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    Paul T. Kwami, Fisk Jubilee Singers’ Longtime Director, Dies at 70

    He took the storied Black musical group to new heights, including its first Grammy win and a National Medal of Arts.Paul T. Kwami, the longtime director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who cemented the ensemble’s reputation as one of the country’s premier interpreters of African American spiritual music, died on Saturday in Nashville. He was 70.His wife, Susanna Kwami, confirmed the death, in a hospital, but did not provide a cause.The Fisk Jubilee Singers put Nashville on the musical map long before the city became famous for its honky-tonks and slide guitars.The group, based at Fisk University, a historically Black institution that was founded a year after the Civil War, was originally intended as a fund-raising tool; it toured the country in the 1870s to bring in money for the struggling college.The group, many of whose members were formerly enslaved people, was among the first to perform spirituals like “Go Down Moses” and “Wade in the Water,” songs that many white audiences had never heard, especially in the North.Their first tour, in 1871, earned enough money to retire the school’s debt, pay for a 40-acre parcel of land north of downtown Nashville and erect the school’s first permanent building, Jubilee Hall. They sang for President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House and performed for six weeks in New York City.“They used the power and beauty of their music, and the beauty of their singing, to win the love of people,” Dr. Kwami said in a radio interview in February.A native of Ghana and a Fisk graduate, Dr. Kwami continued that tradition when he took over as the group’s music director in 1994.The Jubilee Singers performing at Fisk University in Nashville this June. Under Dr. Kwami’s direction, the group recently won its first Grammy Award.Jason Davis/Getty ImagesHe insisted that the singers — eight men and eight women, all Fisk undergraduates — keep to a rigorous rehearsal and touring schedule. He also made sure that they understood not just the history of Fisk and its musical heritage, but the roots of the songs they sang.Spirituals, he told them, played many roles in slave communities. They could be lamentations or celebrations; at the same time, they could serve as a means of stealthy communication, spreading news outside the ken of white slavers.“He made us understand the language of love that was in the middle of those spirituals,” Michangelo Scruggs, who was a Jubilee Singer from 1993 to 1996, said in a phone interview. “A spiritual is not just a song. It’s a communication. It talks about the struggles and how slaves were able to overcome their struggles, whether it was through the end of slavery or whether it was even through death.”Dr. Kwami also impressed upon his students the African roots of the music they sang. In 2007, he took the Fisk Jubilee Singers to Ghana to perform during the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence; while there, they visited the grave of the Black sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, who was also a Fisk graduate.Under Dr. Kwami’s direction, the Jubilee Singers recorded several albums and also appeared on albums by other artists, some of them outside the group’s usual gospel and spiritual fare. They were featured alongside Neil Young in “Heart of Gold,” a 2006 concert documentary directed by Jonathan Demme and recorded at the renowned Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, where the singers performed regularly.“Reverence was a huge thing for him, but in that reverence he was open to going into places that the group had never gone before,” Ruby Amanfu, a Nashville-based singer and Dr. Kwami’s niece, said in an interview.In 2000, the Fisk Jubilee Singers were inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame. In 2008, Dr. Kwami appeared on the group’s behalf at the White House to receive the National Medal of Arts, the country’s highest award for cultural achievement.In 2020, the Fisk Jubilee Singers released “Celebrating Fisk!,” an album of 12 songs recorded at the Ryman featuring guest appearances by musicians like Ms. Amanfu, Keb’ Mo’ and Lee Ann Womack. It won the group its first Grammy Award, for best roots gospel album.That year, Dr. Kwami told NPR: “When I remember the life stories of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, some of whom were slaves, some who did not know their parents and yet left this rich legacy for us, if they were to come back today, I am sure they will be very happy that we are still singing the Negro spirituals and also still talking about them.”Dr. Kwami inside Jubilee Hall at Fisk University, named after the Jubilee Singers, last year.William DeShazer for The New York TimesPaul Theophilus Kwami was born on March 14, 1952, in Amedzofe, a small Ghanaian mountain town about 100 miles northeast of the country’s capital, Accra. His father, Theophilus Kwami, was a music teacher and a farmer; his mother, Monica Rosaline (Dikro) Kwami, raised him and his six siblings.When Paul wasn’t picking coffee on his family plantation, he was sitting with his father at his piano, learning the basics of music theory. He decided to follow his father into music education, studying for two years at a teachers college; in 1982, he received a bachelor’s degree in music education at the National Academy of Music in Ghana.He returned home to teach and play the organ at his local church, but a chance encounter with a missionary from the United States introduced him to the idea of continuing his education at Fisk. Although he had grown up listening to gospel music on the radio, he had never heard of the university or its heralded singing group.He left his job and family in Ghana and moved to Nashville, with the intention of rounding out his education and then returning home. Instead, a friend persuaded him to join the Jubilee Singers, who were under the direction of his mentor at the time, McCoy Ransom.He stayed in the United States after graduating from Fisk with a second bachelor’s degree, also in musical education, in 1985. He received a master’s degree in the same subject from Western Michigan University in 1987, then worked for a music publishing company in Nashville before returning to Fisk, and the Jubilee Singers, in 1994. He received a doctorate from the American Conservatory of Music in 2009.Along with his wife, Dr. Kwami is survived by his daughter, Rachel Kwami; his sons, Paul E. Kwami and Delali Kwami; his sisters, Ruby F. Kwami, Patricia S. Kwami and Joan A. Kwami; and his brother, Dickson K. Kwami. More

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    5 Russian Bullets Dashed an Opera Singer’s Dreams. Then He Reclaimed His Voice.

    While on a rescue mission in Ukraine, Sergiy Ivanchuk was shot in the lungs, apparently ending his chance at opera stardom. His recovery is a marvel of medicine, chance and his own spirit.Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.ULM, Germany — It was the most pivotal performance of his 29 years. There were no costumes, no stage, no orchestra pit. Instead, a lone pianist hunched expectantly over her instrument. For an audience, a handful of doctors and nurses watched from a cool white hospital lobby.Sergiy Ivanchuk — his face patched with bandages, legs trembling beneath his trousers — began hesitantly. But as his deep baritone held, confidence grew. By the time he finished with a Ukrainian folk tune, his song soared with the passion of a man brought back from the dead, a man reveling in a voice reclaimed.

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    “For three months, I thought I would die,” he told those assembled. “And now, I can sing again.”Not long before, Mr. Ivanchuk had believed he was on his deathbed, his lungs punctured by bullets, his body attached to a tangle of tubes.On March 10, Mr. Ivanchuk, an aspiring opera singer, had been working with humanitarian volunteers helping civilians flee the besieged Ukrainian city of Kharkiv when Russian forces attacked, and he was shot.Even if he managed to survive, he remembered thinking, surely his singing days were over.But a string of chance encounters, committed doctors and the love of a mother all led to that unexpected performance in a German military hospital this summer, giving Mr. Ivanchuk a chance to transform a tragedy into an opportunity to salvage his longtime dream of opera stardom.“So many different circumstances had to happen,” said Mr. Ivanchuk, wondering if science and his own spirit were the only factors in his recovery. “There is something. God or an angel saved me. There is something there.”“For three months, I thought I would die,” said Mr. Ivanchuk, shown in his room at a military hospital in Ulm, Germany.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesIn 2020, Mr. Ivanchuk was studying opera in Italy, and he had big ambitions: to perform on the stages of the Metropolitan in New York and La Scala in Milan.Then the pandemic closed borders around the globe. His music school was closed, and Mr. Ivanchuk was stuck in Ukraine, struggling with severe depression.Two years later, as the world began reopening, Russia invaded, and Mr. Ivanchuk found himself trapped in Ukraine once more: Men of fighting age were banned from leaving the country.His dream was rapidly fading — opera singers should complete their training by their early 30s. No one could guess when the war would end.The State of the WarDramatic Gains for Ukraine: After Ukraine’s offensive in its northeast drove Russian forces into a chaotic retreat, Ukrainian leaders face critical choices on how far to press the attack.How the Strategy Formed: The plan that allowed Ukraine’s recent gains began to take shape months ago during a series of intense conversations between Ukrainian and U.S. officials.Putin’s Struggles at Home: Russia’s setbacks in Ukraine have left President Vladimir V. Putin’s image weakened, his critics emboldened and his supporters looking for someone else to blame.Southern Counteroffensive: Military operations in the south have been a painstaking battle of river crossings, with pontoon bridges as prime targets for both sides. So far, it is Ukraine that has advanced.Yet like so many of his compatriots, Mr. Ivanchuk wanted to join the fight. Not on the front lines — “I’d be useless for that,” he joked — but by using his 30-year-old blue Lada sedan to drive civilians out of Kharkiv, the embattled city in eastern Ukraine, a few hours from his hometown, Poltava, where he had grown up in a musical family.It was a grueling routine. Every morning at 6, he drove to Kharkiv, laden with medicine and groceries for those still inside. Every night, he picked up residents fleeing the siege, who could not afford a taxi out. He slept a few hours at home with his parents, then started again.His mother, Olena Ivanchuk, awaited his return each night in silent torment. But on the morning of March 10, his mother had to speak: While dusting, she noticed the family’s religious icons had all fallen from the table, which she perceived as a dark omen.“When I told him, his face fell,” she said. “For the first time in my life, I told him: ‘My son, I fear maybe this time you won’t return.’”He left for Kharkiv anyway.Mr. Ivanchuk chose to aid the war effort by helping residents flee from Kharkiv. He was shot three weeks into the war.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesThat night, Mr. Ivanchuk and his passengers packed his Lada to the brim with suitcases and pets. It was pitch black as they made their way out of town. Through the darkness, bullets suddenly whizzed past.In a terrifying game of cat and mouse, Mr. Ivanchuk sped along, trying to find the protection of a Ukrainian military checkpoint. But the Russian forces soon found their mark: 30 bullets hit the car. Five hit Mr. Ivanchuk.“I felt each and every bullet. First it hit one leg, then the leg once more. Then I saw my fingers destroyed,” he said. “After that, I felt a bullet in my side and back.”Four people and two cats were inside the car. Yet only Mr. Ivanchuk had been shot.He likely would not have survived if not for one of his passengers, Viktoria Fostorina — a doctor. With the help of the others in the car, she bandaged the wounds on his chest and back, preventing a collapsed lung.“At first, I was the one saving them,” he said. “But as it turned out, in the end, they saved me.”Somehow, he managed to drive the car to a Ukrainian military checkpoint before collapsing.The war was three weeks old; Mr. Ivanchuk had already rescued 100 people. As he felt himself losing consciousness in the hospital later, he prayed to God, and prepared to die.“I was thinking, ‘You’re only 29, and you’re dying,” he said, recalling his thoughts. “‘I could have lived longer. But I tried to help people, so maybe it’s a good thing.’”After searching for Mr. Ivanchuk for nearly two days, his mother found him at the Kharkiv hospital, where doctors warned he might not survive. She forced back tears, entering the room of her unconscious son with a smile.“I said, ‘Please, son, open your eyes.’ I told him: ‘One hundred percent, you’ll survive. You will live.’ I told him that several times.”An X-ray showing Mr. Ivanchuk’s hand injuries.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesMr. Ivanchuk remembers awakening to her smiling face. But he couldn’t speak: Tubes were coming out of his mouth. His body was in such pain, he could communicate only by twitching one finger.Ms. Ivanchuk recalled her son’s crying from the pain of his early operations. Later, his tears came from his realization he might never perform again.But fate stepped in once more.Mr. Ivanchuk’s story spread on social media, and a prominent Ukrainian opera singer convinced a talented surgeon in the country to operate on him. His lungs and liver began to heal.Though his recovery had begun, a dark struggle was still ahead, one he almost lost.For weeks, he lay among shellshocked young soldiers who sometimes jumped out of bed at night, throwing imaginary grenades, screaming at comrades to take cover.Mr. Ivanchuk grew paranoid that Russian spies lurked behind every door. And he grappled with the idea that rescuing people had cost him his dream.“It was a marathon of pain and psychological torment,” he said.He faced down those thoughts, thanks in part by drawing on lessons from his past struggle with depression. Psychotherapy during the pandemic had taught him to see his thoughts as brain chemistry, not his inner self. And he began to accept that faith alone could not heal him: “I still believe in the Creator — but a lot depends on us.”Mr. Ivanchuk playing the organ in the church hospital. The movement helps exercise his injured fingers.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesKeeping his goals confined to his hospital room, Mr. Ivanchuk and his mother celebrated even the tiniest step toward recovery. Taking life day by day, and forgetting his big ambitions, he was surprised to discover he felt more content than before the attack.“I used to think that without a dream, it was impossible to be a happy person,” he said. “But now, I see that happiness is actually just to live.”Once stable enough for travel, Mr. Ivanchuk was sent to Ulm, Germany, for advanced surgeries at a German military hospital.As a musician, he wanted to restore as much dexterity as possible to his mutilated fingers — he has played the bandura, a Ukrainian stringed folk instrument, since childhood.He tried not to think about opera until one night, on his third week in Ulm, when he began to sing in the shower. He chose Valentin’s aria from “Faust” — and was astounded to hear his old voice.Mr. Ivanchuk soon realized that not only were his dreams still possible — but that, in a wholly unanticipated twist to his nearly fatal injury, he was now better placed to pursue them.If not for the attack, he would have remained stuck in Ukraine. Moreover, he had landed in Germany, the best place in the world for a budding opera singer. Thanks to its subsidies for the arts, Germany has over 80 full-time opera houses.By late June, he was well enough to perform for the hospital staff.Mr. Ivanchuk greeting the hospital staff after he performed for the first time since he was wounded.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesFirst, he sang “Ave Maria,” for its spirituality. Then, an aria from “The Magic Flute,” by Mozart, to honor his German caretakers. The third song could only be Ukrainian and a tribute to the woman devoted to his survival — “My Own Mother.”She cried as he began. “I did not expect he could sing that loudly,” she said. “It is because he was doing it with his heart.”That evening, he was discharged.“He was extremely positive, he didn’t complain at all about his situation,” said Dr. Benedikt Friemert, the head orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, describing his patient’s recovery. “Quite the opposite: He was convinced that what he had done was right. He was unlucky and got injured, but he said: ‘Never mind, I’ll get better so that I can do what’s important to me.’ In other words: singing.”Mr. Ivanchuk, with a slight limp, a missing finger and a body peppered with bullet fragments, still faces a difficult journey. He has more physiotherapy ahead.He now rents an apartment in Ulm with his mother, and he has started receiving lessons from a Ukrainian opera singer, Maryna Zubko, who works at the local theater. One day, they hope to sing together there.“He has a beautiful voice,” said Ms. Zubko, who first encountered her pupil when a heavily bandaged man threw flowers at her feet after a local performance.Her hope for Mr. Ivanchuk is to spend a year recovering with her help then use his talent, and his story, to earn a place at a prestigious program in Europe or the United States to finish his training.He is dreaming again of the Met and La Scala. “I think in five years, I could make it onto one of those stages,” Mr. Ivanchuk said. “As long as no one else shoots me.” More

