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      Summer Walker Beats Abba’s First Album in Decades to No. 1

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      The Atlanta R&B singer’s “Still Over It” becomes her first LP to top the Billboard 200, with the equivalent of 166,000 sales in the United States.When Abba, whose classic songs like “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance on Me” are the epitome of Europop ear candy, announced in September that it would be returning this fall with its first studio album in 40 years, it was assumed that the new release would be an immediate blockbuster.The album, “Voyage,” came out on Nov. 5, and it has indeed reached higher on Billboard’s chart than any previous Abba release — but it did not quite go to No. 1.“Voyage” opens at No. 2 with solid album sales but low streaming numbers, edged out by the latest from Summer Walker, a 25-year-old R&B singer from Atlanta.Walker’s “Still Over It” becomes her first No. 1 album, with the equivalent of 166,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. Fans mostly consumed “Still Over It,” Walker’s second album, on streaming services. It had 201 million clicks online and sold 12,000 copies as a complete package.Abba’s “Voyage” had the equivalent of 82,000 sales; of those, 78,000 were attributed to copies sold as a complete package, including 42,000 CDs and 17,500 vinyl LPs. (It was available in eight vinyl configurations, including two picture discs and five color variants, in addition to standard black.) Songs from “Voyage” were streamed 4.9 million times — or about as many clicks as Walker got in four hours during her debut week.“Voyage” is also the title of Abba’s virtual comeback concert, in which computer-generated “Abbatars” of its four members will perform with a live band in a custom-built venue in London, starting in May.“What interested us was the idea that we could send them out while we can be at home cooking or walking the dog,” Benny Andersson, one of the group’s members, told The New York Times in a recent interview.Despite the enduring popularity of Abba’s singles, its original albums were only moderate chart hits in the United States. According to Billboard, the group’s highest-charting title before “Voyage” was “Abba: The Album,” which went to No. 14 in 1978. (Two Abba-related soundtracks did better: “Mamma Mia!” went to No. 1 in 2008, and “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!” landed at No. 3 a decade later.)Ed Sheeran’s “=,” last week’s top seller, falls to No. 4, while Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” is No. 3 and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 5. More

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      Ronnie Wilson, Founder of the Gap Band, Dies at 73

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      After beginning his career as a teenager, he joined with his two younger brothers to record R&B hits like “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” and “Outstanding.”Ronnie Wilson, the founder of the Gap Band, which rode a funky party sound to success on the R&B charts in the late 1970s and throughout the ’80s, died on Tuesday. He was 73.The death was announced on Facebook by Mr. Wilson’s wife, Linda Boulware-Wilson. She did not say where he died or what the cause was.The Gap Band topped the R&B charts four times and placed 15 songs in the R&B Top 10 from 1979 to 1990; two of its singles, “Early in the Morning” and “You Dropped a Bomb on Me,” reached the pop Top 40 in 1982. Ronnie Wilson primarily played keyboards but also contributed horn and percussion parts in a rotating vocal and instrumental arrangement with his two younger brothers, Robert, who mainly played bass, and Charlie, the lead singer.Hits like “Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)” (1980) defined the Gap Band’s sound, which The New York Times critic Stephen Holden described in 1981 as “swinging minimalist funk — sweaty, slangy and streetwise.” Some of their other best-known tracks, like “Outstanding” (1982), struck an erotic tone in a softer manner — less stomping of the feet, more rolling of the hips.The Gap Band appeared on “Soul Train,” the premier television showcase for Black music at the time, and appeared in concert alongside bands like Kool & the Gang.In the years after their popularity peaked, the Gap Band’s tunes were sampled hundreds of times. Ashanti’s 2002 hit “Happy” got its leisurely, bouncy sound from “Outstanding,” and N.W.A.’s canonical “Straight Outta Compton” sped up and darkened “Burn Rubber on Me.”The Gap Band on “Soul Train” in 1979.Afro American Newspapers/Gado, via Getty ImagesIn an interview with the weekly