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      Howard Johnson, 79, Dies; Elevated the Tuba in Jazz and Beyond

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHoward Johnson, 79, Dies; Elevated the Tuba in Jazz and BeyondFluent and graceful on a notoriously cumbersome instrument, he helped to find it a new role in a wide range of musical settings.Howard Johnson in concert in Amsterdam in 1986. One critic called him “the figure most responsible for the tuba’s current stature as a full-fledged jazz voice.”Credit…Frans Schellekens/RedfernsJan. 14, 2021Updated 4:20 p.m. ETHoward Johnson, who set a new standard by expanding the tuba’s known capacities in jazz, and who moonlighted as a multi-instrumentalist and arranger for some of the most popular acts in rock and pop, died on Monday at his home in Harlem. He was 79.His death was announced by his publicist, Jim Eigo. He did not specify a cause but said that Mr. Johnson had been ill for a long time.Fluent and graceful across an enormous range on one of the most cumbersome members of the brass family, Mr. Johnson found his way into almost every kind of scenario — outside of classical music — where you might possibly expect to find the tuba, and plenty where you wouldn’t.His career spanned hundreds of albums and thousands of gigs. He played on many of the major jazz recordings of the 1960s and ’70s, by musicians like Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Carla Bley and Charlie Haden; contributed arrangements and horn parts for rock stars like John Lennon and Taj Mahal; and performed as an original member of the “Saturday Night Live” band.“I could find myself in almost anybody’s record collection,” he said in an interview in 2015 for the online documentary series “Liner Note Legends.”And for more than 50 years, Mr. Johnson led ensembles with tubas on the front lines — first Substructure, then Gravity, which became his signature solo achievement. Consisting of a half-dozen tubas and a rhythm section, Gravity aimed, he said, to elevate the public’s estimation of the instrument.From the 1930s, when traditional New Orleans music fell out of favor in jazz, the tuba had been relegated to the sidelines; the upright bass had almost entirely replaced it. Mr. Johnson helped to find it a new role, by expanding its range upward and by playing so lyrically. In recent years critics have hailed a broader renaissance for the tuba in jazz, building on the foundation that Mr. Johnson laid.Writing in The New York Times in 2006, the critic Nate Chinen called Mr. Johnson “the figure most responsible for the tuba’s current stature as a full-fledged jazz voice.”Howard Lewis Johnson was born on Aug. 7, 1941, in Montgomery, Ala., and raised in Massillon, Ohio, outside Canton. His father, Hammie Johnson Jr., worked in a steel mill, and his mother, Peggy (Lewis) Johnson, was a hairdresser. They weren’t musicians, but they kept the radio on at all times, usually tuned to gospel, R&B, jazz or country.It was on boyhood visits to his uncle’s house that Howard first became enchanted with live music. “He lived over a juke joint, and if I spent the night and slept on the floor, I could hear the bass line very well,” he remembered in a 2017 interview with Roll magazine. “And that was very satisfactory.”A gifted student, he learned to read before he was 4 and skipped a grade in school. His first instrument was the baritone saxophone; after receiving just two lessons from his junior high school band teacher, he taught himself the rest. A year later, he learned the tuba entirely by watching other players’ fingerings in band rehearsals. He would wait until everyone had left the practice room, then tiptoe over to the tuba and try out what he had seen.In the high school band, he thrived on friendly competition with his fellow tuba players. Many of them were receiving private lessons, but left to his own devices Mr. Johnson blew by them, stretching the instrument far past its normal range and maintaining a graceful articulation throughout.“I thought I was playing catch-​​up — that all the stuff that I taught myself to do, the others could already do it,” he told Roll. “The ones who were the best in the section were kind of like role models: I wanted to play like them someday. But by the end of that school year, I could play much better than they could. And I could do a lot of other things.”After high school, Mr. Johnson spent three years in the Navy, playing baritone sax in a military band. While stationed in Boston, he met the drummer Tony Williams, a teenage phenom who would soon be hired by Miles Davis, and fell in with other young jazz musicians there. After being discharged, he moved briefly to Chicago, thinking it would be a good place to hone his chops before eventually moving to New York. At a John Coltrane concert one night, he met the prominent multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy, a member of Coltrane’s band. When he mentioned that his range was as great on the tuba as it was on the baritone, Dolphy urged him to move to New York right away.“He said, ‘If you can do half of what you say you can do, you shouldn’t be waiting two years here; I think you’re needed in New York now,’” Mr. Johnson recalled. “So I thought, ‘It’s February, maybe I should go to New York in August.’ I thought about it some more, and I left six days later.”Mr. Johnson also learned to play the bass clarinet, euphonium, fluegelhorn and electric bass as well as the pennywhistle, which he particularly loved as a foil to the tuba in terms of both pitch and portability. Characteristically, he took this unlikely instrument not as a novelty but seriously, developing a lightweight, even-toned, exuberant sound on it.On arriving in New York, he soon found work with the saxophonist Hank Crawford, the bassist Charles Mingus and many others. He began a two-decade affiliation with the composer and arranger Gil Evans, sometimes contributing arrangements to his orchestra.In 1970, after being connected through a business associate, Mr. Johnson persuaded the blues and rock singer Taj Mahal to allow him to write arrangements of Mr. Mahal’s songs that would include a suite of tubas, and then to take them on the road. Mr. Johnson and three other tuba players are heard on “The Real Thing,” Mr. Mahal’s 1971 live album. He would continue to work with Mr. Mahal off and on.Mr. Johnson was soon getting work from other rock musicians. He led the horn section for the Band in the 1970s, including on the group’s farewell performance, captured in Martin Scorsese’s famed concert film “The Last Waltz.” He continued working with Levon Helm, the Band’s drummer and singer, for decades.But Mr. Johnson’s greatest public exposure came on television. In 1975 he joined the house band for a new late-night comedy show then called “NBC’s Saturday Night.” He remained in the ensemble for five years, helping to shape its rock-fusion sound and making an appearance in some of the show’s most fondly remembered musical sketches.Mr. Johnson with his band Gravity on a 1978 episode of “Saturday Night Live.” He was also an original member of the show’s house band.Credit…NBC/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesMr. Johnson is survived by his daughter, the vocalist and songwriter Nedra Johnson; two sisters, Teri Nichols and Connie Armstrong; and his longtime partner, Nancy Olewine. His son, the musician and artist David Johnson, died in 2011.With Gravity, which he led from the 1970s until the end of his life, Mr. Johnson poured the sum of his musical experiences into arrangements for six tubas and a rhythm section that alternated between acoustic and electric. Reviewing a Gravity performance in 1977 for The Times, Robert Palmer lauded the group’s “fresh sound” and said he was disarmed by its “sunny good humor and affection for the jazz‐and‐blues tradition.”Mr. Palmer made particular note of Mr. Johnson’s versatility: “Whether he is improvising on tuba, which he plays in a roaring and whooping style with remarkable facility, or on the baritone saxophone, which he wields with fluent authority and a dark, smoking tone, he combines New Orleans phrasing, avant‐garde shrieks, blues riffing and multi‐noted bebop flurries in a consistently exciting and wildly original style.”In the 1990s, well into middle age, Mr. Johnson signed with Verve Records and released three albums with Gravity, full of blues-battered, elegantly arranged music: “Arrival: A Pharoah Sanders Tribute” (1994), “Gravity!!!” (1995) and “Right Now!” (1998). The last album featured Mr. Mahal singing roisterous straight-ahead jazz on some tracks.Mr. Johnson in 2008. Despite health problems, he remained active until nearly the end of his life.Credit…Michael JacksonMr. Johnson remained active until nearly the end of his life, despite a number of health setbacks. In 2017, he and Gravity released a quietly triumphant last album, “Testimony,” with some original members still in the band. His daughter also makes an appearance on the album.In 2008, the instrument maker Meinl Weston unveiled the HoJo Gravity Series tuba, designed for players with Mr. Johnson’s wide range.“This is something I hear every time: ‘I didn’t know a tuba could do that!’” Mr. Johnson said in a 2019 interview with the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College in upstate New York. “Well, that means I haven’t been doing my job, because I’ve been doing it since 1962, and people still don’t know.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Biden Inauguration: Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez Will Perform

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Biden TransitionliveLatest UpdatesUnderstand the Trump ImpeachmentBiden Tries to Rise AboveBiden’s FocusCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez to Sing at Biden’s InaugurationLady Gaga will sing the national anthem at Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony, which will feature a performance by Jennifer Lopez.Lady Gaga, who will sing the national anthem at Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony next week.Credit…Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJan. 14, 2021Updated 12:15 p.m. ETLady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez will be among the A-list artists to take part next week in the inauguration ceremonies of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., his inaugural committee announced Thursday, adding their names to a lineup that includes Justin Timberlake and Jon Bon Jovi.In a news release, the Presidential Inaugural Committee said that Lady Gaga would sing the national anthem at the swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20 and that Lopez would offer a “musical performance” of some kind.❤️🤍💙 #Inauguration2021 pic.twitter.com/ay3C56wfue— jlo (@JLo) January 14, 2021
      Amanda Gorman, who in 2017 became the first National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States, will read poetry; a firefighter will lead the Pledge of Allegiance; and a priest and a pastor who are close friends of Mr. Biden will lead the invocation and benediction.