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    Art Rosenbaum, Painter and Preserver of Folk Music, Dies at 83

    As an artist and exponent of American traditional songs, he sought to blur the lines between outsider and insider art, and became a guiding force in the Athens, Ga., scene.ATLANTA — Art Rosenbaum, a painter and folk musician acclaimed for a half-century of field recordings of American vernacular music, including old-time Appalachian fiddle tunes and ritual music imported from Africa by enslaved people, died on Sept. 4 at a hospital in Athens, Ga., his adopted hometown. He was 83.His son, Neil Rosenbaum, said the cause was complications of cancer.Art Rosenbaum’s passion for documenting a broad range of American musical traditions as they were passed down and performed at work camps, church gatherings and rural living rooms expanded upon the famous field recording work of the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. An important inspiration was Pete Seeger, another high-profile 20th-century champion of folk music. Mr. Rosenbaum wrote that Mr. Seeger had once told him, “Don’t learn from me, learn from the folks I learned from.”Mr. Rosenbaum called it “good advice, and the kick in the rear that got me going.”“Outside Carnesville,” oil on linen, 1983-84. Mr. Rosenbaum’s paintings often depicted the musicians he recorded, as he did here, with Mabel Cawthorn on the banjo.Art RosenbaumIn 2007, the Atlanta-based label Dust-to-Digital released the first of two box sets of compilations from Mr. Rosenbaum’s trove, “Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum,” which won a Grammy Award for best historical album.The pop music website Pitchfork called the release “revelatory” and “an indispensable counterpoint to Harry Smith’s ‘Anthology of American Folk Music,’” a reference to the 1952 song compilation that remains a canonical touchstone for folk musicians.Like Mr. Smith, the bohemian polymath who compiled the “Anthology,” Mr. Rosenbaum was an accomplished visual artist. As an art teacher, he spent the bulk of his career at the University of Georgia, in Athens, where his energetic paintings, often depicting the musicians he recorded, and his ideas about the democratization of culture had an influence that resonated far beyond the classroom.Michael Stipe, the visual artist and singer with the Athens rock band R.E.M., who was a student of Mr. Rosenbaum’s in the early 1980s, said Mr. Rosenbaum’s goal “was to blur the lines between what is outsider and insider, and to bring together this untrained music and art with trained music and art, and acknowledge that each have immense power, and that they’re not that far apart.”A portrait of Michael Stipe, the R.E.M. singer, a student of Mr. Rosenbaum’s, as well as a subject of his paintings.Art Rosenbaum, Collection of the Peasant CorporationArthur Spark Rosenbaum was born on Dec. 6, 1938, in Ogdensburg, N.Y., in St. Lawrence County. His mother, Della Spark Rosenbaum, was a medical illustrator who encouraged her children’s artistic inclinations. His father, David Rosenbaum, was an Army pathologist who sometimes sang what his son described as “Northern street songs.” Arthur later recorded one of these songs, his father’s a cappella version of the ribald 18th-century Child ballad “Our Goodman,” and included it in the 2007 box set.The family eventually moved to Indianapolis, where Mr. Rosenbaum, entranced by traditional music, absorbed the Harry Smith anthology and the contemporary folk stars of the day. In high school he won an art contest at the Indiana State Fair and spent the $25 prize money on a five-string banjo. He went on to become a pre-eminent expert on traditional banjo playing and tunings and to record several albums.In the mid-1950s Mr. Rosenbaum moved to New York City, then the epicenter of the burgeoning folk revival, earning an undergraduate degree in art history and a master’s degree in fine arts from Columbia University. In the summers he worked at a resort hotel on Lake Michigan, where he began making recordings of nearby field workers from Mexico and the American South.In 1958, Mr. Rosenbaum tracked down and recorded in Indianapolis a musician named Scrapper Blackwell, whom he described as “one of the best and most influential blues guitarists of the 1920s and ’30s.” Back in New York, as Mr. Rosenbaum was fond of recalling, a fellow roots music obsessive named Bob Dylan would pester him for any details he could muster about Mr. Blackwell’s life and playing style.“Shady Grove,” 2009. Mr. Rosenbaum sought out traditional Black and white musicians, revealing a shared cultural history.Art RosenbaumIt was in New York that Mr. Rosenbaum met the artist Margo Newmark, who became his wife and lifelong collaborator. She survives him.In addition to her and his son, Neil, a filmmaker and musician, he is survived by a sister, Jenny Rosenbaum, a writer; and a brother, Victor Rosenbaum, a concert pianist.After eight years of teaching studio art at the University of Iowa, Mr. Rosenbaum in 1976 took a similar job at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. With Athens as a home base, he and Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum continued making field recordings, many of them in and around Georgia, and giving the musicians they met opportunities to play before new audiences.“As these traditional musicians were identified and then brought out,” said Judith McWillie, an emerita art professor at the university, “and as there were more festivals and opportunities for them to play, people began to envision an identity for Georgia that was somewhat different from the one that it had. This was the 1970s, and coming off some extremely difficult times in the South.”Folk music, she said, revealed a shared cultural history: “The musicians Art brought out were Black and white.”In 1984, Mr. Rosenbaum recorded an album of stories and songs by Howard Finster, the self-taught artist, preacher and self-proclaimed “man of visions” whose work has become indelibly associated with 20th-century Georgia after its use on album covers by R.E.M. and the band Talking Heads.Untitled Diptych, 2014. Many of Mr. Rosenbaum’s paintings are allegorical works in which the old and the new cohabitate, with traditional musicians sharing space with modern-day hipsters.Art RosenbaumHe also recorded the McIntosh County Shouters, an African American group from coastal Georgia who performed the “ring shout,” which Mr. Rosenbaum described as “an impressive fusion of call-and-response singing, polyrhythmic percussion and expressive and formalized dancelike movements.” The ring shout, he asserted, was “the oldest African American performance tradition on the North American continent.”Brenton Jordan, a member of the group, said of the Rosenbaums, “It’s their legwork that actually kind of introduced the McIntosh County Shouters to the world.” He noted that the ring shout, once on the verge of extinction, has in recent years been performed by his group in Washington at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.The Rosenbaums published a book on the ring shout in 1998. With drawings of the performers by Mr. Rosenbaum and photos of them by Ms. Newmark Rosenbaum, it depicts a place and a culture that seems beguilingly out of phase with modern life.Many of Mr. Rosenbaum’s other paintings and drawings are loose allegorical works in which the old and the new clash and cohabitate, with traditional musicians sharing space on the canvas with modern-day hipsters, skateboarders and documentarians (often Mr. Rosenbaum himself).As a painter, he was inspired by Cezanne and Max Beckmann, the German Expressionist. At times his work recalls the painting of Thomas Hart Benton, the American regionalist. Some of Mr. Rosenbaum’s works are large murals on historical themes.Pete Seeger once told Mr. Rosenbaum, “Don’t learn from me, learn from the folks I learned from.” That advice set him on a decades-long project of seeking out unrecorded musicians.via Rosenbaum familyBeginning in the late 1970s, Athens saw an explosion of forward-thinking rock musicians, many of whom, like Mr. Stipe, had ties to the Georgia art school. Mr. Rosenbaum’s passions always ran to traditional music, but he remained an inspiration for contemporary musicians.Lance Ledbetter, the founder and co-director of the Dust-to-Digital label, recalled Vic Chesnutt, the brilliant, idiosyncratic Athens-based songwriter who died in 2009, speaking of Mr. Rosenbaum, quoting him as saying:“When you move to Athens, and you hear about this guy who plays banjo and knows all of these songs, you just follow him around like a puppy dog. And I’m not the only one who did that.” More

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    46 Years After His Death, the Producer Charles Stepney Shines Again

    The Chicago musician made his mark with Minnie Riperton and Earth, Wind & Fire at Chess Records. A new collection explores his previously unreleased solo work.Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Gratitude.” Terry Callier’s “Occasional Rain.” Minnie Riperton’s “Come to My Garden.” All three albums featured ornate sounds that fused elements of classical, psychedelic music and soul. All three nudged their creators in fresh creative directions. All three bore the hallmarks of a vibraphonist who turned into one of the most underappreciated producers of his era: Charles Stepney.Stepney is best known from his in-house production and arrangements for Chess Records, the Chicago label that highlighted blues musicians and paved early inroads to rock ’n’ roll. Working mostly behind the scenes in the 1960s and ’70s, with artists including Muddy Waters, Ramsey Lewis, Deniece Williams and the Dells, he wasn’t necessarily a household name. But those who knew, knew.“It was a sensitivity and creativity behind what he did,” Williams said in an interview. “He was very special in his sound and his deliverance. It wasn’t like anybody else.”Stepney’s career, however, was short: He died in 1976 at age 45, and while his music has lived on — and spread via samples by artists including A Tribe Called Quest, Kanye West and Solange — he hasn’t been the focus of a deep dive release, until now. Last Friday, the Chicago-based label International Anthem released “Step on Step,” a compilation of demos and experimental music Stepney crafted for himself. The set features anecdotes from his three daughters — Eibur, Charlene and Chanté — alongside sporadic studio chatter, offering a rare behind-the-scenes look into Stepney’s meticulous recording process.“When people are like, ‘Did your dad write that?’ We were like, ‘Yeah, he wrote it,’” Charlene said with a laugh in a recent video call. “Because we heard it about 50 times a day.”The Stepney sisters described their father as hard-working and stern yet fair, with a restless creative mind that never stopped taking in stimuli. They remembered the jokes he’d tell, and how — even though he was busy in the studio — they could come and hang out among the instruments in the basement, as long as they were quiet. “He didn’t always labor over one song,” Charlene said. “If he got stuck, he would put it up, label it, let it breathe, and then he’d come back to it later.”These tracks that Stepney worked on alone differ from the collaborations that helped make his name. “Gimme Some Sugar,” “Daddy’s Diddies” and “Gotta Dig It to Dig It” lean heavily into electronic funk, while “Imagination,” “That’s the Way of the World” and “On Your Face” — early versions of the noted Earth, Wind & Fire songs — feature spacey synths and canned drums, far removed from the band’s immense, brassy resonance. The six-minute “Look B4U Leap” blends rhythmic percussion and bright electric keys, and “Denim Groove” — a melodic mix of jazz and samba — sounds dialed in from the not-so-distant future, the beginnings of hip-hop culture in the early 1980s.Stepney got his start studying music theory at Wilson Junior College in Chicago and began his career playing piano and vibraphone in the mid-1950s. He almost quit the business when, flat broke and frustrated that the city’s North Side clubs were white and not booking jazz and the South Side venues weren’t paying decent wages, he nearly sold his vibraphone and got a regular job. “I was broke and convinced I would never make it in this field,” he told Downbeat in 1970. “Maybe I ought to try being a shoe salesman or bookkeeper or something.”On the day Stepney was going to drop off his large instrument to a potential buyer, Phil Wright, an arranger at Chess, called and asked him to play a recording session at the label’s studio. Stepney impressed them so much, he kept getting called back to work, and eventually became the label’s lead sheet writer. In 1967, Marshall Chess, the son of the label’s founder, tasked him with an ambitious project: helping to create the psychedelic soul group Rotary Connection, taking the bones of a white rock band and adding voices like the upstart Riperton (who had first joined the label as its receptionist) and the singer and songwriter Sidney Barnes.The group was an experiment, and Stepney its gleeful chemist, mixing gospel, strings and soulful grooves with unexpected, even jarring sounds and wordless, atmospheric interludes. Riperton, with her four-and-a-half-octave range, was the clear-cut star of the outfit, and three years later, Stepney produced and arranged her lush debut album.Williams was introduced to Stepney through Rotary Connection’s ambitious sound. “I was 16 and my neighbor rushed in with this LP,” she said, “and I saw his name in the credits. There was a feeling you got from his arrangements. You not only heard it, but you felt it.” She recalled how “Charles lifted the head of the piano and started strumming the strings with a guitar pick,” while working on “If You Don’t Believe,” from her 1976 debut. “I was there with my mouth open like, ‘Who else would think to do that?’”Stepney’s schedule was demanding, and his health suffered. He learned he was diabetic, then suffered a heart attack at the home of the record executive Clarence Avant. Eibur, his eldest daughter, said he had told her, “‘I’ve done everything I’ve ever wanted to do and accomplished, but what I really want to do is my own album.’” He was finishing Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Spirit” — completing charts while he was hospitalized, Charlene said — shortly before a second, fatal heart attack.Stepney left behind 90 reels of unreleased solo material, which sat with the sisters for decades before they finally got it transcribed, with help from the International Anthem co-founder Scottie McNiece. “Stepney’s story is so uniquely Chicagoan,” he wrote in an email. “He was an incredibly gifted artist who was more focused on the music than any sort of lifestyle or celebrity. He was just a true, craft-focused, working artist.”“Step on Step” traverses the vast scope of Stepney’s creative affinities in a 78-minute set. “It’s a legacy of love; it’s a legacy of passion,” his youngest daughter, Chanté, said. “He was underrated, under-known, but he was magnificent.” More

