“I’m very honored to become part of the family,” Dudamel told the Philharmonic’s players.Dudamel grabbed a sip of coffee in his dressing room during a break in rehearsal.Dudamel examined a Mahler score that once belonged to Leonard Bernstein, a predecessor. He said he felt a connection to Mahler, who led the Philharmonic from 1909 to 1911. “Even if they are not the same musicians,” he said, “they have that heritage of Mahler.”Judith LeClair, the Philharmonic’s principal bassoon, embraced Dudamel after a rehearsal. He was greeted as a rock star by the orchestra, with musicians lining up for selfies and hugs.There were hours of intense rehearsals, during which Dudamel urged the players to embrace Mahler’s operatic impulses and his varied style.There were Champagne toasts and rites of passage. In his dressing room Dudamel examined a Mahler score that once belonged to Leonard Bernstein, a predecessor and noted Mahlerian. There were hours of intense rehearsals, during which Dudamel urged the players to embrace Mahler’s operatic impulses and his varied style.“It’s not bipolar, it’s tripolar,” he said of one passage. “This is Freud. A new character — a new spectrum of humanity.”When Dudamel and the orchestra got back to Geffen Hall for the final rehearsals and performances, there were some surprises.After a spectral whirring sound surfaced during an open rehearsal, he turned to the audience. “Maybe it’s Mahler,” he said.Dudamel spoke backstage with members of the Philharmonic’s artistic team about the timing of a rehearsal break. A few seconds before walking onstage for his first concert at the newly renovated Geffen Hall, Dudamel adjusted his tie.The Philharmonic was warmly received at its performances with Dudamel. On the first night, the ensemble got a seven-minute standing ovation.Dudamel’s appearances were highly anticipated by music fans eager to catch a glimpse of the Philharmonic’s next music director. All three concerts sold out.Dudamel abstained from solo bows, gesturing instead to highlight the contributions of the members of the orchestra.Dudamel in his dressing room. “To arrive here, to achieve this connection with you, is for me a prize of life,” he told musicians at a reception. “We will develop this love, this connection.”Throughout his visit, Dudamel was greeted as a rock star, with musicians lining up for selfies and hugs.“You’re part of my family,” Cynthia Phelps, the principal violist, told him at a reception. “Welcome.”Dudamel thanked the musicians, saying he never imagined he would one day lead one of the world’s top orchestras.“To arrive here, to achieve this connection with you, is for me a prize of life,” he said. “We will develop this love, this connection.”At the opening concert, Dudamel was nervous. As is his custom, he conducted the symphony, one of the repertory’s most sweeping and profound works, from memory. At the end of the piece, Dudamel abstained from solo bows, gesturing instead to highlight the contributions of the members of the orchestra.Backstage, an aide handed Dudamel a glass of scotch.“My God,” he said. “What a journey.”Dudamel with his longtime friend and mentor, Deborah Borda, the president and chief executive of the New York Philharmonic, who lured him east from Los Angeles. More

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      James Acaster’s ‘Party Gator Purgatory’ Was Decades in the Making