San Francisco newspaper The Sun-Reporter in 1999, Mr. Wilson said that he and his younger brothers were addressed with the honorific “Uncle” before their names by current music stars like Snoop Dogg “because we helped to lay the foundation for hip-hop.”Ronnie Wilson was born on April 7, 1948, in Tulsa, Okla. His father, Oscar, was a minister, and Ronnie and his brothers grew up playing music in church.Ronnie formed his first band as a teenager, and over time he got his brothers involved. The word “Gap” in the Gap Band’s name came from Greenwood Avenue, Archer Street and Pine Street in Tulsa’s Greenwood district — the neighborhood, once known as Black Wall Street, that was the site of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.The group got an early boost in the music business, and met stars like Bob Dylan, thanks to the rock singer and pianist Leon Russell, long based in Tulsa, who had the Gap Band back him on his album “Stop All That Jazz” (1974). The Wilson brothers signed their first major-label deal, with Mercury, a few years later.Ronnie Wilson later worked as a minister and continued to perform occasionally. His brother Charlie pursued a successful solo singing career. The other brother in the band, Robert, died in 2010.A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Alicia Keys’s Hypnotic Love Jam, and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Anaïs Mitchell, Hurray for the Riff Raff, ASAP Rocky and others.Every 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.Alicia Keys, ‘Best of Me’The steady, diligent beat is from Sade’s “Cherish the Day” by way of Raphael Saadiq; the promises of loyalty, honesty and absolute devotion are from Alicia Keys as she channels Sade’s utterly self-sacrificing love. “We could build a castle from tears,” Keys vows. The track is hypnotic and open-ended, fading rather than resolving, as if it could go on and on. It’s from a double album coming Dec. 10 featuring two versions of the songs: “Originals,” produced by Keys, and “Unlocked,” produced by Keys and Mike Will Made-It. JON PARELESHurray for the Riff Raff, ‘Rhododendron’The first single from Hurray for the Riff Raff’s forthcoming album “Life on Earth” is frisky and poetic, contrasting the wisdom of the natural world with the chaos of humanity. The New Orleans singer-songwriter Alynda Segarra (who uses they/she pronouns) is so enthralled with the wonders of plant life that they are able to extract lyricism from simply listing off some famous flora (“night blooming jasmine, deadly nightshade”) in a wonderfully Dylan-esque growl. The chorus, though, comes as a warning in the face of ecological destruction: “Don’t turn your back on the mainland.” LINDSAY ZOLADZKylie Minogue and Jessie Ware, ‘Kiss of Life’Following her excellent 2020 disco-revival record “What’s Your Pleasure?” (and this year’s Platinum Pleasure Edition, which contained enough top-tier bonus material to make an equally excellent EP) Jessie Ware gets the ultimate co-sign from the dancing queen herself, Kylie Minogue, on this playful duet. Their breathy vocals echo throughout the lush arrangement, as they trade whispered innuendo (“Cherry syrup on my tongue/how about a little fun?”) and eventually join together in sumptuous harmony. ZOLADZBaba Harare featuring Kae Chaps and Joseph Tivafire, ‘Vaccine’Baba Harare, from Zimbabwe, is a master of the genre called jiti: a speedy four-against-six beat that carries stuttering, syncopated guitars and deep gospel-tinged harmony vocals. In “Vaccine,” he’s joined by fellow Zimbabweans Kae Chaps and Joseph Tivafire, and between the hurtling beat and the call-and-response vocals, the song is pure joy. PARELESBitchin Bajas, ‘Outer Spaceways Incorporated’The latest project from the freewheeling ambient drone group Bitchin Bajas is boldly conceptual: a homage to one of the Chicago trio’s formative heroes, Sun Ra. As daunting as it may sound to reinterpret some of the cosmic jazz god’s most innovative compositions, Bitchin Bajas approach the challenge with a playful ingenuity. Take their cover of “Outer Spaceways Incorporated,” which in its original form is a loose, interstellar groove. Bitchin Bajas refract it instead through the lens of one of their other major influences, Wendy Carlos (hence the title “Switched on Ra”) and turn it into a kind of retro-futuristic waltz. The guest vocalist Jayve Montgomery uses an Electronic Wind Instrument to great effect, enlivening the song with an energy that’s both eerie and moving. ZOLADZASAP Rocky, ‘Sandman’ASAP Rocky has been featured on plenty of other artists’ tracks over the past few years, but “Sandman” — released to commemorate his breakthrough 2011 mixtape “Live.Love.ASAP” finally coming