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    How Music Loops Help Me Feel More Present

    Loops open a dimension where, although time is ticking forward at its usual pace, I’m moving at my own speed, appreciating my body and the world around me.There once was a basement club in Minneapolis called Honey. I would go solo, taking the bus across the river and, descending the basement stairs, hear the music get louder with each step. I was mostly there on weeknights, when the club hosted touring D.J.s who were in between gigs in larger cities. I was nervous to go up to anyone, so instead I made myself comfortable by a column in the middle of the room. Being alone didn’t matter much once I closed my eyes. I would dance softly as techno or house tracks blared through the room. The music, much of it composed of looping, recurrent elements, went on for hours. Eventually, I opened my eyes and figured it was time to go home.Music made from loops — fragments of sound repeated over and over — has given me the freedom to explore who I am: a lanky Chilean who sweats too easily and thinks life shouldn’t be so serious. Though I often feel physically awkward at work or in social interactions — again, too sweaty and easily intimidated — on the dance floor everything moves as one. Loops open a dimension where, although time is ticking forward at its usual pace, I’m moving at my own speed, appreciating my body and the world around me. Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, creators of the Oblique Strategies advice cards, put it simply: “Repetition is a form of change.”Growing up in the 2000s meant loops were omnipresent. Artists like Kanye West and Daft Punk created masterpieces by looping samples of older songs and even their own recordings. Take the latter’s seminal 2000 hit “One More Time.” The track still sounds alive to me more than 20 years later, its grainy synth sample, elastic bass line and titular refrain repeating throughout its run time. The looping creates an illusion that the record doesn’t have a beginning or an end, just the moment you happen upon it and the moment you exit the room. It’s inside this space where I discover my physicality and emotions — all it takes is some time.In miniature, loops help us become comfortable with endings, appreciative of the journey traveled.Not everyone is as patient. When I was young, my mom teased me about the repetitive music coming from my bedroom. “Que bonita,” she heckled. Other times she would beg me to change the song, irritated that, according to her, it was headed nowhere. The loops didn’t change, of course, but I would focus on everything else that did. I became more keenly attuned to my physical environment. I noticed new rhythms: conversations would start and end, people came and went, traffic picked up and died down. Becoming aware of these intricacies in everyday life is the closest I feel to being in the present, instead of picking over the past or constantly preparing for the future.In a conversation for his podcast, “Hanging Out With Audiophiles,” the musician Jamie Lidell compared the act of capturing a musical loop to catching the perfect wave. “When you have that loop and it gives you access, in a way, to something kind of sublime,” Lidell tells Four Tet, a fellow British musician, “you’re in the presence of something that to you, kind of does connect you to … maybe … some … unexplainable energy.” As you can probably gather by now, it’s hard to talk about loops without sounding like a shaman or a stoner. I reckon Lidell is neither and is getting at what makes loop-based music so transcendent. Loops condense all parts of the listening experience — sound, space, time and emotion — into one concise package.Few have captured the fleeting intensity of loops better than J Dilla, the Detroit producer whose raw, elliptical instrumentals paved a path forward for hip-hop. In his 2006 song “One Eleven,” he swirls a Smokey Robinson sample round and round, blending weeping strings and vocals together to create something entirely new. “Lord have mercy,” Robinson begs, before the strings take over again. The pain in his pitched-up voice brings me close to tears. Why is he pleading for mercy? For whom is he crying? There are no answers, only a drifting call for help. I can understand why Dilla kept many of his creations under two minutes. At some point, it’s time to let go, to literally and figuratively change your tune. If not, you can get stuck.No matter how many times a loop repeats, the song to which it belongs eventually stops, modeling a way to move on. In miniature, loops help us become comfortable with endings, appreciative of the journey traveled. This can be its own kind of buzz, too. It’s the D.J. fading out the last song of the night, the lights coming on in a movie theater, your partner tapping you on the knee and saying it’s time to go home. What happens after is anyone’s guess. At least you can feel proud knowing you went to the party.Honey closed its doors for good at the beginning of the pandemic. It was one of several endings that would follow. I quit my job, left Minneapolis, said goodbye to my parents as they moved out of the country, saw millions abruptly lose their loved ones. I miss dancing with my eyes closed inside that basement, guided by the music as it looped over and over. But I’m still here. Even now, I listen to loops to find a bit of bliss. Then I open my eyes, and the moment’s over.Miguel Otárola is a music writer and audio journalist based in Denver. Born in Chile and raised in Tucson, Ariz., he now covers climate and environment issues in Colorado. More

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    75 Pop and Jazz Albums, Shows and Festivals Coming This Fall

