Rhythm and Blues (Music)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Andrea Martin, R&B Songwriter, Dies at 49

      by

      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

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Music

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

      by

      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

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Music

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

      by

      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

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      Reporters on R. Kelly's Trial and Conviction

      by

      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

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Kane Brown and H.E.R.’s Genre-Melting Duet, and 11 More New Songs

      by

      Hear tracks by John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen, Ashnikko, Susana Baca 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.Kane Brown and H.E.R., ‘Blessed & Free’Listen to the genres crumbling. Is this country? Rock? Trap? R&B? “I don’t hurt nobody, so just let me be,” Kane Brown sings with H.E.R., over slow electric-guitar arpeggios and programmed beats. In a metronomic, electronic grid, human voices still insist, “As long as I’m alive, I’m free.” JON PARELESJohn Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen, ‘Wasted Days’John Mellencamp, 69, got Bruce Springsteen, 72, to share his song “Wasted Days,” a weary, resolute, guitar-strumming acknowledgment of age. “Who’s counting now, these last remaining years?/How many minutes do we have here?” Mellencamp rasps; “The end is coming, it’s almost here,” adds an even huskier Springsteen. A twangy, broad-stroke guitar solo from Springsteen can’t dispel the looming mortality. Meanwhile Bob Dylan, 80, has tour plans next month. PARELESAshnikko, ‘Panic Attacks in Paradise’“They call me Polly Pessimism, I’m a macabre Barbie”: The more contemplative side of the clangorous pop futurist Ashnikko is jagged, too. Her beautiful new single is warmly paced and driven by soft guitar, a contrast to her best known songs, which tend toward shriek and squeak. But here she’s revealing the hurt beneath the excess, a life spent “hyperventilating under candy skies.” JON CARAMANICATotally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, ‘The Distance’A dreamy but viscous slab of moody house music from the British D.J.-producer Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, brimming with 1980s futurism and 1990s reluctance. CARAMANICALimp Bizkit, ‘Dad Vibes’Just seemed important to let you know that a Limp Bizkit song called “Dad Vibes” exists. It’s fine but as ambivalent as you might expect — can you really vibe-check dads when the dad is you? CARAMANICASusana Baca, ‘Negra Del Alma’Susana Baca, 77, is a national treasure in Peru, where she’s long worked to preserve and revive elements of Afro-Peruvian folklore. Her take on “Negra Del Alma,” a traditional Andean song from the Ayacucho region, comes from Baca’s forthcoming album, “Palabras Urgentes.” She delivers the lyrics — which speak plaintively of the prejudice often directed at Black Peruvians — in her unwaveringly elegant alto; a marimba mixes with hand drums, bass, flutes and a corps of Peruvian saxophones, letting the rhythm amble ahead. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOSega Bodega, ‘Angel on My Shoulder’Sega Bodega — the Irish electronic musician Salvador Navarrete — jump-cuts amid heaving, mourning and jitters in “Angel on My Shoulder.” The track opens with brusque, distorted bass tones, then switches to an electronic elegy, with an androgynous, filtered voice that considers “children growing older, friends you never knew.” It moves on to double-time percussion, warped choral harmonies, a low-fi piano, a transposition upward: multiple mutations that don’t diminish the sense of loss. PARELESHyd, ‘Skin 2 Skin’Hyd is Hayden Dunham, who first appeared in the hyperpop PC Music collective as QT, the android-like face of a fictitious energy drink. In “Skin 2 Skin,” produced by Caroline Polachek, she toggles between literally whispered verses with sharp rhymes — “acid rain/hurricane” and big, chiming, major-chord choruses, playing with every pop-song reflex. PARELESMonica Martin, ‘Go Easy Kid’Monica Martin, who sang with the group Phox and went on to collaborate with James Blake in “Show Me,” croons like an older sister over a retro, orchestral arrangement in “Go Easy Kid.” There are electronic echoes, just to prove she’s contemporary. But there’s earned wisdom in her voice and words as she offers self-recriminations followed by wide-open encouragement: “Just accept we’ll never know.” PARELESMatthew Stevens, ‘Can Am’The guitarist Matthew Stevens has been a first-call jazz accompanist for the past 10 years, and he’s worked closely with Esperanza Spalding for at least half that time. Embedded in “Pittsburgh,” Stevens’s new album of cozy, solo-acoustic tunes — written and recorded during the coronavirus shutdown — is a reminder of his close working relationship with Spalding. “Can Am” will ring familiar to those who’ve listened to her latest release, “Songwrights Apothecary Lab”: It is the underlying composition on “Formwela 11,” from that album. With a melody almost entirely consisting of ticker-tape eighth-notes, spiraling between harmonic modes, “Can Am” might feel like an athletic workout if not for the gentle control of Stevens’s playing, as graceful and understated as the guitar great Ralph Towner’s. RUSSONELLOCorrina Repp, ‘Count the Tear Drops’It’s a simple guitar waltz; it’s also a mulitracked choral edifice. The songwriter Corrina Repp, working on her own during the pandemic, constructed a meditation that acknowledges how fleeting it might be, but also how moving. PARELESHoly Other, ‘Lieve’Holy Other’s music possesses a universe of haunting drama. On “Lieve,” the cult British producer collages spectral whispers, deep sighs and ghostly stutters. Skin-prickling, cavernous synths expand and echo into nothingness. A lonely sax flutters to the surface. It may have been nine years since he last released music, but Holy Other’s world remains as arresting and impenetrable as ever. ISABELIA HERRERA More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg to Share Super Bowl Halftime