to streaming services — is his first new solo song since 2018. Produced by Kelvin Krash and ASAP fave Clams Casino, “Sandman” toggles between hazy atmospherics and sudden gearshifts into the more exacting side of Rocky’s flow. Plus, it gives him an opportunity to practice his French: “Merci beaucoup, just like Moulin Rouge/And I know I can, can.” Quelle surprise! ZOLADZCollectif Mali Kura, ‘L’Appel du Mali Kura’The project Collectif Mali Kura gathered 20 singers and rappers to share a call for hard work, civic responsibility (including paying taxes) and national unity in Mali. Sung in many languages, with bits of melody and instrumental flourishes that hint at multiple traditions, the song starts as a plaint and turns into an affirmation of possibility. PARELESJorge Drexler and C. Tangana, ‘Tocarte’“Tocarte” (“To Touch You”) is the second deceptively skeletal collaboration released by Jorge Drexler, from Uruguay, and C. Tangana, from Spain; the first, a tale of a showbiz has-been titled “Nominao,” has been nominated for a Latin Grammy as best alternative song. “Tocarte” is a pandemic-era track about longing for physical contact: It constructs a taut, ingenious phantom gallop of a beat out of plucked acoustic guitar notes, hand percussion and sampled voices, and neither Drexler nor Tangana raises his voice as they envision long-awaited embraces. PARELESHayes Carll, ‘Nice Things’In the twangy, foot-stomping, gravel-voiced, fiddle-topped country-rocker “Nice Things,” which opens his new album, “You Get It All,” the Texan songwriter Hayes Carll imagines a visit from God. She (yes, she) runs into pollution, over-policing and close-minded religion. “This is why I blessed you with compassion/This is why I said to love your neighbor,” she notes, before realizing, “This is why y’all can’t have nice things.” PARELESAnaïs Mitchell, ‘Bright Star’Before she wrote the beloved Tony-winning musical “Hadestown,” Anaïs Mitchell was best known as a gifted if perpetually underrated folk singer-songwriter with a knack for traditional storytelling. The stage success of “Hadestown” (which itself began life as a 2010 Mitchell album) forced her to put her career as a solo artist on hold, but early next year she’ll return with a self-titled album, her first solo release in a decade. Its leadoff single “Bright Star” is a worthy reintroduction to the openhearted luminosity of Mitchell’s voice and lyricism: “I have sailed in all directions, have followed your reflection to the farthest foreign shore,” she sings atop gently strummed acoustic chords, with all the contented warmth of someone who, after a long time away, has at last returned home. ZOLADZAoife O’Donovan featuring Allison Russell, ‘Prodigal Daughter’Aoife O’Donovan sings delicately about a reunion that could hardly be more fraught; after seven years, a daughter returns to her mother with a new baby, needing a home and knowing full well that “forgiveness won’t come easy.” O’Donovan reverses what would be a singer’s typical reflexes; as drama and tension rise, her voice grows quieter and clearer, while Allison Russell joins her with ghostly harmonies. As a tiptoeing string band backs O’Donovan’s pleas, Tim O’Brien plays echoes of Irish folk tunes on mandola, a musical hint at multigenerational bonds. PARELESMarissa Nadler, ‘Bessie, Did You Make It?’How about a chillingly beautiful modern murder ballad to cap off spooky season? The folk singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler’s new album “The Path of the Clouds,” (out Friday on, appropriately enough, Sacred Bones) was partially inspired by her quarantine binge-watch of choice: “Unsolved Mysteries.” The opening track “Bessie, Did You Make It?” creates a misty atmosphere of reverb-heavy piano and arpeggiated guitar, as Nadler tells a tale of a nearly century-old boat accident that was never quite explained. “Did you make it?” she asks her elusive subject, who seems to have perished that day along with her husband. Or: “Did you fake it, leave someone else’s bones?” ZOLADZArtifacts, ‘Song for Joseph Jarman’Artifacts features three of the leading creative improvisers on the Chicago scene: the flutist Nicole Mitchell, the cellist Tomeka Reid and the drummer Mike Reed. All are deeply entwined in the lineage of their home city, and on “Song for Joseph Jarman” — from Artifacts’ sophomore release, “ … and Then There’s This” — the trio pays homage to an influential ancestor with this slow, hushed, deeply attentive group improvisation. It’s not unlike something Jarman himself might have played. Reid and Mitchell hold long tones more than they move around, sounding as if they’re listening for a response from within each note. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO More