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      As a child, music was the British comedian’s first obsession. Decades later, his first record tells the story of a toy alligator.The British comedian James Acaster can remember the moment he fell in love with music at 6 years old. At a party held by a member of the congregation of the “hippie-ish” church his parents attended in Kettering, a town in central England, he heard a compilation album featuring songs like Men at Work’s “Down Under” and “Centerfold” by The J. Geils Band.“I just couldn’t believe how good every single song was — it was blowing my mind,” Acaster said in a recent video interview. Music became “a pretty immediate obsession.”By the time he was a teenager, Acaster was playing in several bands. He left school at 17, without taking his final exams, and didn’t go to college, so he could focus on building a career in music.At 22, though, he didn’t have a record deal, and when his experimental jazz group split, Acaster started focusing on comedy instead. He had been dabbling in stand-up as a side project since he was 18, and it felt like a welcome break from the pressures of trying to make it in music.“It was nice to do it and not care about it,” he said. “Whereas every time I was onstage with a band, I really cared and wanted it to go well.”In one special in his Netflix series “James Acaster: Repertoire,” the comedian moves from the idea of him being an undercover cop to talking about a breakup. Silviu Nutu Vegan Joy/NetflixToday, Acaster, 38, is one of Britain’s most popular comedians, and he has finally released a debut album of sorts: “Party Gator Purgatory,” a 10-track experimental record featuring Acaster’s drumming and made with the 40-artist collective he founded called Temps.In comedy, Acaster has had critical and mainstream success. A fixture on British comedy panel shows, in recent years he’s also found success in podcasting with “Off Menu,” a show about dream meals he co-hosts with the comedian Ed Gamble.On the talent-filled British comedy circuit, Acaster has carved out a singular voice: a mixture of whimsy and vulnerability, surrealism and biting commentary, as seen in his stand-up special “Cold Lasagna Hate Myself 1999,” in which he explored a difficult period in his personal life with both candor and his signature frenetic performance style.This balance is what has connected with people, said Matthew Crosby, a British comedian and friend, who praised Acaster’s “genuine authenticity” in a recent phone interview.Acaster looms so large on the British comedy scene that others have begun to emulate him. “Anyone who’s got a really distinctive unique style, whether wittingly or unwittingly, gets aped by the circuit — Eddie Izzard and Harry Hill are the people who immediately spring to mind,” Crosby said. “And you see it now with lots of people doing James.”On the talent-filled British comedy circuit, Acaster has carved out a singular voice.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesAs comedy, once his low-pressure creative pursuit, transformed into a fully-fledged career, Acaster disengaged from both listening to and making music. Then, in 2017 he had a mental-health crisis precipitated by breakups with his girlfriend and his agent, and he began collecting albums released in the previous year, ultimately purchasing 500 releases from 2016 alone, he said.“When things got a bit rough that was my most recent thing that had brought me a lot of comfort so I carried on doing that,” he said. “I just sort of reacquainted myself or renegotiated my relationship with music as a fan.”He codified the personal project in “Perfect Sound Whatever,” a 2019 book in which he claims that 2016 was the best ever year for music, and explains why.In 2020, he started making music again, and the result is “Party Gator Purgatory,” an experimental, hip-hop inflected and drum-heavy record, which follows the death, purgatory and resurrection of a life-size toy alligator Acaster won at a fair when he was 7.The album’s high concept is typical of Acaster’s creative process, and the way he works his way out from a single idea. “You’re just running with whatever hunch you’ve got that this might be fun,” he said. This approach is clear across Acaster’s books, podcasts and stand-up. On the album, the idea is the travails of a stuffed toy; in one special in his Netflix stand-up series “Repertoire,” Acaster began with the idea of his being an undercover cop, “and by the end you’ve got a show that is about a breakup you’ve had,” he said.“He’s not afraid of being incredibly niche,” Crosby said. “He doesn’t sort of sit down at the start of each day and go, ‘What can I do that’s going to make me a load of money?’ He goes, ‘What am I really interested in?’”This penchant for niche ideas is evident in an album that is dense and genre-defying. “Party Gator” is largely inspired by “What Now?,” a 2016 album from the experimental musician Jon Bap, in which the drums feel deliberately out of sync.“You’re just running with whatever hunch you’ve got that this might be fun,” Acaster said of his approach to the creative process.Tom Jamieson for The New York Times“He’s just a freak and he likes weird music and I think we both like a lot of weird stuff,” said NNAMDÏ, a Chicago-based musician who raps on the album, in a video interview.Making the album was a labor of love, an all-consuming project that stretched over two years. On the album Acaster plays drums, served as a producer and curated a 40-strong roster of collaborators, including the singer-songwriter Xenia Rubinos and the rapper Open Mike Eagle. He would listen to a drum track he’d created, figure out who he wanted on it, and reach out. Acaster had interviewed some of the musicians he wanted to work with for his book, “Perfect Sound,” and around half of them he cold emailed. “I just got very very lucky that people would say yes,” he said.Taking place mostly during Britain’s pandemic lockdowns, the collaborations happened over email and Zoom, through which Acaster was able to foster an environment of experimentation. “For the majority of it, he just told me to do whatever I felt like doing,” NNAMDÏ said. “He kind of took what I did and manipulated it. It is still what I did, but he added his own little textures to it and chopped up some things and kind of freaked it, made it cool.”With an album that may not appeal to mainstream audiences, Acaster is levelheaded about what its reception could look like. “I really hope that it finds its audience, and the people who would like it discover it and get into it,” he said.In many ways, the making of the album is a mark of success for Acaster.“I love it all and I love it as much as any of my stand-up shows, anything I’ve done,” he said. More