“They represent one clear picture of the grand diversity of our great nation and will help honor and celebrate the time-honored traditions of the presidential inauguration as President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris take the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol,” Tony Allen, the head of the head Presidential Inaugural Committee said in a statement.The performance announcements add new detail to the emerging portrait of Mr. Biden’s reimagined inauguration — one that will be taking place amid heightened health and safety concerns as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage and Washington grapples with the fallout of last week’s riot at the Capitol by a Trump-aligned mob.On Wednesday, Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee announced that it would hold a prime time television event to close out the festivities and that the event featuring Timberlake and Bon Jovi that would be hosted by the actor Tom Hanks.Art and music have long been leveraged by incoming presidents to help capture the mood of the moment, provide symbolism and help advance the broad themes the new administration is focused on. In Mr. Biden’s case, that theme is “America United” in a time of sharp partisanship and division — an inaugural theme that echoes a through line of Mr. Biden’s campaign, during which he repeatedly pledged to “restore the soul” of the nation.And although many aspects of the swearing-in ceremony will recall past inaugurations, the proceedings will generally be smaller and socially-distanced, and some events will take place virtually. Officials have indicated that there will be a televised “virtual parade across America” and a public art installation on the National Mall. With the virus raging, there have been no mentions of indoor, in-person inaugural balls or galas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Taylor Swift’s Ode to Moving On, and 9 More New Songs

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistTaylor Swift’s Ode to Moving On, and 9 More New SongsHear tracks by Barry Gibb and Dolly Parton, Rhye, Tim Berne and others.Taylor Swift’s “It’s Time to Go” is a bonus track from the sessions that yielded her quarantine albums.Credit…Beth GarrabrantJon Pareles, Giovanni Russonello and Jan. 8, 2021Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Taylor Swift, ‘It’s Time to Go’[embedded content]Of course Taylor Swift had even more songs recorded during the 2020 quarantine that has already yielded her albums “Folklore” and “Evermore,” which now gets a bonus track. “It’s Time to Go” — terse lines set against an insistent one-note guitar and four chords — maps romantic and workplace setbacks against her own struggle to hold onto her multiplatinum catalog: “He’s got my past frozen behind glass/But I’ve got me.” It’s advice, rationalization, a way to move on: “Sometimes giving up is the strong thing,” she sings. JON PARELESCeleste, ‘Love Is Back’Celeste — who, at least in Britain, has been on the verge of a breakout moment for the past few years — rang in 2021 with a performance of her new single “Love Is Back” on Jools Holland’s annual New Year’s Eve show. Amid rhythmic blasts of brass, the 26-year-old soul singer croons coolly for much of the song before a dazzling grand finale showcases the strength of her smoky voice, which recalls both Amy Winehouse and Billie Holiday. With a debut album, “Not Your Muse,” slated for release on Feb. 26, this could finally be Celeste’s year. LINDSAY ZOLADZSaweetie featuring Doja Cat, ‘Best Friend’The gender warfare in pop hip-hop continues with “Best Friend,” particularly in its video version, which opens by mocking “toxic masculinity” and “another fake woke misogynist” — a bare-chested guest guy — while Saweetie and Doja Cat lounge in bikinis. A twangy two-bar loop accompanies the two women as they flatly declare financial independence and, eventually, find each other. PARELESRhye, ‘Come in Closer’Ideas waft up and ripple away throughout “Come in Closer” the smoothly elusive new single from the breathy, androgynous-voiced Canadian singer and songwriter Michael Milosh, who records as Rhye. Hardly anything is stable; not the beat, not the chord changes, not the vocal melodies or instrumental countermelodies, not an arrangement that moves from churchy organ to a string-laden R&B march to eerie a cappella vocal harmonies. The only constant is yearning: “How I’d love for you to come home with me” is the song’s closest thing to a refrain. PARELESVirgil Abloh featuring serpentwithfeet, ‘Delicate Limbs’Virgil Abloh is best known as a designer; no wonder “Delicate Limbs” begins with fashion-conscious lyrics: “Those gray pants you love might bring you luck, but if they ever fray you can call on me.” But “Delicate Limbs” even more clearly ties in with the catalog of Abloh’s collaborator, serpentwithfeet, a.k.a. the singer and songwriter Josiah Wise. It’s an incantatory enigma, wandering among electronic drones, jazzy drum crescendos and cinematic orchestration, building extraordinary drama. PARELESBarry Gibb featuring Dolly Parton, ‘Words’Viewers of the recent HBO documentary “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” will recall that it was not Dolly Parton nor Kenny Rogers who wrote their mammoth 1983 hit “Islands in the Stream,” but, actually, the Brothers Gibb. So Parton is a natural choice for a duet partner on Barry Gibb’s moving and delicately crafted new album “Greenfields — The Gibb Brothers’ Songbook Vol. 1,” on which the last surviving Bee Gee adds a little twang to some of the group’s standards and collaborates with country artists like Miranda Lambert and fellow Aussie cowboy Keith Urban. Parton joins him for a piano-driven, gently elegiac rendition of the 1968 hit “Words.” On the original single and often in concert, this was the rare Bee Gees song that Barry Gibb sang solo. Reimagining it as a duet, and especially with a voice as warm as Parton’s, makes “Words” feel less like a confession of regret and more like a prelude to reconciliation. ZOLADZSun June, ‘Everything I Had’“Everything I had, I want it back,” Sun June’s Laura Colwell sings on the Austin band’s latest single — certainly a relatable refrain for these times. It’s also a fittingly wistful sentiment for a band that playfully describes its sound as “regret pop,” blending the melodic flutter of Colwell’s voice with dreamy tempos that invite contemplation. (Its second album, “Somewhere,” will be out on Feb. 5.) The lyrics, though, conjure a certain restlessness, as Colwell considers moving all the way to Los Angeles before settling on a new apartment three doors down from where she used to live — presumably just far enough to