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      ‘Learning to Live Together’ Review: Remaking a Once-in-a-Lifetime Band

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      Joe Cocker’s bacchanalian “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour gets a reconsideration and a revival in this documentary by Jesse Lauter.Joe Cocker’s mammoth 1970 “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” American tour presented itself as a freewheeling rock ’n’ roll jamboree. As such, it astonished audiences and yielded a couple of hit singles. In 2015 the first-rate blues-rock ensemble Tedeschi Trucks Band put together a tribute show to that project, enlisting many of the surviving participants. This documentary, directed by Jesse Lauter, chronicles that undertaking and revisits the counterculture phenom that inspired it.Mad Dogs was “an emergency tour, an emergency band,” singer Rita Coolidge recalls in a new interview. After blowing away Woodstock, among other festivals, an exhausted Cocker had fired his band, hoping to duck out of a long tour. But the dates were booked and defaulting would mean financial and career ruin. The American R&B artist and bandleader Leon Russell came to the rescue, assembling a musical commune.The sometimes-reclusive Russell answered the Tedeschi Trucks call in 2015. His recollections are certainly of interest, but his protean talent is more impressive still. His performances with the new band are thrilling. (He died in 2016.)The drug-and-booze-fueled utopianism reflected in the archival footage is replaced in 2015 by what appears to be relatively clean living, mutual appreciation and joyous pragmatism.Not all the memories of the reunited players are pleasant. Coolidge recounts being assaulted at the hands of Jim Gordon, the drummer who was later convicted of slaying his mother and is serving a life sentence in prison. The Mad Dogs’ second drummer, Jim Keltner, turns an old cliché about dysfunctional families on its head: “We were too young to be dysfunctional. I don’t think anyone was in their 30s yet.” Here the now-elders seem delighted to make a joyful noise with the generations they influenced.Learning to Live Together: The Return of Mad Dogs & EnglishmenNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Andrea Martin, R&B Songwriter, Dies at 49

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      She co-wrote hits for En Vogue, Toni Braxton and other artists in the 1990s and 2000s and was also a singer, releasing an album.Andrea Martin, a songwriter behind a string of R&B hits, including Monica’s “Before You Walk Out of My Life” and Toni Braxton’s “I Love Me Some Him,” died on Sept. 27 in a hospital in New York City. She was 49.Her songwriting partner, Ivan Matias, confirmed her death but said the cause was undetermined.Ms. Martin’s first major songwriting credits, which she shared with Mr. Matias and other co-writers, came in 1995. Along with Carsten Schack and Kenneth Karlin, she wrote “Before You Walk Out of My Life,” which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and established Ms. Martin as an in-demand writer.Ms. Martin, Mr. Matias and Marqueze Etheridge together wrote En Vogue’s “Don’t Let Go (Love),” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and was nominated for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal at the 1996 Grammy Awards.Ms. Martin was also a talented vocalist, initially finding work as a backup singer, and Drew Dixon, a vice president at Arista Records in the 1990s, took notice. She signed Ms. Martin to her label as a solo artist, and Arista released her album “The Best of Me” in 1998. The record was not a commercial success, though one of its tracks, “Let Me Return the Favor,” charted on the Billboard Hot 100 as a single.“Hearing people sing my songs was the greatest feeling ever, but it wasn’t a chance for me to express how I felt,” Ms. Martin said in a 1999 interview with The Daily News of New York about the release of her album. “The songs were about my life, but somebody else was singing it. I just wanted people to know this is me and present an album that represents me.”Ms. Dixon cited racism and colorism in the recording industry as possible reasons that Ms. Martin’s solo career did not take off. Had she been lighter-skinned, Ms. Dixon said, her career might have gained more traction.