    Major live events (Adele, Rosalía), buzzy debuts (Muni Long, Skullcrusher), energized returns (the Comet Is Coming, Kid Cudi) and a Taylor Swift LP are on the way.Live music made a roaring return this year, as artists who paused touring plans for the pandemic flooded back to the road. Arenas, jazz clubs, rock spots, cozy cabaret rooms: they’re booked solid this fall, giving musicians and fans a chance to reconnect. The release calendar is jam-packed, too, though many of pop’s biggest names haven’t announced autumn albums — yet. (One big exception? Taylor Swift.) But the schedule is stocked with LPs from emerging artists, established acts and a few pioneers who still have plenty to say. Dates are subject to change; check vaccine and mask requirements for individual performers and venues.ROSALÍA A few months ago, Lorde slipped a cover of Rosalía’s saucy “Hentai” into her set at Radio City Music Hall; this month, New Yorkers have a chance to hear it straight from the source, on the same stage. Currently on the road supporting her genre-busting album “Motomami,” the Spanish superstar hits Boston on Sept. 15, then cities including New York, Toronto and Chicago before heading to California. From a doggedly inventive artist who’s as meticulous about her visuals as her music, this stage show features sharp choreography, a seamless backdrop and even the singer giving herself an onstage haircut. (In North America through Oct. 22) — Olivia HornROXANA AMED For this Argentine-born, Miami-based vocalist, jazz is a loose and syncretic system, suitable for mingling traditions from across the Americas. The luxurious darkness of her alto might recall contemporaries like Cassandra Wilson or Claudia Acuña, but Amed is distinguished by her scholarly tack. “Unánime” (the title translates to “Anonymous”) is both a response and a kind of resistance to one question she’s often asked, about her relationship to the so-called Latin jazz tradition. The album includes covers of artists as varied as Egberto Gismonti and Miles Davis, as well as new originals, anchored by the piano playing of a now-80-year-old Chucho Valdés. (Sept. 16; Sony Latin) — Giovanni RussonelloBLACKPINK Perhaps the biggest girl group in K-pop, Blackpink is also the genre’s most playfully eclectic. “Pink Venom,” the first single from its second album, “Born Pink,” has traditional Korean instruments, old-school rap, boomy EDM beats and boasts about their stuff going “straight to your dome like whoa, whoa, whoa.” A world tour this fall includes a handful of American dates. (Sept. 16; YG Entertainment/Interscope) — Ben SisarioMICHELLE BRANCH With Y2K nostalgia thriving, Michelle Branch — whose pop-rock anthems “Everywhere” and “All You Wanted” made her a teen star in 2001 — released an updated version of her debut, “The Spirit Room,” last year. But, hardly content to be a throwback act, Branch has new music in the pipeline, too. Written and recorded with the Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, “The Trouble With Fever” balances alt-rock edge with decadent orchestral pop flourishes. (Sept. 16; Audio Eagle/Nonesuch/Warner Records) — HornNOAH CYRUS When she began her music career at age 16, Noah Cyrus — already caught in spillover from her sister Miley’s spotlight — hunted for her sound in full public view. Her early efforts, aligned with hip-hop and R&B, didn’t stick, and she has since retreated to her Nashville roots. On “The Hardest Part,” her debut album, she draws pedal steel, banjo, fiddle and harmonica from a robust country tool kit on songs that foreground her struggles with addiction and noxious romance. (Sept. 16; Records/Columbia) — HornDEATH CAB FOR CUTIE Twenty-five years into its career, the band brings its incisive, anguished writing to a particularly 2022 brand of existential angst on its 10th album, “Asphalt Meadows.” The songs spool and spiral, commenting on the slow-motion dread of a warming planet, the ache and anger of pandemic politics and the desperation of lockdown. “These nights, I don’t know how I survive,” Ben Gibbard repeats on the first track, howling over a distorted gnarl of guitar. It’s a tidy thesis statement for an expansive album: He doesn’t know how he makes it through, but he’s delighted that he does. (Sept. 16; Atlantic) — Dani BlumSKYLER GENTRY The performer and writer Ben Zook, host of the cheeky web series “Where the Bears Are,” brings “The Dirty Show With Skyler Gentry” to the West Bank Cafe’s Laurie Beechman Theater on Sept. 22-23. Expect an evening of raunch and revelations from “America’s favorite actor-singer-dancer-psychic,” as Zook is billing his alter ego. The venue’s lineup also features the drag darling and television personality Tammie Brown (Sept. 16-17), the elegant soprano stylings of Shana Farr (Oct. 7, 12 and 20, Nov. 12), the queenly revisionism of Distorted Diznee (Sept. 23, Oct. 21, Nov. 18, Dec. 9), the supple harmonies of Those Girls (Oct. 2, 15 and 29, Nov. 3), the caressing interpretations of Linda Viggiano (Oct. 13, Nov. 11) and the diva impressionist nonpareil Christine Pedi (Dec. 16-17). — Elysa GardnerLITTLE BIG TOWN The country group Little Big Town recruited over 30 songwriters for its latest album, “Mr. Sun,” a sweeping record that oscillates between whistling, warbling songs and despondent breakup anthems. These are glossy, pop-inspired tracks — “Why are songs never long enough to hold you?” the band coos over disco beats on “Heaven Had a Dance Floor” — but they also confront the turmoil brewing beneath the burbling bass lines. “I go to bed to sleep you off, and I wake up feeling better/Ain’t too proud to push it down, but I’m a terrible forgetter,” they howl on “Three Whiskeys and the Truth.” (Sept. 16; Capitol Records Nashville) — BlumMARCUS MUMFORD The Mumford & Sons frontman trades his galloping guitar and ragged harmonies for introspective anthems on his debut solo album, “(Self-Titled).” Childhood trauma, prolonged breakups, losing faith — Mumford doesn’t shy away from the heaviest topics here. (“Each word is a cut that I see coming/I clench my fists as I’m inflicting them,” he murmurs on “Prior Warning.”) He recruits Phoebe Bridgers, Clairo and Brandi Carlile to help bring some air into his intense self-examination, but even on these duets, Mumford and his gravelly voice remain the focus. (Sept. 16; Capitol) — BlumMarcus Mumford’s debut solo album doesn’t shy away from painful topics.Emma Mcintyre/Getty Images For KroqMURA MASA The English producer Mura Masa can contort any sound into a rave-ready thumper. On “Demon Time,” his pandemic dread-inspired album, he cobbles club hits out of dial-up tones, revving engines, screeching cars and sludgy synths. A cadre of hyper-online collaborators sing and rap over his bleeping, blurry beats, including Lil Uzi Vert, Shygirl and PinkPantheress. “Life in a box, start watching TV/Brain like mush always staring at screens,” the British rapper Slowthai snarls on “Up All Week,” over frenetic flashes of fizz. (Sept. 16; Anchor Point Records/Interscope) — BlumLeANN RIMES Twenty-five years after LeAnn Rimes released her first song — the yearning ’90s country classic “Blue,” which she delivered as a 13-year-old with the ache of someone three times her age — the singer-songwriter is ready to take some risks. On “God’s Work,” a nod to the Christian music she’s put out in the past and the album’s devotional undercurrent, she slides through swelling piano ballads and guitar-heavy reggae, crescendoing choruses and gentle, lilting hums. “If we ain’t seeing God in everyone,” she muses on the title track, “then we ain’t seeing God at all.” (Sept. 16; EverLe Records via Thirty Tigers/ The Orchard) — BlumREMEMBERING TOMASZ STANKO Until his death four years ago, the Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko was among the most respected improvisers and bandleaders in Europe, unmistakable for his terse economy and saturnine tone. He grew up in Soviet-era Rzeszów, where he first heard jazz via Voice of America broadcasts in the postwar years. In his mid-60s he realized a lifelong dream and moved to New York. Now, in what would have been his 80th year, Stanko will be celebrated in a special tribute concert in Brooklyn, featuring admirers and collaborators from Europe and the United States: the trumpeters Ambrose Akinmusire and Wadada Leo Smith; the guitarist Jakob Bro; the saxophonists Ravi Coltrane, Joe Lovano and Chris Potter; and others. (Sept. 18; Roulette) — RussonelloCÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT Since winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2010, Cécile McLorin Salvant has earned consistent praise (and three Grammys) for her witty, rangy singing, as well suited to Rodgers and Hart and Kurt Weill as to blues classics and Kate Bush. Her song cycle “Ogresse” blends folk, jazz, country and baroque influences, and she’ll appear Sept. 20-25 at the Blue Note, where other artists this season include the silky-voiced rising jazz star Samara Joy (Sept. 12, Sept. 26), the Harlem Gospel Choir (Sept. 18, Oct. 16, Nov. 13), the prolific trumpeter and vocalist Keyon Harrold (Oct. 16-19) and the soulful, genre-blending group Tank and the Bangas + Friends (Nov. 11-13). — GardnerCécile McLorin Salvant will bring the full range of her vocal talents to the Blue Note this month.Pawel Supernak/EPA, via ShutterstockALEX G For more than a decade, this unlikely star of Philadelphia’s D.I.Y. scene has been cranking out defiantly odd homespun recordings, keeping his head down and choosing close friends and family as collaborators even after accruing mainstream clout (see: his contributions to Frank Ocean’s “Blonde”). “God Save the Animals,” his ninth album, smashes together elements of folk, rock and noise music and subjects them to funhouse-mirror distortion, with results that are alternately eerie and endearing, and, as usual, resistant to interpretation. (Sept. 23; Domino) — HornCHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS PRESENTS REDCAR Since assuming the Christine and the Queens moniker in 2010, this French singer has become known for body-friendly funk-pop with nuanced ideas about gender norms and performance. With a new alias, Redcar, reflecting an evolving identity (“My journey with gender has always been tumultuous,” the artist told The New York Times earlier this year), he is back with his first album in four years, “Redcar les Adorables Étoiles (Prologue).” Sung almost entirely in French, the album feels beamed from the ’80s, with chunky, ultra-synthetic arrangements counterbalancing the singer’s lithe, expressive voice. (Sept. 23; Because Music) — HornKELSEA BALLERINI On “Subject to Change,” Kelsea Ballerini animates her perky country-pop with succinct, specific details — the partner who leaves a light on for her when she comes home after a night drinking with friends, the blasé thrill of a hand on the small of her back. Her new album is filled with strum-along tracks about growing up (her verdict: “It kinda hurts like hell/it’s chaotic, ironic”) and delving deeper into new relationships and long-term friendships (“I’ve known you since Brad and Angelina”). Even while extolling how hard it is to leave adolescence behind, she makes maturity sound easy. (Sept. 23; Black River Entertainment) — BlumKelsea Ballerini’s new album, “Subject to Change,” revels in the details.Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressTHE COMET IS COMING Of the saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings’s many projects, the Comet Is Coming is the most closely linked to London’s electronic music mainstream. Mixing jazz methodology with loops, spiraling effects and Hutchings’s retrofits of Caribbean rhythm, this trio seems intent on humanizing the EDM beat while actually upping its power, not diluting it. Hutchings, the keyboardist Dan Leavers and the drummer Max Hallett (in the band they go by King Shabaka, Danalogue and Betamax) recorded their fourth album, “Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam,” in a series of jam sessions. The LP finds each player showing newfound restraint, leaving more room for the listener than on any of the trio’s earlier releases. (Sept. 23; Impulse!) — RussonelloDR. JOHN The New Orleans piano man who embodied the musical mélange of his hometown had the kind of drawly, lived-in voice that only improved with age. So “Things Happen That Way” — Dr. John’s final album, recorded the year he died, 2019 — captures him in peak form. The album honors the singer’s country influences via covers of classics by Hank Williams (a swaggering “Ramblin’ Man”) and Willie Nelson (a wry “Funny How Time Slips Away”), who also duets with the good doctor on a funky “Gimme That Old Time Religion.” A few originals — a reprise of “I Walk on Guilded Splinters,” from Dr. John’s voodoo-inspired 1968 debut, and new tracks including “Holy Water,” inspired by his early ’60s drug arrest — frame him as a key link in the American lineage he so revered. (Sept. 23; Rounder) — Hank ShteamerMUNI LONG “Public Displays of Affection: The Album,” a new collection from the R&B singer-songwriter Muni Long, isn’t exactly a debut. But it might register as one, since the artist’s prior two full-lengths came out under the name Priscilla Renea, before she assumed her current alias (a playful rendering of “money long”) and scored a Top 20 hit with the sultry “Hrs and Hrs.” Joining material from two earlier EPs are new tracks that betray her years of experience in the pop songwriting trenches. “Butterfly Effect” unleashes her formidable vocal range on a fantasy of undoing a painful romance; “Conversation” returns to the luxurious feel of “Hrs and Hrs,” paying tribute to the simple joys of talking it out. (Sept. 23; Supergiant/Def Jam) — ShteamerMAKAYA McCRAVEN The drummer Makaya McCraven has been blurring the line between bandleader and beatsmith for the better part of a decade now. And over time, his blend of live performance and hip-hop production technique has become both more organic and more grandiose: The making of his newest album, “In These Times,” was shaped by a string of shows he played with large ensembles, transposing his production approach to a live band that featured harp, vibraphone and a frontline of horns. Though the arrangements skew polyrhythmic and layered, and McCraven did his fair share of cutting and editing, the communal flow of the full group reigns. (Sept. 23; International Anthem/Nonesuch/XL) — RussonelloFor Makaya McCraven’s “In These Times,” he adapted his cut-and-edit approach to a large live band.Marcin Obara/EPA, via ShutterstockANGELICA SÁNCHEZ This pianist and composer has yet to receive her full due, but at 50 she continues to churn out fabulous acoustic free jazz recordings at an unfettered clip. On her latest acoustic-trio album, “Sparkle Beings,” recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s former studios in New Jersey, she partners with an expert rhythm section: the bassist Michael Formanek and the immortal drummer Billy Hart, a longtime inspiration and new collaborator for Sánchez. The trio lays into some ear-grabbing originals, plus works by Cecil Taylor, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington (the album closes with a somersaulting take on “The Sleeping Lady and the Giant That Watches Over Her,” from his “Latin American Suite”) and the Mexican composer Mario Ruíz Armengol. (Sept. 23; Sunnyside) — RussonelloVIEUX FARKA TOURÉ and KHRUANGBIN The whole world now celebrates desert blues — the hypnotic Saharan style currently performed by Tinariwen and Mdou Moctar — thanks largely to one musician: the Malian guitarist-singer Ali Farka Touré. His son and musical successor honors him on “Ali,” an inspired team-up with Khruangbin, a Houston trio that has garnered its own passionate following thanks to its exquisitely chill, globally seasoned grooves. On “Diarabi,” from Ali’s 1994 album with Ry Cooder, Vieux’s plaintive vocals and guitar hover over the band’s plush yet unshakable pulse. On “Mahine Me,” played acoustically on Ali’s 1992 LP “The Source,” the zydeco accordionist Ruben Moreno sits in for a buoyant interpretation of a Songhai proverb. These covers point back to their source while casting their own spell. (Sept. 23; Dead Oceans) — ShteamerGLOBAL CITIZEN FESTIVAL During the past decade, Global Citizen has raised more than $40 billion to combat extreme poverty, with an annual all-star event on Central Park’s Great Lawn as its flagship event. Fans can enter a ticket drawing by signing petitions, calling leaders or sharing informational videos, and this year, their incentives include a 10th-anniversary lineup featuring the pop empress Mariah Carey, the thrash titans Metallica, the Spanish pop revolutionary Rosalía, the country trailblazer Mickey Guyton, the glammed-up Italian rockers Maneskin and the resurgent hitmakers the Jonas Brothers. A companion fest, held simultaneously in Accra, Ghana, plays up the event’s international reach, pairing American stars like SZA, Usher and H.E.R. with Afrobeats luminaries including Tems and Sarkodie. (Sept. 24; Central Park) — ShteamerTAYLOR HAWKINS TRIBUTE CONCERT Taylor Hawkins wasn’t just the Foo Fighters’ drummer; he was also a full-time poster boy for the band’s arena-conquering rock ’n’ roll quest. So it’s fitting that the Foos will give Hawkins — who died in March at age 50 — a hero’s send-off at this Los Angeles blowout, which follows a similar event in London. The guest list traces the full arc of his career, touching on his early idols (Queen’s Roger Taylor, the Police’s Stewart Copeland), his first high-profile boss (Alanis Morissette), his drummer peers (Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, Rage Against the Machine’s Brad Wilk) and various pop-star pals (Pink, Miley Cyrus). Expect a heartfelt memorial that doubles as a loud, sweaty scream-along. (Sept. 27; Kia Forum) — ShteamerZACHARY CLAUSE For those not ready to leave summer behind, the cunning charmer Zachary Clause