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      Young Rappers in Seville, Spain, Turn “Tears Into Rhymes”

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      La Barzola, a neighborhood in Seville, Spain, is home to a diverse population of working-class families, many of them immigrants, with the pulse of community and creative resistance running through their veins. The heart of the barrio is the Plaza Manuel Garrido, a public park and social nexus. And within this space is a basketball court that a group of aspiring rappers call their own.

      Hip-hop was born 50 years ago from the rubble of urban distress in the Bronx, an act of resistance and self-expression by society’s most vulnerable. Today, the music is everywhere: a multi-billion-dollar ecosystem. But it also remains a deeply personal form of expression, including for the young men in this community.

      “Whatever pain, anger or frustrations we harbor from our everyday experiences, music allows us to excavate those things and make something useful out of it,” Zakaria Mourachid, 21, who makes music under the name Zaca 3K, said. “We take our anger out on the music. We turn our tears into rhymes, because it makes us feel free in a world that creates barriers around us everyday.”

      Just like the originators of hip-hop, the rappers of this collective ground their material in their personal narratives.

      “Overcoming immigration, overcoming having to leave one’s country of origin, overcoming being separated from our families and overcoming the loss of those we meet who may or may not continue the journey with us.” More

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      Fans Remember Tina Turner as a Resilient Trailblazer