      by

      The N.F.L. announced the three Southern California natives will share billing with Mary J. Blige and Eminem at Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.The N.F.L. announced Thursday that five performers would share headlining duties at the Super Bowl, with a distinct nod to West Coast hip-hop given the game’s location at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. Three Southern California natives and rap titans — Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar — will take the stage alongside Mary J. Blige and Eminem during the halftime show scheduled for Feb. 13, 2022. The game will air on NBC.“The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career,” Dr. Dre said in a statement.The halftime show for Super Bowl 56 will be the third produced by Roc Nation, the entertainment and sports company started by the music impresario Jay-Z, as the N.F.L. pushes to modernize the show and appeal to a more diverse audience. Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were dual headliners of the 2020 performance in Miami Gardens, Fla. The Canadian pop superstar the Weeknd performed at halftime of February’s Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., before a crowd limited by coronavirus pandemic restrictions. He reportedly spent $7 million of his own money on the production, in part to ensure that the spectacle would wow TV audiences.Organizers said the expected return of the Super Bowl’s usual capacity crowd at SoFi Stadium, the $5 billion venue near Los Angeles International Airport that opened in 2020, would restore energy to the festivities.“This year we are blowing the roof off the concept of collaboration,” said Adam Harter, the senior vice president of media, sports and entertainment at PepsiCo, which sponsors the show. “Along with the N.F.L. and Roc Nation, we continue to try and push the limits on what fans can expect during the most exciting 12 minutes in music.”The Super Bowl is typically the most watched broadcast of the year, despite ratings declining in five of the past six years, notably among the advertiser-coveted demographic of people aged between 18 and 49. In February, 96 million people watched the Super Bowl between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs, the game’s smallest audience in 15 years, despite the N.F.L.’s biggest star, quarterback Tom Brady, leading Tampa to victory. That decrease was in line with overall drops in viewership for sporting events held amid the pandemic.If advertiser interest is any indication, though, this season’s Super Bowl could mark a resurgence. NBC said earlier this month that it had nearly sold out of Super Bowl advertising spots, which cost a record $6.5 million for 30 seconds.Kevin Draper contributed reporting. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      Lonnie Smith, Soulful Jazz Organist, Is Dead at 79