returns to Pangea on Sept. 29-30 with “On a Beach,” drawing inspiration from Hollywood and Fire Island, Rodgers and Hart and post-punk pop. The East Village nightspot will also offer new shows by the seasoned provocateur Penny Arcade and her longtime creative partner Steve Zehentner (Sept. 17) and house favorite Tammy Faye Starlite (Nov. 3 and 10), who’ll apply her beneficent irreverence to the Rolling Stones catalog. The coolly eclectic vocalist Zora Rasmussen is in residency the third Thursday of each month through December, and the long-treasured actor, director and theater guru Austin Pendleton will continue his collaboration with the singer, actor and musician Barbara Bleier in a tribute to Richard Rodgers, set for Oct. 4, 11 and 25. — GardnerTITUS ANDRONICUS “The Will to Live,” the seventh LP by the classicist New Jersey punk act Titus Andronicus, doesn’t aim quite as high as its Civil War-inspired “The Monitor” or its rock opera “The Most Lamentable Tragedy.” But it still finds the bandleader Patrick Stickles howling out big questions following the 2021 death of Matt (Money) Miller, his cousin and the band’s founding keyboardist. On “I Can Not Be Satisfied,” he belts that he isn’t afraid to die, “I’m much more frightened to survive,” on a chorus that sounds like the E Street Band tearing through a dive-bar encore. Fittingly, the actual Springsteen sideman Jake Clemons adds ambling piano to the down-and-out closer “69 Stones.” (Sept. 30; Merge) — ShteamerBJÖRK “Fossora,” the Icelandic musician’s first album in five years, is a pandemic-era project as only Björk could conceive it: a paean to the Earth and her late mother, filled with fantastical imagery of fungi and what she described as lots of “heavy bottom-end.” (Sept. 30; One Little Independent) — SisarioKID CUDI The man who famously branded himself “the lonely stoner” released a third installment of his “Man on the Moon” series in 2020, in which he continued to interrogate his angst and trace the sources of his trauma. Cudi returns for a new project in September, “Entergalactic” (arriving with an animated Netflix show that expands on its themes), which explores another very personal topic: love. (Sept 30; Republic) — BlumASHLEY McBRYDE This country singer-songwriter wields her intricate, intimate storytelling like a conductor on “Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville,” offering a guided tour of a fictional town where the strip club hosts a gospel night and even the funeral home comes with a catchy jingle. She passes the mic to country contemporaries like Aaron Raitiere, Pillbox Patti and the Brothers Osborne for songs that sketch out the landscape of Lindeville and its many characters — the woman in a turtleneck racing around in a red Corvette, the widow chalking the local ball field. It’s a fluorescent carnival of pedal steel and thumping guitar that proves McBryde can be a skilled curator, as well as a performer. (Sept. 30; Warner Music Nashville) — BlumAshley McBryde’s new album explores a fictional town in all of its hyperlocal glory.Katie Kauss/Getty ImagesWILCO In honor of the 20th anniversary of the lush, sprawling album often considered the best in Wilco’s catalog, the band is releasing seven new editions of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” with a remastered version included in each set. The Super Deluxe iteration includes live concert recordings, radio performances, drafts and demos that trace the band tinkering with shards of the tracks, and 82 previously unreleased songs. The set also includes parts of a 2001 full-band interview with the Chicago radio station WXRT, one week after Sept. 11. (Sept. 30; Nonesuch) — BlumALYSHA UMPHRESS The powerhouse whose bluesy but ebullient belting was showcased in the 2015 Broadway revival of “On the Town” will present her first solo show in New York City since 2008 — titled “Alysha Umphress and Things … Like This” — at Joe’s Pub on Oct. 1-3. The Joe’s Pub Vanguard Residency will feature artists who studied with or were influenced by the beloved voice teacher Barbara Maier Gustern, who died in March, among them the downtown luminaries Penny Arcade (Nov. 29-Dec. 1) and Murray Hill (Dec. 13-17). Earlier, Machine Dazzle will celebrate the album release of “Treasure,” a “future psyche-sex-adelic synth rock experience” inspired by Dazzle’s mother and their relationship, on Oct. 21. — GardnerALVVAYS After a half-decade and a lineup shuffle, the dream-pop band fronted by Molly Rankin is back with “Blue Rev,” its third album. Across 14 songs, Rankin’s sharp character sketches are set against colorful scribbles of guitar and synths, padded with layers of fuzz. Working with Shawn Everett, an engineer and producer known for unorthodox techniques, Alvvays recorded much of the album in one sprint, managing to preserve the zingy immediacy of a live performance. (Oct. 7; Polyvinyl) — HornBROKEN BELLS Brian Burton, the A-list producer known as Danger Mouse, and the Shins leader James Mercer are a well-matched pair: pop auteurs who have carved out space in the mainstream while keeping their eccentricities intact. Their 2010 self-titled debut bathed Mercer’s trademark twisty hooks in Burton’s stylish psych-pop textures; “After the Disco” from 2014 added a dose of playful retro funk. “Into the Blue” is their moodiest trip yet, with the duo sending classic soul balladry (“Love on the Run”) and sumptuously spooky art pop (“We’re Not in Orbit Yet”) through a surreal prism. The album has its kitschier moments (the glam-rock-tinged “Saturdays”) but the overall mood suggests an alternate-dimension “AM Gold” compilation: soothing and unsettling by turns. (Oct. 7; AWAL) — ShteamerCHLOE MORIONDO Paramore, All Time Low and Girlpool were among the acts that Chloe Moriondo name-checked on “Favorite Band,” a 2021 song situating her own punkish brand of indie-pop within a broader lineage. “Suckerpunch,” her new album, smacks away indie signifiers: Out with the guitars and the earnestness, in with bravado, beat drops and Auto-Tune. The opener, “Popstar,” an apparent sequel to “Favorite Band,” outlines her ambitions, citing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera as inspiration. Kesha in her dollar-sign era is another evident touchstone. (Oct. 7; Public Consumption/Fueled by Ramen) — HornCHARLIE PUTH What if … Charlie Puth finally finished the album? Over the past year, the pop star has been relentlessly teasing new music on TikTok, taking viewers through his song-making process from conception — like when he captured Foley-style audio of a studio light switch in the video that soft-launched the single “Light Switch” — to completion. On “Charlie,” Puth’s third album, a year’s worth of dribbles are assembled into a coherent whole: a tangy, lightly gimmicky record that sees Puth through the many phases of heartbreak. (Oct. 7; Atlantic) — HornWILL SHEFF The longtime leader of the elegant indie-folk band Okkervil River has described his solo debut as a clean break with the past. Inspired in part by the 2020 death of the band’s former drummer, Travis Nelsen, “Nothing Special” finds Will Sheff letting go of previously held ideas of romanticized self-destruction. The results reveal a new serenity but don’t fall back on easy truths. “Holy Man” plays like soft-rock Leonard Cohen, weighing temptation and redemption with equal skepticism, and “Estrangement Zone” finds a narrator “ready to withdraw” but worried about slipping into oblivion. The context may be new, but Sheff still showcases his gift for writing songs that harness both the glow of poetry and the gravity of hymns. (Oct. 7; ATO) — ShteamerSUN RA ARKESTRA The world is just beginning to catch up with Sun Ra, whose radical practice as a composer, pianist, bandleader, poet and philosopher presaged much of the work being done by artists and humanities scholars today, particularly (but not only) in the realm of Afrofuturism. Ra’s band, the Arkestra, remains active and thriving almost 30 years after his death, converting this renewed attention into fresh sound. “Living Sky” is an all-instrumental album recorded during the pandemic, featuring takes on a few classic Ra compositions as well as three originals by Marshall Allen, the 98-year-old alto saxophone iconoclast who now leads the band. (Oct. 7; Omni Sound) — RussonelloMarshall Allen leads the Sun Ra Arkestra through a new instrumental album recorded during the pandemic.Nate Palmer for The New York TimesMICHAEL FEINSTEIN Following a seven-year association with 54 Below, the singer, pianist, historian and American songbook advocate is attaching his brand to the Uptown institution where Bobby Short once held court. Feinstein’s first-ever engagement at Café Carlyle, set for Oct. 11-22, will include songs from “Gershwin Country,” his album featuring duets with Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill and Liza Minnelli. Others due at the Carlyle include the Broadway and “Madam Secretary” alum Erich Bergen (Sept. 13-17), the actress and singer Betty Buckley (Sept. 27-Oct. 1), the pianist and vocalist Peter Cincotti (Sept. 20-24), the singer and actress Rita Wilson (Oct. 25-Nov. 5) and the beloved cabaret couple John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey (Nov. 8-19). — GardnerHABIBI FESTIVAL Organized by the music arm of the Public Theater, this five-day event highlights performers who preserve and reinterpret the regional musical traditions of Southwest Asia and North Africa. In its second year, Habibi Festival’s lineup includes Bnat El Houariyat, an all-female percussion and dance group from Morocco; Bedouin Burger, a Syrian and Lebanese duo who explore Arabic melodic modes in their electronic compositions; and Hat, a Moroccan D.J. who travels the world to capture recordings of folk musicians, then remixes them live. The French-Tunisian composer Yacine Boulares, one of the festival’s curators, will also present the U.S. debut of his take on “Night in Tunisia,” imbuing the jazz standard with North African rhythms. (Oct. 11-15; Joe’s Pub) — HornBACKSTREET BOYS It’s a bridge every by-the-book pop act must cross eventually: the Christmas album. And the Backstreet Boys sound like they’re all in on their first holiday-themed effort, “A Very Backstreet Christmas,” whether they’re embracing vintage doo-wop on “White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland” or going full carol on “Silent Night.” The standout numbers skew more modern: “Together,” one of three originals, a lite-R&B promise of holiday-season romance, and, best of all, a tastefully tempo-boosted reading of the gold standard of all boy-band Christmas efforts, Wham!’s “Last Christmas.” (Oct. 14; BMG) — ShteamerBILL CALLAHAN It’s tempting to view Bill Callahan’s three-decade evolution — from the lo-fi outsider art of his early ’90s recordings as Smog to his current mature-troubadour mode — as a gradual mellowing. But his songs’ ability to stop you in your tracks has only grown. “We warmed our hands in the corpse of a wild horse,” he sings over rolling fingerpicked guitar on “Everyway,” from “YTI⅃AƎЯ,” his upcoming eighth album under his own name. Then he works his way to a classic Callahan punchline: “At least we’re all in this horse together.” Elsewhere, he muses on childhood innocence while name-checking the Harlem Globetrotters great Meadowlark Lemon on the loose roots-rocker “Natural Information” and processes death with disarming tenderness on the ghostly folk song “Lily.” (Oct. 14; Drag City) — ShteamerBRIAN ENO There’s a new Brian Eno album on the way, but which Eno will show up? The master soundscapist who arguably invented ambient music, or the skewed pop auteur the world met on ’70s cult classics like “Here Come the Warm Jets”? On the upcoming “Foreverandevernomore,” it’s a little of both. The album is Eno’s first vocal-centric LP since 2005, but the tracks themselves — like “Garden of Stars,” where he chants about the mysteries of the cosmos against a backdrop of distorted synth buzz, or “We Let It In,” where he and his daughter Darla croon serenely from within a womblike tone bath — are as unapologetically abstract as anything in his catalog. (Oct. 14; Verve/UMC) — ShteamerMIKO MARKS This singer-songwriter’s “Feel Like Going Home” — her second album in two years, following a lengthy recording hiatus — arrives at a time when she and fellow artists of color are forcefully pushing back against racism in Nashville, past and present. The album finds Miko Marks broadening her sound to make room for her full range of influences, from Muscle Shoals-style Southern soul (“One More Night”) to sizzling blues (“River”) and soothing gospel (“Lay Your Burdens Down”). (Oct. 14; Redtone) — ShteamerSUE MATSUKI An author and a performers’ advice columnist as well as a long-admired entertainer, Matsuki was the first winner of the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s Julie Wilson Award in 2004. Now she’ll present “But Beautiful … a Tribute to Julie Wilson” in two parts during separate shows on Oct. 14 at the Green Room 42. Homages are also planned for Barbra Streisand (Jenna Pastuszek’s “Me, Myself & Barbra,” returning Dec. 17) and Britney Spears (Sean Stephens’s “One More Time,” Oct. 12), as the revue “At This Performance …” continues to showcase Broadway and Off Broadway understudies, standbys and alternates (Sept. 12, Nov. 21 and Dec. 12). “5 Questions With James and JAM” will deliver James Jackson Jr. and John-Andrew Morrison from the cast of the Tony-winning musical “A Strange Loop” on Sept. 19; “Leola’s Lady Land Lounge” will team Will Nolan’s Kelly Clarkson-loving drag persona with special guests on Oct. 6 and Dec. 5; and the new musicals “Fountain of You” and “Atlantis” will be performed in concert Sept. 26 and Oct. 2. — GardnerMIGHTMARE The new solo project from Sarah Shook, who fronts the country-punk outfit Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, was an insular-by-necessity product of the pandemic, written, recorded and produced by Shook during its first year. On “Cruel Liars,” Shook dials back the twang and down-home shuffle of Disarmers records while retaining their rough hew and stark, straightforward lyricism. Compact and nervy, the album centers the fallout of a bad breakup, but creeps toward optimism: “Ain’t gonna be no memory gonna haunt me down tonight,” Shook sings on its unexpectedly sweet final track. (Oct. 14; Kill Rock Stars) — HornRED HOT CHILI PEPPERS The return of one member to a legacy rock act shouldn’t mean that much these days. But the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 2019 reinstatement of John Frusciante — the soulful and prodigiously skilled guitarist who had done two prior stints in the band since joining in 1988 — has been received like the righting of a cosmic imbalance. “Return of the Dream Canteen,” the band’s second new double LP of the year, helps explain why, distilling the quartet’s signature sound down to its essence: “Tippa My Tongue” checks every Chili Peppers box (Flea’s serpentine slap bass, Frusciante’s jewel-like chords, Anthony Kiedis’s audaciously corny rap couplets) without sounding tired, and tracks from the Eddie Van Halen-inspired “Eddie” to the glimmering, reggae-esque “Handful” summon that sun-baked pathos that’s always elevated the band’s Frusciante-era material. (Oct. 14; Warner Records) — ShteamerAnthony Kiedis, Flea and the rest of Red Hot Chili Peppers are releasing their second double album of 2022 in October.Rob Grabowski/Invision, via Associated PressSKULLCRUSHER The musician Helen Ballentine drummed up some early pandemic buzz with her debut EP, a set of folksy, confessional tunes that suited the hushed interiority of the moment. (Tellingly, she named a song after Nick Drake on a subsequent release.) With her first album, “Quiet the Room,” Ballentine, who performs as Skullcrusher, has grown more adventurous: Her delicate melodies bloom into dense sound collages, built up with layers of drones, field recordings and echoes that smudge out her vocals. The songs are spooky and stirring, like old photos whose context is long forgotten. (Oct. 14; Secretly Canadian) — HornTOVE LO “Dirt Femme,” Tove Lo’s fifth album, and the first for her own label, hones in on the twin forces that have animated her music since her breakout hit “Habits (Stay High)”: her deconstruction of femininity, especially as a queer woman, and her fascination with her own death drive. She rejects constraints of traditional gender roles (“Suburbia”), prods at the limits of body positivity (“Grapefruit”) and laments her draw to a conventional romance narrative. She finds clarity in club music, joining with the dance producers SG Lewis and Channel Tres to craft sticky, coruscating tracks. “It’s tough out in the real world,” she wails on “True Romance”; this LP offers a welcome distraction. (Oct. 14; Pretty Swede Records/Mtheory) — BlumWILD PINK “A Billion Little Lights,” Wild Pink’s acclaimed album from last year, wasn’t the frontier myth-themed double LP that the group’s frontman, John Ross, once planned — but its soft-edged rock did conjure a sense of road-meets-horizon vastness. The New York band’s follow-up, “ILYSM,” builds on that instinct with long songs full of unexpected detours. Though partly inspired by Ross’s battle with cancer while writing it, the record is more imagistic than diaristic, and more contemplative than despairing. Its most prominent theme is companionship, with the tenderness of the title track (shorthand for “I love you so much”) matched only by closer “ICLYM” (“I couldn’t love you more”). (Oct. 14; Royal Mountain) — HornIHEARTRADIO FIESTA LATINA The annual festival returns to Miami’s FTX Arena in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. The one-night event brings established Latin rap and pop stars like Enrique Iglesias, Farruko and Nicky Jam alongside rising hitmakers like the glossy pop singer Becky G and the rapper Myke Towers. Iglesias will also receive this year’s iHeartRadio Corazón