“Andrea was, without a doubt, one of the best singers I ever encountered in my career, and I’m including Whitney, Aretha, Lauryn and Deborah Cox when I say that,” Ms. Dixon said.Andrea Martin was born April 14, 1972, in Brooklyn to Reginald Martin Sr. and Mavis Martin. Her family lived in the East New York neighborhood.She told The Daily News that her biggest inspiration as a child was Michael Jackson. “I’d try to imitate him all day,” she said.She attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan, graduating in 1990, and jumped right into writing songs and performing locally — even resorting to singing in the lobbies of buildings housing music publishing companies to attract the attention of executives. Her big break came when Rondor Music, a major publisher, signed her to a contract in the early 1990s.She is survived by two children, Eresha and Amaya; her parents; her sisters, Audrey and Wendy Martin; and her brothers, Reginald Jr., Michael and Shane.Ms. Martin continued to work steadily through the 2000s, writing for Leona Lewis, Melanie Fiona and Sean Kingston and appearing as a featured artist and backup singer for other acts. Mr. Matias said he expected to see unreleased projects featuring Ms. Martin emerge in the coming years.“She had a very specific sound to her writing,” Mr. Matias said. “And it didn’t matter who she worked with. She was infused into the melody.” More

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      Mitski’s Sharp Take on a Creative Life, and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Arca featuring Sia, Kelis, Tambino and others.Every 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.Mitski, ‘Working for the Knife’Mitski monumentalizes an artist’s self-doubts — the creative impulse versus the editorial knife — in “Working for the Knife.” The track begins as a trudging march with stark, droning synthesizer tones, but Patrick Hyland’s production expands into ever-wider spaces with lofty, reverberating guitars. Mitski sings about missteps and rejections at first, but her imagination perseveres: “I start the day lying and end with the truth.” JON PARELESArca featuring Sia, ‘Born Yesterday’This unexpected collaboration just had to happen. Sia has a memorably broken voice and a songwriting strategy of victim-to-victory that has brought her million-selling hits, both on her own and behind the scenes. Arca, who has made music with Björk and Kanye West, has an operatic voice and a mastery of disorienting electronics from eerie atmospherics to brutal beats. In “Born Yesterday,” Sia wails, “You took my heart and now it’s broken,” confronting a partner’s betrayal. Arca twists the electronic track all over the place, bringing in and warping and subtracting a four-on-the-floor beat, pumping up the drama as Sia decides whether she’ll be “your baby any more.” The twists never stop. PARELESTainy with Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas, ‘Lo Siento BB:/’Cynics might see a Tainy-produced track featuring Bad Bunny and the beloved pop-rock icon Julieta Venegas as the type of collaboration engineered in major label conference rooms. But “Lo Siento BB:/” is a seamless matchup that leverages both artists’ capacities for pointed vocal drama. Venegas’s sky-high melodies and funereal piano transition into El Conejo Malo’s signature baritone. Sad boys, sad girls and sad people, consider this your new anthem. ISABELIA HERRERARobert Glasper featuring D Smoke & Tiffany Gouché, ‘Shine’The Black church has been close to the center or at the very root of many big changes in American popular music; and over in the jazz world recently, gospel has been reasserting its influence. The pianist and bandleader Robert Glasper is a main driver of the trend, and this week he released “Shine,” an early single from the forthcoming “Black Radio 3,” featuring the rising M.C. D Smoke and the vocalist Tiffany Gouché. Glasper gifts the session with a signature sparkly harmonic vamp, and D Smoke projects farsighted conviction on his verses; Gouché’s vocals are beatific. This is the trinity that made the first “Black Radio” a smash, and has fed Glasper’s star formula: a gospel core, backpack-generation rap wisdom and bravado performances from female singers. But the track’s low-key showstopper is the bassist Burniss Travis, who’s doing more here than you might at first realize, which is exactly the intent. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOglaive and ericdoa, ‘Mental Anguish’This is one of the standout tracks on “Then I’ll Be Happy,” the new collaborative EP from the rising hyperpop stars glaive and ericdoa. At the beginning, it has some of the parchedness of early emo, but then lightning-bolt squelchy synths arrive, and fraught vocals that sound like they’re being microwaved in real time. JON CARAMANICAJames Blake featuring SZA, ‘Coming Back’James Blake is smart to let SZA upstage him in “Coming Back.” It starts as one more slice of his usual keyboard-and-falsetto melancholy, but when SZA arrives she challenges both his morose narrative — “Don’t you have a clue about where my mind is right now?” — and his stolid music, as she bounces syllables around the beat and brings new zigzags to the melody. Blake rises to the competition, chopping up the production and pepping up his tune. Even so, the song may not convince her to come back. PARELESJustin Bieber featuring TroyBoi, ‘Red Eye’It has been clear for a long time, but just to spell it out: Justin Bieber is the world’s savviest beat-shopper. While the lyrics of “Red Eye” flaunt the prerogatives of glamorous bicoastal American living — “You should be hopping on a redeye”— the track, by the British producer TroyBoi, plays with electronics, reggaeton, Afrobeats, dubstep and dembow: so digital, so professional, so perky, so slick. PARELESC. Tangana and Nathy Peluso, ‘Ateo’Latin pop’s geographical borders are dissolving. C. Tangana, a rapper turned singer from Spain, and Nathy Peluso, an R&B-loving singer from Argentina, find a meeting place amid the light-fingered guitar syncopations of bachata, a style from the Dominican Republic. “Ateo” translates as “atheist,” but the song quickly makes clear that desire and bachata add up to “a miracle come down from heaven”; now they’re believers. PARELESKelis, ‘Midnight Snacks’Kelis’s first new song in seven years sneaks up on you. Full of whispered astral funk and understated steaminess, it’s a welcome return for one of R&B’s left-field luminaries. CARAMANICATambino, ‘Estos Días’Tambino lets genres slip through his fingers like fine grains of white sand. On “Estos Días,” a sliced-up baile funk rhythm blends into dance-punk verve, only to burst into the soaring drama of a pop ballad. The track is a meditation on the protests that spread across the world last year, and the police violence that continues to plague marginalized communities. “Nos mata la policía,” he intones. “The police kill us.” But in the trembling fragility of the Peruvian-born artist’s voice, there lies a kind of radical hope. “Yo voy hacer mejor/Dejar todo el dolor,” it quivers. “I’m going to do better/Leave behind all the pain.” HERRERASusana Baca, ‘Negra del Alma’Susana Baca, the Afro-Peruvian songwriter and folklorist who has also served as Peru’s Minister of Culture, marks the 50th year of her career with her new album “Palabras Urgentes” (“Urgent Words”), connecting age-old injustices to the present. “Negro del Alma” is a traditional Andean song commemorating a complicated past, when Andean natives met Afro-Peruvians and fell in love. Baca complicates it further, meshing disparate Peruvian traditions of marimbas, hand percussion and horns. But her voice carries through the song’s anguish and determination. PARELESSuzanne Ciani, ‘Morning Spring’Suzanne Ciani’s “Morning Spring” is the first taste of “@0,” a new charity compilation showcasing the works of ambient creators past and present. Here, orbs of synth bubbles float to the surface like a cool carbonated drink, while others wash beneath, ebbing and flowing like the low tide. Ciani — a synth pioneer recently celebrated in the documentary “Sisters With Transistors: Electronic Music’s Unsung Heroines” — renders an aquatic concerto, its symphonic movements receding and transforming at every turn, like the curling crests of ocean waves. HERRERAKenny Garrett, ‘Joe Hen’s Waltz’As his contribution to “Relief,” a forthcoming compilation benefiting the Jazz Foundation of America’s Musicians’ Emergency Fund, the esteemed alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett provided an unreleased outtake from the sessions for his standout 2012 album, “Seeds From the Underground.” With a teetering melody and a swaggering mid-tempo swing feel, “Joe Hen’s Waltz” pays homage to the saxophonist Joe Henderson, nodding to his knack for slippery melodies that seem to move through a house of mirrors. In Garrett’s quartet at the time, much of the energy was being generated by his partnership with the pianist Benito Gonzalez, whose playing is rooted in Afro-Latin clave and the influence of McCoy Tyner, but has an effervescent phrasing style of its own. RUSSONELLO More

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      YouTube Deletes Two R. Kelly Channels, but Stops Short of a Ban