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      Many said her music and her life story were inspirations as she overcame abuse during her marriage to Ike Turner and emerged as a star on her own.Rock and soul singers, civil rights activists and political leaders mourned Tina Turner on Wednesday as a trailblazing artist whose music and life epitomized resilience, determination, heart and the power to not only survive but thrive over five decades in the music industry.“Tina would have so much energy during her performances and was a true entertainer,” Magic Johnson, the former star of the Los Angeles Lakers, wrote on Twitter. “She created the blueprint for other great entertainers like Janet Jackson and Beyoncé and her legacy will continue on through all high-energy performing artists.”As news spread of Ms. Turner’s death, at 83, in Switzerland, many said her life story was an inspiration as she overcame abuse during her marriage to Ike Turner and emerged as a star on her own, with the release of her solo album “Private Dancer” in 1984.“This woman rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of abuse, a derailed career, and no money to a renaissance like I’ve never seen in entertainment,” Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said on Twitter. “She became fully herself and showed us all how it’s done.”Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, who toured with Ms. Turner in Britain in 1966 and then in the United States in 1969, in a series of concerts that helped introduce her music to white audiences, said that he was “so saddened by the passing of my wonderful friend Tina Turner.”Tina Turner with Mick Jagger at a Live-Aid concert in Philadelphia in 1985.Rusty Kennedy/Associated Press“She was truly an enormously talented performer and singer,” Mr. Jagger wrote on Instagram. “She was inspiring, warm, funny and generous. She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.”Former President Barack Obama said on Twitter that “Tina Turner was raw. She was powerful. She was unstoppable. And she was unapologetically herself — speaking and singing her truth through joy and pain; triumph and tragedy.”“Today,” he added, “we join fans around the world in honoring the Queen of Rock and Roll, and a star whose light will never fade.”The actress Angela Bassett, who was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Ms. Turner in the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” said in a statement: “How do we say farewell to a woman who owned her pain and trauma and used it as a means to help change the world?”“Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her, Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like,” Ms. Bassett said. “Her final words to me — for me — were ‘You never mimicked me. Instead, you reached deep into your soul, found your inner Tina, and showed her to the world.’”The R&B and soul singer Aaron Neville recalled when the Neville Brothers toured Europe with Ms. Turner in 1990, selling out shows with more than 70,000 fans in attendance. It was during that tour, he said, when he came up with the idea for his song, “The Roadie Song,” as he watched the crew set up stages all across Europe.“She showed us much love and respect,” Mr. Neville wrote on Twitter. “I know she has a place in the heavenly band.”Ms. Turner’s career began in the late 1950s, when she was in high school in East St. Louis, Ill., and spanned half a century, as she moved from singing R&B and soul into rock and pop. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Mr. Turner in 1991 again as a solo artist in 2021.She gave her final public performance in 2009 and then retired.Beyoncé, left, and Tina Turner perform at the 50th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 2008.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Tina Turner was our voice,” Mayor Eric Adams of New York wrote on Twitter. “She’s an icon who knocked down boundaries, shook our soul and redefined music. She overcame so much to become an icon.”Kelly Rowland, the singer formerly of Destiny’s Child, is part of a younger generation of singers who drew inspiration from Ms. Turner: “Thank you Queen, for giving us your all!” she wrote. “We Love You!!”The R&B singer Ciara wrote: “Heaven has gained an angel. Rest in Paradise Tina Turner. Thank you for the inspiration you gave us all.”And rapper and songwriter Kid Cudi wrote that Ms. Turner was a hero to his mother, and “she was the ultimate superhero to me too.” More

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      China Ramps Up Culture Crackdown, Canceling Music and Comedy Shows