Latino Award, for his charitable endeavors as well as his musical legacy. (Oct. 15) — BlumBRIC JAZZFEST A multiday festival that gets more adventurous each year, BRIC JazzFest gives some of New York’s brightest rising talent the rare chance to perform on a major festival stage without leaving home. This year’s three-day marathon, held as usual at BRIC’s Downtown Brooklyn headquarters, will include sets from the vibraphonist Joel Ross and his nine-piece band, Parables; the vocalist Lizz Wright; the pianist Julius Rodriguez; and the trombonist Kalia Vandever, among dozens more. (Oct. 20-22; BRIC House) — RussonelloARCHERS OF LOAF Archers of Loaf perfected a certain strain of roaring, smartass indie rock on their 1993 debut, “Icky Mettle.” They broke up before the decade was done but, like so many of their peers, revved back up in the 2010s. On “Reason in Decline,” their first album in 24 years, the singer-guitarist Eric Bachmann reclaims the band’s lovably ornery spirit, working in the hard truths of middle age. “Tangled in the wasted time,” he sings on “Saturation and Light.” “Every little minute you stay in it/You blame yourself and it cuts you like a knife.” Whether he’s taking aim at the “masters of distraction” dominating the discourse on “Misinformation Age” or a troubled old friend on “Human,” his band provides a reliably stubborn kick. (Oct. 21; Merge) — ShteamerARCTIC MONKEYS This beloved British rock band has shape-shifted over its nearly two-decade career, pivoting from raucous anthems about caroming drunk through city streets to steamier, sleeker songs about anxious desire. For its seventh album, “The Car,” the band zags once more, teaming up again with its long-term producer James Ford for 10 mostly ballad-tempo songs, all written by the band’s lead singer, Alex Turner, that include classic-rock nods like string sections, carefully crooned vocals, funky guitars and plenty of dark observations. (Oct. 21; Domino) — BlumBABYFACE Kenneth (Babyface) Edmonds knows a thing or two about the female voice, having written songs for standouts including Aretha Franklin and Ariana Grande. His new album, “Girls Night Out,” harks back to the “Waiting to Exhale” soundtrack from 1995, where he assembled an all-star cast that featured the Queen of Soul alongside Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, TLC and more. This time around, he shows how sharp he still is as a producer, talent spotter and sometime vocalist, teaming up with an impressive selection of R&B up-and-comers, including the “Boo’d Up” singer Ella Mai on “Keeps on Falling,” a dance-floor-ready ode to enduring love; and Ari Lennox on “Liquor,” which equates romantic intoxication with the other kind. (Oct. 21; Capitol) — ShteamerBabyface’s “Girls Night Out” features collaborations with up-and-coming women artists.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesCARLY RAE JEPSEN A dependable source of heart-eyed synth-pop, this Canadian singer rode the wave of poptimism all the way from her “Call Me Maybe” breakout to her current status as cult hero. The breezy first single from her new album, “The Loneliest Time,” showed her mellower side, but effervescence is still Jepsen’s default mode: Look out for the stratospheric chorus of “Surrender My Heart” and the escapist disco fantasia of “Shooting Star.” (Oct. 21; 604/Schoolboy/Interscope) — HornDRY CLEANING “My shoe organizing thing arrived/Thank God,” Florence Shaw deadpans over a swirling art-pop vamp on “Anna Calls From the Arctic,” the opening track of “Stumpwork,” the second LP from the young London quartet Dry Cleaning. The moment sums up the odd sense of composure that’s helped make Shaw one of the most compelling presences in the current British post-punk revival. But the band is a true collective: On the title track, Shaw’s bandmates wrap her words in gauzy textures that betray a hint of menace, heightening the weirdness of lines like, “I thought I saw a young couple clinging to a round baby/But it was a bundle of trash and food.” (Oct. 21; 4AD) — ShteamerTAYLOR SWIFT The pop superstar’s fifth album in just over two years will arrive this fall: “Midnights,” which she described on social media as “the story of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.” She added: “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face.” “Midnights” will come too late to qualify for the next Grammys, but the album has a strong possibility of becoming one of the year’s biggest commercial successes, rivaling LPs like Harry Styles’s “Harry’s House.” (Oct. 21; Republic) — SisarioAngela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTEGAN AND SARA The Canadian twins have turned their open-book ethos into a robust brand, unpacking their origins as songwriters and queer women in a 2019 memoir, soon to become a TV series starring the TikTok creators Railey and Seazynn Gilliland. But as heard on the upcoming “Crybaby,” Tegan and Sara’s most revealing platform remains their songs. Twenty-plus years and 10 albums into their career, the sisters are experts at polishing their tracks to a sheen without sanding down the sharp emotional edges. Songs like “I Can’t Grow Up” and “____ Up What Matters” explore toxic relationship dynamics to the tune of peppy, hook-heavy pop. (Oct. 21; Mom + Pop) — ShteamerTHE MABEL MERCER FOUNDATION’S NEW YORK CABARET CONVENTION The organization’s 33rd fête rolls into Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall on Oct. 26 with “Look to the Rainbow: The Songs of Yip Harburg,” hosted by Andrea Marcovicci and Jeff Harnar and featuring cabaret and theater fixtures such as Karen Akers, Christine Andreas, Tovah Feldshuh, Maude Maggart and Those Girls. On Oct. 27, Natalie Douglas hosts Darius de Haas, Eric Yves Garcia, Marilyn Maye, Gabrielle Stravelli, Billy Stritch and others in “Unforgettable: A Tribute to Nat King Cole,” and KT Sullivan wraps things up Oct. 28 with “Through the Years: Celebrating Timeless American Standards,” set to include performances by Celia Berk, Klea Blackhurst, Shana Farr, David LaMarr, Karen Mason, Sidney Myer and Mark Nadler. — GardnerOUMOU SANGARÉ Now that Tuareg desert blues is known around the world, Wassoulou — a style that favors female bandleaders and rides an equally infectious current of rhythm — is due for its own moment in the global sun. Oumou Sangaré, a Grammy-winning vocalist, songwriter and activist, is a household name in Mali and one of Wassoulou’s greatest ambassadors abroad. Singing in Bambara, she renders social critiques and affirmations of women’s power in a gravelly alto; on her latest release, “Timbuktu,” she shows off a wide range — singing over driving, front-loaded rhythms on some tracks, and offering wistful Malian ballads (think Toumani Diabaté and Ali Farka Touré) on others. She will make her Apollo debut at this concert, presented as part of the World Music Institute’s Women’s Voices series. (Oct. 29; Apollo Theater) — RussonelloTRIPPIE REDD This 23-year-old descended from the SoundCloud school of hip-hop: brash beats, soupy melodies, sludgy emo-rap. His new release, “A Love Letter to You 5,” continues a series — his last installment topped the charts when it came out in 2019 — and taps current heavyweights like Offset and Moneybagg Yo. The new album finds Trippie Redd crooning about being in love over twinkling guitars and skittering drums, swooping his vowels as he sings to a nameless “youuuu.” (October; 1400 Entertainment/10K Projects) — BlumTrippie Redd’s October release, “A Love Letter to You 5,” features Offset and Moneybagg Yo.Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressBOB DYLAN “The Philosophy of Modern Song,” Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing since “Chronicles: Volume One” (2004), promises lessons on the craft of songwriting — pro tips on “the trap of easy rhymes” and “how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song,” according to his publisher — through 66 essays on a tantalizing track list including Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up,” the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’,” Hank Williams’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and three songs associated with Elvis Presley (“Blue Moon,” “Viva Las Vegas” and “Money Honey”). (Nov. 1; Simon & Schuster) — SisarioDANIEL AVERY The British dance music producer Daniel Avery opts for a darker, denser sound on “Ultra Truth,” distorting swaths of static and tinny, tingling beats into neatly packaged tracks. A song with fellow techno producers Kelly Lee Owens and Haai (Teneil Throssell) is titled “Chaos Energy,” but “Ultra Truth” is all about pristine precision, slick cuts and jittery percussion. The album unveils like an elegy to the internal monologue, the constant noise building inside your brain. (Nov. 4; Mute/Phantasy) — BlumCAVETOWN The bedroom pop singer-songwriter Robin Skinner has gained a fervent online following with delicate tracks about teen life featuring titles like “I Miss My Mum” and “I’ll Make Cereal.” On his new release, “Worm Food,” he blends the curdled angst and peppy hooks of ’90s pop-punk (one track longs for 1994, a year Skinner was not yet alive) with subdued synth pop. He writes about the specific aches of a new relationship: “Laundry day, going to shrink your shirt/makes a perfect fit for me,” he coos over lilting strings on “Laundry Day.” On another, he compares himself to a “ball of wasabi” — “there to keep things interesting, but nobody wants me.” It’s a charming portrait of anxious love. (Nov. 4; Cave Music Limited) — BlumBILLY JOEL Before Billy Joel conquered Madison Square Garden with an ongoing monthly residency and played the last-ever concerts at Shea Stadium, he headlined another of New York’s secular temples, the original Yankee Stadium, for two nights in June 1990. A remixed, re-edited and newly expanded version of “Live at Yankee Stadium,” the concert film documenting those mega-gigs, will soon see release on Blu-ray, with the audio version coming out digitally, and on CD and LP sets. The hit-parade set list (including “My Life,” “Uptown Girl,” “New York State of Mind,” “Piano Man” and the then-recent No. 1 “We Didn’t Start the Fire”) doesn’t differ much from the one you’ll hear Joel play at the Garden today, more than 30 years later — the mark of a true pop institution. (Nov. 4; Columbia/Legacy) — ShteamerPHOENIX The French band whose bubbly 2009 indie-pop crossover hit “Lisztomania” got even a collegiate A.O.C. dancing with abandon is back with “Alpha Zulu,” its first LP in five years. In part a meditation on loss — including that of its producer Philippe Zdar, who died in an accident in 2019 at age 52 — the album, marking Phoenix’s 25th anniversary as a group, includes an appearance by Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend. (Nov. 4; Glassnote/Loyaute Music) — SisarioJULIE BENKO & JASON YEAGER If you followed the backstage drama at Broadway’s “Funny Girl,” you know that Julie Benko is the bright-eyed, dulcet-voiced soprano who went from standby to star after Beanie Feldstein’s departure. On Nov. 7, Benko and her husband, the jazz pianist Jason Yeager, will perform selections from their new album, “Hand in Hand,” which mixes show tunes and standards with Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” and Yeager originals at 54 Below. Other artists slated to visit “Broadway’s living room” include the unsinkable nonagenarian Marilyn Maye (Oct. 12-15, Oct. 18-22), the stage and screen veteran Leslie Uggams (Nov. 10-12) and the latest jewel in the club’s “Diamond Series,” Vanessa Williams (Dec. 13-18), followed by the enduring gem Patti LuPone (Dec. 20-30). Fans of a certain Sara Bareilles musical can look forward to “Sugar, Butter, Reunion: Celebrating the Jennas of ‘Waitress’” on Oct. 9, and the new musical “Sean’s Story,” an Ars Nova commission by Khiyon Hursey, will be showcased in concert Oct. 11. — GardnerPATRICIA BRENNAN The jazz world can get stuck in a battle between the head and the heart, but rarely do you find an improviser like Patricia Brennan, the Veracruz, Mexico-born vibraphonist, marimba player and effects maven, who skirts that dichotomy almost completely. Her music seems to exist in a realm outside the body, but stays loaded with feeling. “More Touch” is the follow-up to Brennan’s spellbinding debut, the solo LP “Maquishti,” and it introduces a new quartet of advanced rhythmic thinkers: the drummer Marcus Gilmore, the percussionist Mauricio Herrera and the bassist Kim Cass. They venture between dreamy swing, bobbing bolero, the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of Brennan’s hometown, and free time. (Nov. 11; Pyroclastic) — RussonelloADELE Apart from a few TV tapings and private events, Adele hasn’t appeared on a U.S. stage since 2016. And the postponement of her Las Vegas residency the day before its original January kickoff date raises the stakes even more for this rescheduled “Weekends With Adele” run at Caesars Palace’s 4,100-seat Colosseum. Expect megawatt tear-jerkers like “Hello” and “Someone Like You” to share set-list space with new fan favorites from her 2021 chart-topper “30,” including “Easy on Me,” a tender post-mortem of her former marriage; “Oh My God,” where she confronts the vertigo of new love; and the real-talk anthem “I Drink Wine.” (Nov. 18 through March 23; Caesars Palace; Las Vegas) — ShteamerMICHAEL JACKSON In an era when Beatles recording sessions yield a seven-hour documentary and a Bob Dylan boxed set might contain an entire album’s worth of “Like a Rolling Stone” outtakes, a two-disc reissue commemorating the 40th anniversary of “Thriller” — the best-selling album of all time, by a significant margin — seems almost stingy. But the idea that there might still be more to learn about this Quincy Jones-helmed triumph is still an enticing prospect. The Jackson estate is keeping a tight lid on the contents of the “Thriller 40” bonus material, but previously unreleased demos are promised. Given that only a handful of demos and outtakes surfaced on a 2001 “Thriller” reissue, a major excavation could be in store. (Nov. 18; Sony) — ShteamerCHARLES LLOYD The guitar has been an essential foil for Charles Lloyd since his upbringing in the blues and soul hotbed of Memphis. Moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, a big early break came as musical director for Chico Hamilton’s band, where he forged a close bond with the Hungarian guitar virtuoso Gabor Szabo. In recent years, Lloyd, an 84-year-old tenor saxophonist, flutist and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, has been leading the Marvels, a country-jazz quintet featuring Bill Frisell’s guitar and Greg Leisz’s pedal steel. And by autumn’s end, he will have released three new albums this year, each with a different guitar trio and each casting its own light on his Lester Young-goes-to-Joshua Tree saxophone sound. Of the three, the last one, “Sacred Thread,” featuring the guitarist Julian Lage and the tabla icon Zakir Hussain, packs the wiliest punch. (Nov. 18; Blue Note) — RussonelloWENDY MOTEN The 21st-century virus of celebrity-judged TV talent contests has produced heartening stories, few more so than Wendy Moten’s; the 50-something Memphis native sang backup for Julio Iglesias and assorted country stars before “The Voice” brought her supple, limpid voice to wider attention. In a show returning to the Birdland Theater on Nov. 18-20, Moten highlights the pre-World War II classics of Richard Whiting (“He’s Funny That Way,” “Too Marvelous for Words”), mixing in a little Paul Simon and Janis Ian. Upstairs at Birdland Jazz Club, scheduled acts include the Broadway star-turned-cabaret stalwart Karen Akers (Sept. 12), the piquant stage and screen mainstay Julie Halston (Oct. 17) and the upscale nightlife fixtures Steve Ross (Oct. 24) and Jeff Harnar (Nov. 7), with the variety shows “Jim Caruso’s Cast Party” and “The Lineup With Susie Mosher” continuing at the jazz club on Mondays and the theater on Tuesdays. — GardnerThe singer Wendy Moten returns to Birdland Theater with a show that crosses genres and eras.Terry Wyatt/Getty ImagesWEYES BLOOD The singer-songwriter Natalie Mering, who performs as Weyes Blood, braids together emotional and existential upheaval, capturing the weightiness of contemporary life in sweeping, baroque-pop poetry. The crisis-rich three years since her last release have offered Mering plenty to write about; her upcoming fifth album, “And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow,” layers references to climate change, pandemic and impending civilizational collapse into songs about estrangement and longing. “Living in the wake of overwhelming changes/We’ve all become strangers, even to ourselves,” she sings on the opening track, looking around and within. (November; Sub Pop) — HornJINKX MONSOON & BENDELACREME In 2018, these popular “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alumni joined forces to ring in the most wonderful time of the year. “The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show” now marks the duo’s fourth seasonal tour, for which variety-show maestro BenDeLaCreme and the cabaret and theater veteran Monsoon — the “sugary” queen and the “spicy” one, according to their official site — have co-written a new assortment of music, comedy and spectacle. The party arrives at Town Hall on Dec. 2-3. — GardnerA JOHN WATERS CHRISTMAS It’s been 18 years since the filmmaker, performer, author, fine artist and pope of trash (as he was christened by William S. Burroughs) curated a holiday album including cult classics such as “Fat Daddy” and “Santa Claus Is a Black Man,” but the spirit hasn’t left John Waters, who returns to City Winery on Dec. 18 with his latest irreverent Yuletide offering. Other seasonal celebrations scheduled at the Winery include Betty’s “December Delight” (Dec. 11) with special guests including Gloria Steinem, and “Suzanne Vega: Home for the Holidays” (Dec. 22-23, Dec. 26-27). — Gardner More