stare longingly at the old one. ZOLADZJohn Fogerty, ‘Weeping in the Promised Land’“Weeping in the Promised Land” is John Fogerty’s memento of 2020: pandemic, disinformation, economic crisis, Black Lives Matter. In a quasi-hymn, with bedrock piano chords and a swelling choir, he surveys the devastation overseen by a “pharaoh” who keeps “a-preaching, but he never had a plan.” It doesn’t foresee redemption. PARELESScience Friction, ‘Heavy Mental’[embedded content]The alto saxophonist Tim Berne and the trumpeter Herb Robertson circle each other like fighters getting acquainted in the first round at the start of this itchy, low-fi recording, which Berne captured at 55 Bar in Greenwich Village 17 years ago. He’s been releasing recordings from the vault on Bandcamp, and this one — which he found on a CD-R lying on his studio floor, and posted Christmas Day — is especially raw and lively. The guitarist Marc Ducret joins after a minute, adding his own wiry lines and helping outline the track’s central melodic phrase before Tom Rainey’s drums and Craig Taborn’s keyboards enter and the quintet wriggles into a long, tumbling jam. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMiguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo, ‘Alma Adentro (Live)’At the Jazz Gallery this fall, the alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón and the pianist Luis Perdomo recorded a concert of boleros (or romantic songs, from a range of Latin American traditions), and the set was so understatedly good that after streaming it on Zenón’s Facebook page, the pair decided to release it as an album. This track is a ruminative lament, written by the Puerto Rican singer and polymath Sylvia Rexach for her brother, who had died in an accident; it was the title track — and the most tender moment — on Zenón’s big band album a decade ago. On the new version, as Perdomo alone carries its downward-spiraling chord progression, the pair spends nearly 10 minutes wandering into and away from the song’s wistful melody, as if reliving a distant memory. RUSSONELLOAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      What's It Like to Inspire a Song?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Song Is You … for the Rest of Your LifeWhat’s it like to be name-checked by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Amy Winehouse, et al? We asked, among others, “our” Sharona.Taylor Swift, seen here during a performance in 2019, frequently name-checks her friends, former boyfriends, and family, in her songs.Credit…Manny Carabel/Getty ImagesJan. 7, 2021Updated 5:44 a.m. ETThere are some songs that have lyrics so saturating of our psyche that they seem almost innate; that have crowds raising their drinks and bellowing along to the chorus in a dive bar at 2 a.m. … well, maybe not that, at least not now.But what if that song that seems to be playing everywhere has an uncanny resonance? What if that song is actually about you?Songs named for people have long been part of the pop culture landscape: Dolly Parton’s Jolene, the elusive Lola name-dropped by the Kinks, the mysterious Roxanne (Sting, Arizona Zervas). Taylor Swift’s new album, “Evermore,” has two tracks named for women; “Marjorie” appears to be inspired by Ms. Swift’s grandmother. The other one, “Dorothea,” has set the internet alive with debate about its inspiration.All this is very familiar to Valerie Star, a makeup artist. In 2006 Dave McCabe, whom she’d dated for a short time, wrote an indie rock song about their relationship. Their heady romance was cut short when Ms. Star was arrested on charges of driving under the influence, and Mr. McCabe’s musical tribute served as a sort of wistful love letter to her.Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson made “Valerie,” an obscure song by the Zutons, into a ubiquitous hit.Credit…Justin Goff/UK Press, via Getty ImagesThe song’s inspiration, Valerie Star, a makeup artist, at a New York Fashion Week show in 2016.Credit…Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan, via Getty ImagesPlayed by Mr. McCabe’s band the Zutons, the song peaked at No. 9 on the British charts. It might have faded into obscurity but for the interest of Amy Winehouse, who recorded a version of “Valerie” with Mark Ronson. The rest is a history written in endless covers and, at one time, karaoke renditions.“That’s when I really started hearing the song out and about randomly, in movies, and commercials. It’s everywhere,” Ms. Star said in an interview. “It was a brilliant song, and I loved everything about it. It described that moment in my life and those trials and tribulations that I had gone through in the most quintessential way. I would never change a thing about the reasons why that song happened, the things that put me in that situation or anything about Dave and I.”Like the Zutons, whose other almost-hit track was “Oh Stacey (Look What You’ve Done),” Ms. Swift has name-dropped many times in her lyrics. “Betty” was speculated to be Karlie Kloss (whose middle name is Elizabeth) and Rebekah Harkness (who is said to have used Betty as a nickname), before Ms. Swift eventually confirmed that the song was named after Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’s youngest daughter.And who could forget the hit single “Style,” supposedly based on Ms. Swift’s romance with Harry Styles? Or her back catalog classic “Hey Stephen,” a song inspired by Ms. Swift’s teenage crush?The identity of the woman that Ms. Swift sings about in her latest record may never be revealed, if she even exists, but if she does then Sharona Alperin, the subject of the Knack’s 1979 hit “My Sharona,” may have some wisdom to impart.Ms. Alperin was introduced to the lead singer of The Knack, Doug Fieger, when she was working in a clothing store, by his girlfriend at the time, and was invited to hear the band play at a rehearsal studio. “Soon after he met me, he took me to lunch and told me he was in love with me,” she said. “I thought it was sweet, but he was 11 years older and I had a boyfriend at the time who I was madly in love with.”The Knack on stage at Hurrah’s in New York City in 1979.Credit…Ebet Roberts/Redferns, via Getty ImagesSharona Alperin, a real estate agent, is the inspiration behind the Knack’s most famous song, “My Sharona,” which people are constantly singing to her. “There are good days and bad days,” she said.Credit…Stefanie Keenan/Getty ImagesEventually Mr. Fieger won Ms. Alperin after writing the catchy bass-driven track about her. She spent her late teens touring the world with him, with the song that pleads with her to “give me some time” being the highlight of every show.