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      Performances across the country were canceled last week after Beijing began investigating a stand-up comedian.The cancellations rippled across the country: A Japanese choral band touring China, stand-up comedy shows in several cities, jazz shows in Beijing. In the span of a few days, the performances were among more than a dozen that were abruptly called off — some just minutes before they were supposed to begin — with virtually no explanation.Just before the performances were scrapped, the authorities in Beijing had fined a Chinese comedy studio around $2 million, after one of its stand-up performers was accused of insulting the Chinese military in a joke; the police in northern China also detained a woman who had defended the comedian online.Those penalties, and the sudden spate of cancellations that followed, point to the growing scrutiny of China’s already heavily censored creative landscape. China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has made arts and culture a central arena for ideological crackdowns, demanding that artists align their creative ambitions with Chinese Communist Party goals and promote a nationalist vision of Chinese identity. Performers must submit scripts or set lists for vetting, and publications are closely monitored.On Tuesday, Mr. Xi sent a letter to the National Art Museum of China for its 60th anniversary, reminding staff to “adhere to the correct political orientation.”Mr. Xi’s emphasis on the arts is also part of a broader preoccupation with national security and eliminating supposedly malign foreign influence. The authorities in recent weeks have raided the corporate offices of several Western consulting or advisory companies based in China, and broadened the range of behaviors covered under counterespionage laws. Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, sent a letter to the National Art Museum of China on Tuesday reminding staff there to “adhere to the correct political orientation.”Pool photo by Florence LoMany of the canceled events were supposed to feature foreign performers or speakers.It was only to be expected that Beijing would also look to the cultural realm, as its deteriorating relationship with the West has made it more fixated on maintaining its grip on power at home, said Zhang Ping, a former journalist and political commentator in China who now lives in Germany.“One way to respond to anxiety about power is to increase control,” said Mr. Zhang, who writes under the pen name Chang Ping. “Dictatorships have always sought to control people’s entertainment, speech, laughter and tears.”While the party has long regulated the arts — one target of the Cultural Revolution was creative work deemed insufficiently “revolutionary” — the intensity has increased sharply under Mr. Xi. In 2021, a state-backed performing arts association published a list of morality guidelines for artists, which included prescriptions for patriotism. The same year, the government banned “sissy men” from appearing on television, accusing them of weakening the nation.A bookstore in Zibo, China. Literature is closely regulated by the authorities.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesOfficials have also taken notice of stand-up comedy, which has gained popularity in recent years and offered a rare medium for limited barbs about life in contemporary China. The government fined a comedian for making jokes about last year’s coronavirus lockdown in Shanghai. People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, published a commentary in November that said jokes had to be “moderate” and noted that stand-up as an art form was a foreign import; the Chinese name for stand-up, “tuo kou xiu,” is itself a transliteration from “talk show.”The recent crackdown began after an anonymous social media user complained about a set that a popular stand-up comedian, Li Haoshi, performed in Beijing on May 13. Mr. Li, who uses the stage name House, had said that watching his two adopted stray dogs chase a squirrel reminded him of a Chinese military slogan: “Maintain exemplary conduct, fight to win.” The user suggested that Mr. Li had slanderously compared soldiers to wild dogs.Outrage grew among nationalist social media users, and the authorities quickly piled on. In addition to fining Xiaoguo Culture Media, the firm that manages Mr. Li, the authorities — who said the joke had a “vile societal impact” — indefinitely suspended the company’s performances in Beijing and Shanghai. Xiaoguo fired Mr. Li, and the Beijing police said they were investigating him.Within hours of the penalty being announced on Wednesday, organizers of stand-up shows in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and eastern Shandong Province canceled their performances. A few days later, Chinese social media platforms suspended the accounts of Uncle Roger, a Britain-based Malaysian comic whose real name is Nigel Ng; Mr. Ng had posted a video poking fun at the Chinese government on Twitter (which is banned in mainland China).But the apparent fallout was not limited to comedy. Scheduled musical performances began disappearing, too, including a stop in southern China by a Shanghai rock band that includes foreign members, a Beijing folk music festival and several jazz performances, and a Canadian rapper’s show in the southern city of Changsha.The frontman of a Buddhist-influenced Japanese chorus group, Kissaquo, said last Wednesday that his concert that night in the southern city of Guangzhou had been canceled. Hours later, the frontman, Kanho Yakushiji, said a performance in Hangzhou, in eastern China, had been canceled, too. And the next day, he announced that Beijing and Shanghai shows had also been called off.“I was writing a set list, but I stopped in the middle,” Mr. Yakushiji, whose management company did not respond to a request for comment, wrote on his Facebook page. “I still don’t understand what the meaning of all this is. I have nothing but regrets.”Organizers’ announcements for nearly all of the canceled events cited “force majeure,” a term that means circumstances beyond one’s control — and, in China, has often been used as shorthand for government pressure.Stand-up show organizers did not return requests for comment. Several organizers of canceled musical performances denied that they had been told not to feature foreigners. An employee at a Nanjing music venue that canceled a tribute to the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto said not enough tickets had been sold. A Chinese rock band concert in Qinhuangdao, China, last year. Scheduled musical performances have been canceled, with organizers citing “force majeure.”Wu Hao/EPA, via ShutterstockSome of the foreign musicians whose shows were canceled have since been able to perform in other cities or at other venues.But a foreign musician in Beijing, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said his band was scheduled to play at a bar on Sunday and was told by the venue several days before that the gig was canceled because featuring foreigners would bring trouble.Lynette Ong, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Toronto, said it was unlikely that the central government had issued direct instructions to spur the recent cultural crackdowns. Local governments or venue owners, conscious of how the political environment had changed, were likely being especially cautious, she said.“In Xi’s China, people are so scared and fearful that they become extremely risk-averse,” she said. “Overall, it’s a very paranoid party.”In the past, when nationalism has gone to extremes, or local officials overzealously enforced the rules, the central government would eventually step in to cool down the rhetoric, in part to preserve economic or diplomatic relationships. But Professor Ong said Beijing’s current emphasis on security above all would give it no reason to intervene here.“If people don’t watch comedy, there’s no loss for the party,” she said.Joy Dong More