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    5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Alice Coltrane

    We asked writers, critics and musicians including Meshell Ndegeocello and Angel Bat Dawid to tell us what moves them in Coltrane’s spiritual jazz.For the past several years, New York Times music editors have been asking: What five minutes would you play for a friend to make them love classical music? Last month, shifting the series’ focus to jazz, we asked musicians, writers and critics to share their passion for Duke Ellington.Now we want those music-loving friends to be moved by Alice Coltrane, the keyboardist and harpist who explored the universal and spiritual in jazz before her death in 2007 at age 69. Her husband John Coltrane had died in 1967.Before his passing, the couple explored the depths of spirituality together, traveling the world to take in new cultures, and letting those influences come through in the music. And where John used screeching saxophone wails to summon higher powers, Alice took the opposite approach, channeling serenity through the chords of her piano and the strum of her harp. In what would have been her 85th year of life, she’s still celebrated with tribute concerts and like-minded music from today’s purveyors of spiritual jazz.Enjoy listening to these Alice Coltrane songs, including a playlist at the bottom of the article, and be sure to leave your own favorites in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆Morgan Parker, writer and poetThe bluesy 1970 treasure “Ptah, the El Daoud” is a journey through the rituals of mourning. Of course it raps with a universal cosmos — but with one foot on Earth, where there’s no transcending grief. Composed in the years after her husband John’s death, and recorded in their family home, it features Alice Coltrane on piano with Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson on tenor saxophones. Except on “Blue Nile.” Here, they play alto flutes; Alice graces her harp. Following the aching prayers of the album’s “Turiya and Ramakrishna,” the opening strings of “Blue Nile” herald respite and repass, a moment to settle and reset. The musicians are downright grooving on this warm, imaginative track, both exhaling and exalting in every note.“Blue Nile”Alice Coltrane (Impulse!)◆ ◆ ◆Taja Cheek, musicianI know there was a time when I didn’t know who Alice Coltrane was, but I just can’t remember that time. I do remember taking a last-minute flight to California to visit the Sai Anantam Ashram that she founded in 1983. I remember crying with gratitude and anticipation on the plane there. I remember my phone dying, and worrying that I would be stranded in a place I didn’t know; but I remember the Indian food the ashram prepared more than I remember the worry. I remember the joy of meeting members of the ashram, of learning from them, of hearing them sing, of hearing them talk about their love for her. There are many Alices, depending on who you ask, where and when. There are many sounds, too: devotional chanting, spiritual singing, strings, jazz piano, harp, nasal organ. She was an innovator that studied tradition. A keeper of multitudes. But the music weaves through it all. I think of all of this when I listen to “Spiritual Eternal”: the way the sound dips slightly right before the strings come in. An organ stretched to its limits, cracked open as if by a hacker. Transporting listeners to outer space and inner space. There’s nothing like it.“Spiritual Eternal”Alice Coltrane (Rhino/Warner Records)◆ ◆ ◆John Morrison, writerI love the fact that in recent years, more people have come to the understanding that Alice Coltrane was a multi-hyphenate genius. Pianist, composer, harpist, spiritual teacher, Coltrane possessed a creative range that few have rivaled. Of all the stylistic twists and turns present in her catalog, songs like “Pranadhana” best illustrate the brilliance of Alice Coltrane for me. Singing in Sanskrit while accompanying herself on organ, Coltrane beautifully combines two great sacred music traditions: Hindu devotional songs and Black American gospel. Rich, meditative and overflowing with spiritual power, this song evokes both Coltrane’s childhood playing organ at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Detroit and her adulthood using music to build her spiritual community at her ashram.“Pranadhana”Alice Coltrane (Alice Coltrane)◆ ◆ ◆Lakecia Benjamin, musicianTo me Alice Coltrane exemplifies the meaning of transcendence: She and her music exist beyond the normal or spiritual level. Her musical artistry and spiritual awareness open the floodgates to empathy. One of the first things that made me love her work is the freedom in it. The genre and expression cannot be defined. And the music hits the soul of the listener, almost causing you to immediately be changed in some way. All of this is summed up for me on “Prema,” and particularly this version. It takes the listener down a path of subconscious reflection. And once that happens, you are forced to deal with the you that you tuck away and try to hide from the public view. I’m grateful Ms. Coltrane was born and walked on this Earth, and left behind the writings and music she did.“Prema”Alice Coltrane (Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz/NPR)◆ ◆ ◆Angel Bat Dawid, musicianThis version of “A Love Supreme” slaps so hard! From Alice Coltrane’s wonderful album “World Galaxy,” emphasizing once again the collective genius and message of her music: that Black music is always spiritual music. Her deep love of spirituality and interest in Eastern religion show how Black music never separates those things into categories, and proves that Alice will never leave the roots that are the spirituals or “spirchiills” as the ancestors pronounced it. No matter how big and famous and genre-crossing and avant-garde she became, Alice was from Detroit, and you can hear the blues, funk, gospel and all those silly labels that are put on Black musicians as a way to categorize something that is felt but not entirely understood by those who are non-Black. Her rendition is an endearing and beautiful tribute to the shared message of her late husband. The “love supreme” is really the music, and it prevails no matter what.“A Love Supreme”Alice Coltrane (Impulse!)◆ ◆ ◆Tammy Kernodle, scholarThe manner in which Alice Coltrane’s music and artistry intersected strongly with her spiritual identity has always resonated deeply with me. While many might equate this with conventions that emerged out of jazz during the 1960s and 1970s, it was much more. The intersection of Coltrane’s music and spirituality reflected her personal journey to a life driven by divine purpose and her role in birthing an idiom of liturgical jazz. “This Hymn” is a reminder of how Coltrane’s music and theology of transformation and liberation were rooted in the emotive, ecstatic and contemplative sounds of Black Baptist and Pentecostal churches.“The Hymn”Alice Coltrane (Impulse!)◆ ◆ ◆Courtney Bryan, composerThe music of Alice Coltrane (also known as Swamini Turiyasangitananda) is profoundly healing, like a spiritual deep-tissue massage. It leads me to a peaceful place within and to an awareness of connection with the universe. Particularly, her recordings “Turiya Sings” (1982), “Divine Songs” (1987), “Infinite Chants” (1990) and “Glorious Chants” (1995) resonate with me. These recordings led me to visit her Sai Anantam Ashram to better understand her music and teachings and to sing her music in the mandir. Listening to “Keshava Murahara” from “Divine Songs,” I treasure her compositional genius — the grounding presence and modal harmonies of the organ, the evocative chanting of the bhajans, the soaring strings, and the otherworldly synthesizer that in the final minute illustrates what it may feel like to transcend this material existence to higher realms of spiritual consciousness.“Keshava Murahara”Alice Coltrane (Luaka Bop)◆ ◆ ◆Meshell Ndegeocello, musicianAt around age 14 or 15, I would walk down to Kemp Mill Records to browse as often as I could. Eventually I even got a part-time job there, only to be fired on Day 4 for playing the music too loud in the store. Kemp Mill had a jazz bin mostly filled with straight-ahead, smooth, and vocal jazz artists, and I regularly flipped through it. I browsed the used records bin often as well. That is where I found this Alice Coltrane album, “Ptah, the El Daoud.” If my memory serves me correctly, it was the cover art that first sparked my interest. The next were the titles. The iconography and track names were maps to other ideas, cultural truths, an affirmation of my burgeoning suspicions. I was beginning to question my conservative Christian upbringing after learning a different version of Egyptian mythology from my Iraqi friend Mahmoud. I had only known of the biblical references to Egypt before then.The reason I loved this album, and its title track, is that it begins with this walking bass line; then come the piano sounds, and it moves with a sway and groove that feels so good, uplifting you, you can’t help but nod with joy and power. The music, stoking my curiosity and psychic independence, was also calming to me, a young person living in chaos. I revisit Alice’s music when I am in need of healing: She is a guide, a symbol of hope, that music is more than entertainment or livelihood or, worst, for profit. Music changed my life’s circumstances, but it is how I connect with my creator. Alice Coltrane changed my heart and consciousness. Her music is for the inner world and it is from there she seeds transformation.“Ptah, the El Daoud”Alice Coltrane (Impulse!)◆ ◆ ◆Marcus J. Moore, jazz writerAlice Coltrane’s fourth studio album, “Journey in Satchidananda,” begins with a title cut so strong that it’s often tough for me to move past it. A soothing mix of harp, hypnotic bass and melodic saxophone, it was meant to honor the spiritual guru Swami Satchidananda, who helped Coltrane see the light following her husband John’s death in 1967. The swami was “the first example I have seen in recent years of Universal Love … in action,” Alice Coltrane wrote in the album’s liner notes. Not only is the track a rightful tribute to Satchidananda, it sets a proper tone for one of the greatest albums ever — a meditative masterpiece centered on Coltrane’s ascendance from despair.“Journey in Satchidananda”Alice Coltrane, featuring Pharoah Sanders (GRP)◆ ◆ ◆Surya Botofasina, musicianDivinity. Grace. Devotion.In this chanting, I hear passionate calls for internal, soul-reaching connection. This song epitomizes what Swamini is for us: The ultimate instrument and example of devotion. Hear how every note of her organ and synthesizer harmonically supports every person’s earnest plea for a personal bond with the divine? “Hari Narayan” — spirit of the Lord Vishnu, the Preserver. The voice of my mother, Radha Botofasina, is the one you can hear the most in this recording. This song is my ashram childhood. Swamini blessed us with music which is beyond meditative; she provided the one thing a spiritual heart can hope for: inner peace.“Hari Narayan”Alice Coltrane (Luaka Bop)◆ ◆ ◆Brandee Younger, harpistI’m at the edge of my seat trying to hold on. She’s bringing us along with her on this exciting ride, plowing through everything in her path and absolutely taking no prisoners. The energy between the organ and the drums is just infectious. I don’t want it to end … and I didn’t realize that an organ could make me feel such a full range of emotions. As it closes with the theme one last time, it’s clear that she has made it to her destination while bringing us on the ride of our lives. It ends and I feel somewhat out of breath and spiritually fulfilled.“Affinity (Live)”Alice Coltrane (Rhino/Warner Records)◆ ◆ ◆Giovanni Russonello, Times jazz criticFrom the 1980s, when she founded the Sai Anantam Ashram in Southern California, to 2004, three years before her death, Alice Coltrane released nothing but religious and devotional music. It was heavy on synths and voices, and vested with an extra dose of magnetism by the fact that, if you heard it, you were listening on cassette. (In those years, you’d likely have to travel to the ashram to get hold of a tape.) Finally, after much urging by her son Ravi Coltrane, she put out one last studio album, “Translinear Light,” in 2004, which served as a reminder of her musicianship’s breadth. She reaches to Black spirituals, original compositions, John Coltrane classics and Vedic devotional music. On a slowly flourishing version of “Jagadishwar,” an original that she first recorded for the 1982 cassette “Turiya Sings,” Ravi joins her and an all-star rhythm section: Jeff (Tain) Watts on drums and James Genus on bass. But it’s Alice Coltrane’s synthesizer, diaphanous though it is, that fills most of the space. There’s hardly a contradiction between her sense of spiritual purity and her use of advanced tech: The synth is beams of sunlight, it’s baths of seawater, it’s a passageway beyond all matter.“Jagadishwar”Alice Coltrane (Impulse!)◆ ◆ ◆Georgia Anne Muldrow, musicianIt’s true, Turiyasangitananda is that lady. She’s that woman, that vessel. She’s that miracle, that supermodel. She’s that gorgeous, that genius, that she can soar up through the most butterfly-wing-finest of holographic harmonic places. Never have two chords orbited in my heart the way they did on “Oh Allah.” I heard and saw everything — the planets, cosmos and harmony of life — in this song. The doo-wop of angels in the meter of The Lawd, armed with the organ of Justice. She demonstrates the usage of worship and praise in the Black experience in spaces that predate our painful places, ripping the keys to exalt that which sustains life. I played this song two days straight on repeat in my little Discman, nursing my newborn little man. He loved the song, just cooing in key. This song has an axis of electrum, chile. Oh Allah. A song of mercy, of praise. Hallelujah, Alice Coltrane. Hallelujah, Ornette Coleman, for transcribing the strings in a meeting of minds that would forever be imprinted in the primal places of my life.“Oh Allah”Alice Coltrane (Verve)◆ ◆ ◆ More