“It played everywhere I went,” Ms. Alperin recalled. “It was in the elevator, it was in the dentist, it was on the airplane, in the market, played by every Top 40 band. It was everywhere. It was exciting, and it was everything.”And then, by the time she was 21, it was enough.“When we broke up it was time to be my Sharona,” Ms. Alperin said. “The word ‘my’ in that song says a lot. There’s not more of a possessive or obsessive word in the English vocabulary. He thought I was his soul mate, his other half, but it was a lot.”Similarly, while many were charmed by the Plain White T’s 2006 love song “Hey There Delilah,” the real Delilah DiCrescenzo was somewhat less so. Ms. DiCrescenzo was living in New York City at the time — as crooned plaintively in the opening lines — and she reported being stunned when a brief encounter led to her being name-checked. In a 2013 interview she remembered being anxious that she had led the songwriter Tom Higgenson on, feeling the pressure to live up to the expectations of fans and worrying about the impact on her fledgling athletic career.Plain White T’s and Delilah DiCrescenzo, center, who inspired the song “Hey There Delilah,” arrive at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards in 2008.Credit…Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesAnd these women were written about before social media truly took off. The online furor to uncover the identity of Beyoncé’s “Becky with the good hair,” framed as the singer’s rival in “Sorry” on “Lemonade,” reflects how an era of lessened privacy means that being the subject of a song can now be much more invasive.“‘My Sharona’ was written before social media,” Ms. Alperin said. “Things are very different now, and I feel that I wouldn’t have had the privacy that I have now if it had been written today.”Indeed, Ms. Star managed to keep her identity a secret until 2019, when she was tracked down by Vice. But although she said that she has now removed “Valerie” from her playlists, and avoids bringing up the connection to the song on a first date, particularly with other musicians), she has no regrets about what she called “a part of my life, a moment in time that has transpired, that will live forever, ‘Valerie’ has made a mark that has now taken on a life of its own. I wouldn’t change anything about it.”Now a real-estate agent in Los Angeles, Ms. Alperin said that people will sing the song to her when she introduces herself without even realizing that she is the inspiration, and plead for pictures while she does open house viewings.“There are good days and bad days,” she said. “I’ve never gone a week without people singing ‘My Sharona’ to me. It’s been with me all these years, and it would never do me any good to feel anything other than gratitude and humility about it. It’s nice to bring people excitement, and it’s a special thing in my life. I appreciate the wonderful experience it’s been.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Grammy Awards Postponed as Covid-19 Rages in Los Angeles

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGrammy Awards Postponed as Covid-19 Rages in Los AngelesThe delay comes less than four weeks before the ceremony was to be held, on Jan. 31. The event will now be held on March 14.Beyoncé is the most-nominated artist for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, which will no longer take place in January.Credit…Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBen Sisario and Jan. 5, 2021The 63rd annual Grammy Awards, set to be presented this month, have been delayed over concerns about Covid-19, which has been spreading rapidly in the Los Angeles area.The show will now be held on March 14, according to a statement from Grammy organizers, although few other details were available about where, and how, the event would go on.“The deteriorating Covid situation in Los Angeles, with hospital services being overwhelmed, I.C.U.s having reached capacity, and new guidance from state and local governments have all led us to conclude that postponing our show was the right thing to do,” said the statement, which was signed by executives at the Recording Academy, which presents the Grammys, and CBS, its longtime broadcast partner.“Nothing is more important,” it added, “than the health and safety of those in our music community and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly on producing the show.”The delay comes less than four weeks before the ceremony was to be held, on Jan. 31, and as unions and entertainment industry groups have called to suspend in-person television and film production in Los Angeles, citing the surging virus and overwhelmed hospitals. Several late-night shows have moved back to remote formats.The pandemic has kept this year’s Grammys under a cloud of uncertainty for months. In an interview in November, when nominations were announced, Harvey Mason Jr., the chairman and interim chief executive of the academy, said that an event was planned for a small audience in Los Angeles, but that many other details were still being worked out. Trevor Noah, from “The Daily Show,” was to be the host.Even the news of the postponement on Tuesday left the music industry confused. After Rolling Stone reported that the ceremony had been postponed, neither the academy nor CBS made any official public statement for hours. An email to academy members — and the Grammys’ official website — both said that the new date was March 21. That was quickly rescinded, although the incorrect date continued to bounce around social media and was picked up by some news outlets.Beyoncé has the most nominations for the ceremony, with nine in eight categories. Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa and the rapper Roddy Ricch are among the other major contenders for awards. In classic Grammys fashion, controversy — or at least loud complaints — have swarmed around this year’s nominations, as stars like the Weeknd and the country singer Luke Combs, who had some of the biggest hits of the period, were left off the ballot.Despite offstage griping, the Grammys remain one of the most high-profile moments in the year in pop music, with stars relishing the TV exposure and record executives schmoozing during glittery industry gatherings. Even if muted by the pandemic, the Grammys had been expected to represent a major media moment for the music world.This year was set to mark a new era for the Grammys. Ken Ehrlich, its producer for four decades, stepped down after last year’s ceremony. The new show is to be produced by Ben Winston, who has worked with James Corden. In an interview with Variety last month, Winston said he was “looking to do something quite exciting with independent venues” around this year’s Grammys.The telecast is also a major tent-pole event for CBS, though the show’s ratings have been sagging. Last year 18.7 million people watched the Grammys live on television, a 12-year low.Other major awards shows have attempted a variety of approaches during various stages of the pandemic, with mixed results. The BET Awards, held in June; the MTV Video Music Awards, in August; the Billboard Music Awards, in October; and the Latin Grammys, in November, were televised without audiences, and artists appeared remotely from soundstages to perform and accept awards.The Country Music Association Awards held an in-person ceremony in Nashville in November, with a live audience consisting mostly of the show’s performers, who were socially distanced but largely unmasked. A month after the awards, the singer Charley Pride, 86, died of complications from Covid-19, although where he was exposed remains unknown.In other industries, the pandemic forced the Emmy Awards to stage a largely virtual event in September. The Tony Awards announced in August that the show would go ahead, online, at an unspecified date, after initially postponing its June date.The Oscars were postponed two months from their original Feb. 28 date to April 25, with the format of the ceremony not yet determined. A week after that delay was announced, the Golden Globes then said that it would hold its ceremony, typically scheduled for January, in-person — as usual, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. — on Feb. 28 instead.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Gerry Marsden, a Hitmaker With the Pacemakers, Dies at 78

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGerry Marsden, a Hitmaker With the Pacemakers, Dies at 78For a time in the early ’60s, with songs like“Ferry Cross the Mersey,” “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” the Pacemakers rivaled the Beatles.Gerry Marsden, aloft, in a publicity photo with the other members of Gerry and Pacemakers in 1964. They  had the distinction of scoring a No. 1 hit in the U.K. before the Beatles did.Credit…Press Association, via Associated PressJan. 4, 2021Updated 6:49 p.m. ETGerry Marsden, whose band Gerry and the Pacemakers proved to be formidable rivals to the Beatles in the early Liverpool rock scene of the 1960s, scoring smash hits like “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” died on Sunday in the Liverpool area. He was 78.His death, at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Merseyside metropolitan area, was confirmed by his family in a statement. British news outlets said the cause was a heart infection.Gerry and the Pacemakers were the second band signed by the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, but they earned a No. 1 single on the official United Kingdom singles chart before the Beatles ever did, accomplishing that feat in 1963 with their debut single, “How Do You Do It.” It beat the Beatles’ maiden chart-topper, “From Me to You,” by three weeks.The Pacemakers’ next two singles, “I Like It” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” followed suit, making them the first act to summit the U.K. singles chart with their first three releases. They held that record for two decades, until another Liverpool band, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, matched it.The Pacemakers didn’t write their first burst of hits; the first two were by Mitch Murray, while the band plucked the valiant ballad “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel.” (The Beatles recorded an earlier version of the effervescent “How Do You Do It” at the behest of their producer George Martin, but they weren’t pleased with the song, so it wasn’t released at the time. It didn’t surface until three decades later on the Beatles’ “Anthology 1” collection.)Mr. Marsden’s talent as a songwriter emerged in 1964, first as co-writer, with his bandmates, of “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” then as the sole writer of “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” named for the waterway that flows by Liverpool.The melodies in those songs had a grandeur that exuded both melancholy and rapture, enhanced by Mr. Marsden’s billowing voice. While he could nail the bouncy flair of the band’s lighter singles and mirror it with his brisk rhythm guitar work, his soaring range gave him the chops to turn songs like “You’ll Never Walk Alone” into anthems. His group’s version of “Walk Alone” became the signature song of the Liverpool Football Club and was later adopted by sports teams around the world.The Pacemakers took off more slowly in the United States. Their first trifecta of U.K. hits missed the American charts before “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” soared to No. 4 in Billboard magazine and “Ferry Cross the Mersey” got to No. 6. The group had two other U.S. scores, a rereleased “I Like It” and “I’ll Be There,” which each made Billboard’s Top 20 in 1964.After his death, Paul McCartney wrote on Twitter: “Gerry was a mate from our early days in Liverpool. He and his group were our biggest rivals on the local scene. His unforgettable performances of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’ remain in many people’s hearts as reminders of a joyful time in British music.”Mr. Marsden in 1964. The Pacemakers’ melodies had a grandeur that exuded both melancholy and rapture, enhanced by Mr. Marsden’s billowing voice.Credit…Keystone/Getty ImagesGerard Marsden was born on Sept. 24, 1942, in the Toxteth section of Liverpool to Fredrick and Mary (McAlindin) Marsden. His father was a railway clerk who played the ukulele, The Guardian once wrote. His parents encouraged both Gerry and his older brother, Fred, to play instruments. Gerry chose guitar; Fred, the drums.The brothers’ first band, Gerry Marsden and the Mars Bars, played skiffle music, a British precursor to rock ’n’ roll. After the Mars company objected to the band’s appropriating the name of their signature chocolate candy, they became Gerry and the Pacemakers, rounded out by Les Chadwick on bass and Les Maguire on piano.The quartet honed their skills in the same clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, that nurtured the Beatles. “In 1959, we started playing rock ’n’ roll to the Germans,” Mr. Marsden told the New Zealand television show “The Beat Goes On” in 2009. “We used to play from 7 in the evening until 2 in the morning, with a 15-minute break every hour. It was a great apprenticeship in music.”Mr. Epstein met the group at the record store he ran, NEMS Music. After seeing them play, he signed them and secured a deal with Columbia Records. To Mr. Marsden’s delight, Mr. Martin produced their early recordings. “We had only heard our voices on crummy tape recorders before,” he told the website the Beatles Bible. “We couldn’t believe we sounded so good.”The group’s string of British No. 1’s nearly amounted to four, but their single “I’m the One,” penned by Mr. Marsden, missed the top slot by one position, just behind “Needles and Pins,” by another Liverpudlian band, the Searchers. In 1965, the group played themselves in a movie musical comedy, “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” but it wasn’t popular and drew unflattering comparisons to the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” from a year earlier.“It is mildly funny,” The New York Times wrote. “But we’ve seen it all before.”The group had their final American Top 40 score in September 1966 with “Girl on a Swing.” One month later, they disbanded. Mr. Marsden afterward worked as a solo performer before reforming the Pacemakers in 1974, without chart success.Mr. Marsden sang before a soccer match at Anfield Stadium in Liverpool in 2010. His group’s version of “Walk Alone” became the signature song of the Liverpool Football Club.Credit…Michael Regan/Getty ImagesIn the 1980s, Mr. Marsden reclaimed the No. 1 position twice in the U.K. with re-recordings of his ’60s hits for charitable causes. Following a fire in 1985 at the Bradford Football Stadium in Yorkshire that killed 56 people, he formed a group called the Crowd to cut a new version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”Four years later, following a fatal human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in South Yorkshire, he joined with Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and other artists to rerecord “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” to benefit families of the victims. Mr. Marsden continued to tour the oldies circuit until retiring in November 2018.He married Pauline Behan in 1965, and she survives him, along with their daughters Yvette and Victoria. His brother, Fred, died of cancer in 2006.Even into his later years, the famously humble Mr. Marsden remained surprised by his band’s international success.“I used to believe you had to be something special to have a hit record,” he said on “The Beat Goes On.” “We were just kids from Liverpool.”He recalled that even when his band’s debut single, “How Did You Do It,” took off, his mother wouldn’t let it go to his head: “When I told my mom that the song was going to be No. 1, she said: ‘That’s great. Now finish your fish and chips.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Love Music to Surprise You? Jon Caramanica Recommends TikTok Dives

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyQUESTIONS FROM THE BOSSLove Music to Surprise You? Jon Caramanica Recommends TikTok DivesThe Times’s Culture editor has questions. Our critic has answers.The songs on Fiona Apple’s 2020 album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” succeed by connecting to the artist’s resentments as well as her creative impulses.Credit…Gary Miller/Getty ImagesJan. 1, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETAs the editor of the Culture department at The New York Times, Gilbert Cruz relies on critics, reporters and editors in every field of the arts for their expertise. Now we’re bringing his personal questions — and our writers’ answers — to you. Currently on his mind: how to open himself up to new music, and tangle with the beast known as TikTok, which he posed to Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic.Gilbert asks: We’re approaching the tail-end of one of my favorite times of year — Top 10 list time! The holidays have passed, but I’m still catching up on stuff. I love reading ours, I love reading those from other publications. It really allows me to feel both superior (“Yeah, I saw that”) and inferior (“Damn, I didn’t even hear about that”) at the same time. Last year, after seeing your No. 1 album, I distinctly recall asking myself, “What is 100 gecs?” putting on the song “Money Machine” while my 5-year old was in the room and immediately regretting it. This is one of the reasons I appreciate you.This year, I played it so safe as a music listener. In March, it felt as if I would have time to explore so much of the new — and instead I just played my favorite albums over and over again. Did I do it wrong? Can your year-end list (and Jon Pareles’s and Lindsay Zoladz’s) redeem me and those like me?Jon answers: First off, please enumerate all of the other reasons you appreciate me. If we have any space left, I’ll …I’m really glad that I hit my target demographic, which is to say your child, which is to say someone who remains open to all of the wacky, unexpected possibilities of music. I’d guess that by the time we are, I dunno, 13, we already begin to understand music as something that defines us socially, and about which we can become tribal. That is, of course, a shame. I wish child’s ears for everyone.Look, you’ll find great, revelatory things on my album and song lists — for your little one, try Rina Sawayama and Flo Milli — but I’m not sure there’s much on there that will snap me or you or anyone else out of [madly waves hands around] all of this. Fiona Apple probably came closest for me — it was nice to hear someone with such a direct line to both their resentments and their creative impulses.I think the artists who suffered this year — critically, at least — were those who stayed the course. In a different year, say, Gunna might have gotten more critical attention. But his 2020 album wasn’t much different than his 2019 album, and I found that I didn’t have much to say about him that I hadn’t already said. In a year where it sometimes felt onerous just to extract the energy to even absorb a work of art, albums like that felt easy to nod at and move past.Gilbert asks: It’s a big part of your job to constantly experience the new — but is there older stuff that you find yourself returning to for comfort?Jon answers: I do think that discomfort is my beat, to a certain extent. I generally find myself allergic to familiar pleasures. That said, for the last couple of years, few things have been more calming than the music of the Griselda Records crew, from Buffalo, which is grounded in the 1990s New York rap that makes up around 85 percent of my DNA. The way the syllables have sturdy corners, but there’s still a liquidity between them — it’s as reassuring as my mother’s voice.Also, I know it might sound odd to say that I found comfort in TikTok, the centerless, directionless app that grabs you by the neck and clings tight for as long as you’ll let it, but I found its relentless, crossed-up rhythms soothing. There are endless rabbit holes to fall down, myriad subcultures to peek in on, countless around-the-way superstars who have finally found their dream milieu.Gilbert asks: Yeah, I heard you say something similar on a recent episode of Popcast where you talked about how you “struggled this year to listen to albums” and wondered about the “utility of the album.” Do you think that’s a function of quarantine, or is it just an extension of the playlist-ification of music? Honestly, almost every new song I discovered this year I discovered through some Spotify playlist. (No free ads.)Jon answers: As awful as it sounds, an album is simply a data dump now. That doesn’t mean that some artists won’t continue to aim to be auteurs of the form — say, Taylor Swift or Adele — but the minute albums hit streaming services, they are sliced and diced and the songs are relegated to playlist slots, and everything after that is a crap shoot. The truth is that albums worked as a medium only because everyone was a captive. When you look back at your favorite older albums now, I’m sure you see the weak spots that you’d happily have programmed out if you had the technology then. Now you do. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next generation of pop stars finds ways to never release an “album” again — they’ll just drip music out, one automated-brain-chip-download at a time.Gilbert asks: OK, I have to come back to something, though. It’s embarrassing.Here it is — I’m just not on TikTok much. (Insert grimace emoji.) I know I should be because it’s a major part of the culture, but there are only so many ways I can direct my time. This Robert Caro book isn’t going to finish itself, Jon! What are some of the best things you’ve seen there this year?Jon answers: It’s cool, man — you get paid to run the department, and I get paid to do … this.#FrogTikTok. Teens talking about reading political theory, both as means to revolution and to flirtation. @funkbeezly’s taxonomy of boyfriends. The debunking of Noah Beck’s Yale soccer scholarship. The House Nobody Asked For. Jordan Scott. (Sorry.) (Someone help him with his merch, though.) The joy in the comments when Charli D’Amelio finally danced to ppcocaine’s “3 Musketeers.” High fashion satirist guys who’ll soon be in need of chiropractors. Jeremy O. Harris’s “WAP” dance at Pompeii. @cyberexboyfriend. The very long, very specific memory of @nfbroleelove. “Who’s the drunkest?” Dances to Phoebe Bridgers and Soccer Mommy. @karchill and his Mentos. The many flavors of Pop Smoke and Lil Tjay’s “Mood Swings.” Kids in Zoom classrooms telling their teachers how much they appreciate them. Jasmine Orlando. “Where? Bunny? Surplus? Labor? Value?” And of course, Larry Scott, who always had a “nice” ready when I needed one.Gilbert asks: What’s the longest you’ve ever spent scrolling through TikTok?Jon answers: Ummmmmmm … three hours? So, not nearly long enough.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More