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      Bill Lee, Bassist and Composer of Son Spike Lee’s Films, Dies at 94

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      He accompanied a wide range of jazz and folk musicians and scored “She’s Gotta Have It,” “School Daze” “Do the Right Thing” and “Mo’ Better Blues.”Bill Lee, a jazz bassist and composer who scored the early films of his son Spike Lee, wrote folk-jazz operas, led an acclaimed ensemble of bassists and was a prolific sideman for Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and others, died on Wednesday morning at his home in Brooklyn. He was 94. Spike Lee confirmed the death.Over six decades, in thousands of live performances and on more than 250 record albums, Mr. Lee’s mellow and ebullient string bass accompanied a pantheon of music stars, including as well Duke Ellington, Arlo Guthrie, Odetta, Simon and Garfunkel, Harry Belafonte, Ian & Sylvia, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton and Peter, Paul and Mary.Mr. Lee wrote the soundtracks for Spike Lee’s first four feature films, a musical challenge that called for capturing the independence of a romantic Black woman in “She’s Gotta Have It” (1986), a satirical look at life at a Black college in “School Daze” (1988), racial violence in “Do the Right Thing” (1989) and the poignant hardships of a Black jazz musician in “Mo’ Better Blues” (1990).Bill Lee had small parts in all but “Do the Right Thing,” and Spike Lee’s sister, Joie, had roles in all four. Bill Lee also scored an early Spike Lee short, “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads,” the first student film to be showcased at Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films Festival, in 1983.The feature films won largely positive reviews and reaped sizable profits. Bill and Spike Lee had a falling-out in the early 1990s, over family matters, money and other issues, that ended their collaboration. Later Spike Lee films — he has directed more than 30, appearing in many of them himself — were scored by the trumpeter Terence Blanchard.Mr. Lee, right, on bass, at the Five Spot in New York in 1960 with the saxophonist John Handy’s quartet. Don Friedman was on piano and Joe Hunt on drums.Larry C. Morris/The New York TimesBorn into an Alabama family of musicians and educators who instilled a passion for music in him and his siblings, Bill Lee learned drums, piano and flute early on. He attended segregated small-town public schools and studied music at historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta.Inspired in his early 20s by listening to the great jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, Mr. Lee mastered the double bass, the largest and lowest-pitched stringed instrument, and performed with small jazz groups in Atlanta and Chicago before migrating to New York City in 1959.Over the next decade, Mr. Lee, who favored a battered straw hat and often recited his own poetry between numbers, performed often in piano-bass duos and piano-bass-drums trios in smoky clubs that served soul food with jazz, many on the western edge of Greenwich Village, squeezed among meatpacking houses and trucking depots on Manhattan’s Hudson River shoreline.He recorded extensively on Strata-East Records, a musician-owned label, and founded and directed the New York Bass Violin Choir, a troupe of seven basses, sometimes accompanied by piano or saxophone. Critics lauded the ensemble for weaving an agile harmony of pastel and harsh moods in performing Mr. Lee’s folk operas at Town Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and the Newport Jazz Festival.His numerous operas, including “One Mile East,” “The Depot” and “Baby Sweets,” were based on people and events from his early life in the South. They sometimes drew on the singing talents of Mr. Lee and his two sisters, Consuela Lee Moorehead, a jazz pianist and music teacher at Hampton University in Virginia, and Grace Lee Mims, a librarian, whose voices lent grandiloquent color to the tales.In a review of a performance by the Violin Choir at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1971, John S. Wilson of The New York Times wrote: “Mr. Lee served as bassist, singer and narrator of his sketches of small-town life in Snow Hill, Ala., building both his