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      The video platform said it was enforcing its terms of service, one week after the singer was convicted on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.A week after R. Kelly’s conviction on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, YouTube has deleted two of the R&B star’s official video channels, but is not banning his music entirely.The two channels — RKellyTV and the singer’s Vevo account, which hosted his music videos — were removed on Tuesday in what YouTube, owned by Google, said was an enforcement of its terms of service.“We can confirm that we have terminated two channels linked to R. Kelly in accordance with our creator responsibility guidelines,” Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson, said in a statement.According to YouTube’s guidelines, it may shut down the channels of people accused of very serious offenses if they have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes, and if their content is closely related to those crimes.On Tuesday, a news report in Bloomberg quoted an internal memo by Nicole Alston, YouTube’s head of legal, which said, “Egregious actions committed by R. Kelly warrant penalties beyond standard enforcement measures due to a potential to cause widespread harm.”In the past, YouTube has removed the channels of creators like Austin Jones, who made popular a cappella videos and in 2019 pleaded guilty to having underage girls send him sexually explicit videos.YouTube’s stance may be the first significant action taken by a major tech platform to remove Kelly’s content. But it is not a total ban. Kelly’s music is still allowed on YouTube through user-generated content, like cover versions of his songs, and on Kelly’s “topic” page, which allows streaming of his recordings while a static image of his album artwork is displayed.And Kelly’s music remains fully available on YouTube Music, a separate streaming platform that competes more directly with audio outlets like Spotify and Apple Music. Last month, Google said that there are 50 million subscribers to YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, which allows viewers to skip ads on videos.When asked why Kelly’s music remains available on YouTube Music, and why that platform has different creator responsibility guidelines, a YouTube spokesperson said only: “Our creator responsibility guidelines are enforced for channels that are linked to the creator. This is consistent with how we’ve enforced our policies in the past.”The answer may lie in the historical roots of YouTube as a platform for individual creators, who often operate without a corporate intermediary like a record company, and thus maintain more direct control over their video channels. But for most major recording artists, like Kelly, their record companies supply their music videos to YouTube through Vevo, which is jointly owned by Google and the major record companies.In 2018, Spotify briefly instituted a policy banning the promotion of artists — including Kelly — whose personal conduct was deemed “hateful.” The policy was rescinded after objections in the music industry that it was vague and seemed to inordinately affect artists of color.Since then, there has been little attempt to police the content of musicians accused of serious misconduct, to the dismay of many activists. Kelly’s music remains widely available on other major streaming platforms like Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music, and has been included on hundreds of official playlists on those services. On Spotify, Kelly’s songs have recently drawn an average of about five million streams each month. More

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      Reporters on R. Kelly's Trial and Conviction

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherLast week, the R&B superstar R. Kelly — one of the most popular musicians of the 1990s and 2000s — was convicted in federal court for his role in an enterprise that recruited women and underage girls for sexual exploitation. He was found guilty on nine counts: racketeering, and eight violations of the Mann Act, a sex trafficking statute.For well over two decades, allegations about Kelly’s inappropriate sexual behavior had been sometimes covered in the press, and sometimes discussed by fans. He was even tried, unsuccessfully, on child pornography charges in 2008. But in recent years, new reporting about his coercive behavior and a documentary giving voice to his victims reframed the public narrative around Kelly. Several victims testified against him, as did several people who worked for the star.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the specifics of Kelly’s trial, the meaning of his conviction, and the long — and ongoing — quest for proper recompense for his victims.Guests:Troy Closson, The New York Times metro reporter covering law enforcement and criminal justiceJim DeRogatis, who for more than two decades has covered allegations of wrongdoing against R. Kelly for several outlets including the Chicago Sun-Times, Buzzfeed and The New YorkerConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More