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    Archie Roach, Who Lived and Sang the Aboriginal Blues, Dies at 66

    His song “Took the Children Away,” inspired by his childhood, shook Australians into confronting a grim era when their government tore apart Aboriginal families.One day in 1970, Archie Cox’s high school English class in Melbourne, Australia, was interrupted by a voice from the intercom: “Could Archibald William Roach come to the office?”An uncanny feeling took hold of 14-year-old Archie: This name, which he had no recollection of, he somehow knew to be his own.A letter to Archibald William Roach awaited him. It announced that Nellie Austin, a name he had never heard, was his mother, and that she had just died. His father and namesake was dead, too, the letter said. It was signed by Myrtle Evans, who identified herself as his sister.Within a year, Archie had dropped out of school, abandoned Dulcie and Alex Cox — who, he realized, were only his foster parents — and embarked on a quest to discover who he really was.He spent years without a home. He was imprisoned on burglary charges twice. He tried to kill himself. All the while, he kept bumping into revelations about his family and why he had been taken away from them.When he left home, there was not a name for what Archie was. But today people like him are considered part of the Stolen Generations — Indigenous Australians seized from their families as children to be assimilated into white society.This history is known thanks in no small part to Mr. Roach, who turned his wayward life into the material for a career as one of Australia’s best-loved folk singers, and who in doing so dramatized the plight of his people.He died on July 30 at a hospital in Warrnambool, a city in southeastern Australia, his sons Amos and Eban announced on his website. He was 66.The announcement did not cite the cause, but Mr. Roach had struggled with lung cancer and emphysema, requiring him to perform while breathing through a nasal cannula.His rise to prominence began in the late 1980s and early ’90s, on the strength in particular to one autobiographical song: “Took the Children Away.” He performed it at Melbourne Concert Hall when he opened for the popular Australian rock singer Paul Kelly.“There was this stunned silence; he thought he’d bombed,” Mr. Kelly recalled to The Guardian for a 2020 article about the song’s impact. “Then this wave of applause grew and grew. I’d never heard anything like it.”Mr. Kelly was a producer of Mr. Roach’s first album, “Charcoal Lane,” released in 1990. When the two toured together, Aboriginal audience members approached Mr. Roach, saying they, too, had been taken from their families.“He started to realize it was a much broader story,” Mr. Kelly said.The song became a national hit. “When he sings ‘Took the Children Away,’ or any of the tracks on ‘Charcoal Lane,’ it cuts through like great blues should,” Rolling Stone Australia wrote in 1990. “The experience becomes universal.”In a 2020 article commemorating the 30th anniversary of “Charcoal Lane,” Rolling Stone Australia credited “Took the Children Away” with helping to inspire a landmark 1997 government report estimating that as many as one in three Indigenous children were seized from their families between 1910 and 1970.Fourteen more albums followed “Charcoal Lane,” ranging in style from blues to gospel, while Mr. Roach’s wife, Ruby Hunter, gained renown of her own as a musical partner of Mr. Roach’s, and as a songwriter in her own right.The Aboriginal singer and songwriter Emma Donovan told The Guardian that when she was growing up, “we’d see Archie and Ruby on TV.”“They were our royalty, our king and queen,” she said.Archibald William Roach was born in the Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve, in southwestern Australia, on Jan. 8, 1956. When he was older, he recovered a memory of a tall man with long limbs and curly hair reaching toward him while police officers were grabbing him. That man, he realized, was Archibald, his father.He was raised largely by the Coxes. The implications of the fact that he was Black and that the Coxes were white dawned on Archie only gradually.His foster father, who was Scottish, longed for his homeland, and at night tears came to his eyes as he sang ballads around the family’s organ. “For years I thought I missed Scotland,” Mr. Roach wrote in “Tell Me Why,” his 2019 memoir. “I took great joy in sharing those songs with Dad Alex, because I wanted to be close to him, and I also wanted to understand the power that the songs had over him.”Mr. Cox gave Archie his first guitar. After Archie left home at 15, he never saw his foster parents again.He took a circuitous path to the return address on the letter he had received, in Sydney; by the time he arrived, his sister had left, without informing her neighbors of her next destination.A homeless one-armed Aboriginal man named Albert took care of Archie, showing him where in Sydney to sleep free of charge and teaching him how to panhandle. Archie began drinking with his new Aboriginal friends from morning till night.“I look back now and see the darkness that would have touched every moment unless we numbed it with beer and port and sherry,” he wrote in his memoir. “We were part of an obliterated culture.”He built a life from openness to chance and the coincidences that ensued. Archie found his family by running into one of his sisters at a bar in Sydney. On a coin flip, he decided to visit the South Australia city of Adelaide, where he met Ms. Hunter, who would become the love of his life. She, too, was an Aborigine who had been taken from her parents.Chance also granted Mr. Roach knowledge about his past. In 2013, he stumbled across the first photographs he had ever seen of his father as a boy, and of his grandmother.He learned that there were dangers in trying to recover tradition. He and his peers sought approval from elders before going on dates with other Aboriginal people, to ensure that they were not related. Taking up the old profession of his father and brother, Mr. Roach became an itinerant boxer. He realized in the middle of one bout that he was fighting his own first cousin.At other times he earned a living by picking grapes, pushing sheep up kill runs at an abattoir and doing metalwork at a foundry. He often lost jobs in a blur of drunkenness. The binges induced seizures. During one bender, overcome with despair at his prospects as a father and husband, he tried hanging himself with a belt. After more than a decade of patience, Ms. Hunter left him.Mr. Roach was jolted into sobriety. He found work as a health counselor at a rehab center in Melbourne. He rejoined Ms. Hunter and their two sons, and he threw himself into writing songs.“Like my daddy before me/I set ’em up and knock ’em down/Like my brother before me/I’m weaving in your town,” he wrote in “Rally Round the Drum,” a song from the early 1990s about his boxing days.“Have you got two bob?/Can you gimme a job?,” he wrote in the 1997 song “Beggar Man.”“At 15 I left my foster home/Looking for the people I call my own/But all I found was pain and strife/And nothing else but an empty life,” he wrote in “Open Up Your Eyes,” which was not released until 2019.Mr. Roach at Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, in 2018. His songs helped uncover the history of the Indigenous Australians known as the Stolen Generations.Dita Alangkara/Associated PressComplete information about his survivors was not available, but in addition to his sons, Mr. Roach and Ms. Hunter unofficially adopted 15 to 20 children. The impetus in some cases was simply encountering a young person on the street looking “a little worse for wear,” he told the Australian newspaper The Age in 2002.Ms. Hunter died suddenly in 2010 at the family home in Gunditjmara country, in southeast Australia, the ancestral land of Mr. Roach’s mother.As “Took the Children Away” grew in fame, even to the point of overshadowing Mr. Roach’s other work, he was often asked whether he got sick of singing it.“I say, ‘Never,’” he told ABC News Australia in 2019. “It’s a healing for me. Each time I sing it, you let some of it go.” More