stories and his music from a rich vein of folk sources. His team of bassists, bending over their unwieldy instruments, produced ensemble passages that were by turns gorgeously warm and singing or so surprisingly light and airy that one suspected a couple of flutes might be hiding among them.”Mr. Lee in an undated portrait. His numerous operas were based on people and events from his early life in the South.David LeeIn the 1970s, when the electric bass became an instrument of choice in many jazz ensembles because its thumping tones suited the commercial sounds of jazz-rock fusion, Mr. Lee, an acoustic bass purist, refused to go along and lost work as a result. “Some things you just can’t live with,” he told The Boston Globe in 1992. “Just thinking about doing it, my gut reaction hit me so hard in the stomach. I knew I could never live with myself.”Spike Lee explored the problem of commercialism, with its racial implications, in “Mo’ Better Blues,” which starred Denzel Washington as a jazz trumpeter who fights exploitation by white club owners.“Musicians are low-priced slaves, whereas athletes and entertainers are high-priced slaves,” Spike Lee told The Times when the film opened. “It’s their music, but it’s not their nightclub, it’s not their record company. They have an understanding only of the music, not of the business, so they get treated any old way.”Despite other differences, Bill and Spike Lee agreed about integrity. “Everything I know about jazz I got from my father,” Spike Lee told The Times in 1990. “I saw his integrity, how he was not going to play just any kind of music, no matter how much money he could make.”Bill Lee in front of his brownstone across from Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn in 2013. The house was awash in music, often with jam sessions that went late into the night. Michael Nagle for The New York TimesWilliam James Edwards Lee was born in Snow Hill on July 23, 1928, to Arnold Lee, a cornet player and band director at Florida A&M University, and Alberta Grace (Edwards) Lee, a classical concert pianist and teacher. In addition to his sisters Consuela and Grace, he had four other siblings, Clifton, Arnold Jr., Leonard and Clarence.Their maternal grandfather, William J. Edwards, a graduate of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, founded a log-cabin arts school for Black students in Snow Hill in 1893. By 1918, the Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute had 24 buildings and 300 to 400 students pursuing academic subjects and vocational training. Mr. Edwards died a few years later, but the institute survived as a segregated public school until 1973, when it closed. Bill Lee graduated from there in the mid-1940s.Mr. Lee and his first wife, Jacquelyn (Shelton) Lee, an art teacher, had five children: Shelton (Spike), Christopher, David, Joie and Cinque. After Jacquelyn’s death in 1976, Mr. Lee married Susan Kaplan. They had one son, Arnold. Christopher died in 2013. Mr. Lee’s sister Consuela died at 83 in 2009.In addition to Spike Lee, he is survived by his wife; his sons David, Cinque and Arnold; his daughter, Joie; a brother, A. Clifton Lee; and two grandchildren.After arriving in New York, Mr. Lee settled in Fort Greene, a Brooklyn neighborhood that became a magnet for Black musicians and other creative artists who took pride in their lifestyles and their art. The neighborhood was the setting for “She’s Gotta Have It.”Mr. Lee with his son Spike in 2009 for a 20th-anniversary screening of the Spike Lee movie “Do the Right Thing,” for which Bill Lee wrote the soundtrack.Jimi Celeste/Patrick McMullan via Getty ImagesThe Lee household, overlooking Fort Greene Park, all but banished television but was awash in music, often with jam sessions that went late into the night, prompting noise complaints from neighbors but spawning jazz artists who found their sounds in the heart of Brooklyn.During a 2008 interview with The Times at his home, Mr. Lee played piano and double bass. “His music has the complex harmonies of bebop and hard bop, but it also has a sincere, down-home, churchy feel,” the reporter Corey Kilgannon wrote. “His passages move in interesting and unexpected places, but they resolve before long in a way that is simple and sincere, earthy and somehow very satisfying.” More