      by

      Adept at blending the sophistication of jazz with the earthy appeal of rhythm and blues, he was later widely sampled by hip-hop artists.Lonnie Smith, a master of the Hammond B3 organ and a leading exponent of the infectiously rhythmic genre known as soul jazz, died on Tuesday at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 79.His manager and partner, Holly Case, said the cause was pulmonary fibrosis.Mr. Smith, who began billing himself as Dr. Lonnie Smith in the mid-1970s, could draw an audience’s attention with his appearance alone: He had a long white beard and always wore a colorful turban. (The turbans apparently had no specific religious significance, and he did not have an advanced degree in anything and never explained why he had adopted the honorific “Dr.”) His playing was every bit as striking.He began his career at a time when organists like Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff were blending the sophistication of jazz with the earthy appeal of rhythm and blues. Mr. Smith was very much in that tradition, but his playing could also display an ethereal quality that was all his own. His music later reached new generations of fans when it was widely sampled by hip-hop artists.Reviewing a 2015 performance at the Jazz Standard in New York, Ben Ratliff of The New York Times praised Mr. Smith’s sense of dynamics. “When he is quiet, he is very quiet,” Mr. Ratliff wrote. “During a gospelish song with the singer Alicia Olatuja, he started a solo passage at a level that almost couldn’t be heard and stayed there for quite a while, unspooling jagged, alert phrases that you had to strain to listen to: an easy trick but a powerful one.”Lonnie Smith was born on July 3, 1942, in Lackawanna, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo, and raised by his mother, Beulah Mae Early, and his stepfather, Charles Smith. As a teenager he sang in vocal groups and played trumpet and other instruments before a store owner’s generosity spurred his lifelong love affair with the organ.As he recalled in interviews, he spent a lot of time in a Buffalo music store, mostly just looking. One day he told the owner, Art Kubera (whom he would later call “my angel”), that he was sure he could make a living in music if he had an instrument. Mr. Kubera took him to the back of the store, showed him a Hammond B3 organ and told him that he could have it for nothing if he was able to get it out of the store. He did, he taught himself to play it, and his career began.Mr. Smith was soon working regularly at the Pine Grill in Buffalo. Mr. McDuff was an early influence, and when the guitarist George Benson left Mr. McDuff’s combo to form his own group, he hired Mr. Smith.The Benson quartet had an inauspicious beginning at a bar in the Bronx, where, Mr. Benson wrote in his autobiography, “Benson” (2014), “Lonnie and I played behind a revolving cast of go-go dancers.” After moving to a jazz club in Harlem, the Benson quartet began building a following.Mr. Smith’s first album as a leader was released by Columbia Records in 1967.Both Mr. Benson and Mr. Smith signed with Columbia Records. Mr. Smith’s first album as a leader, “Finger-Lickin’ Good,” which featured Mr. Benson on guitar, was released in 1967, but his tenure with Columbia was brief. The next year he moved to Blue Note, which had already used him on the alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson’s hit album “Alligator Boogaloo.”Blue Note, which had helped launch the organ-jazz boom by signing Jimmy Smith a decade earlier, was a natural home for Mr. Smith. But after releasing four well-received albums on the label, beginning with “Think!” (1968) and ending with “Drives” (1970), he moved on.He recorded for various labels throughout the 1970s, but by the end of the decade his brand of jazz was falling out of favor and he was growing tired of the music business. He stopped recording and maintained a low profile, performing only occasionally and sometimes under an assumed name.He ended his studio hiatus in 1993 with “Afro Blue,” a tribute to John Coltrane with John Abercrombie on guitar and Marvin Smith on drums, released on the MusicMasters label. (The same trio would later release two Jimi Hendrix tribute albums, “Foxy Lady” in 1994 and “Purple Haze”in 1995.) By that time Mr. Smith’s influence had grown in ways he had never anticipated: His 1970 cover of the Blood, Sweat & Tears hit “Spinning Wheel” had been sampled by A Tribe Called Quest, the first of many hip-hop acts that would find inspiration in his catalog.Mr. Smith began performing again, both with his own groups and with Mr. Donaldson, and eventually returned to Blue Note; his first album for the label in more than 40 years, “Evolution,” was released in 2016. His most recent album, “Breathe,” released this year, included a surprising guest appearance by the punk-rock pioneer Iggy Pop on two tracks, the vintage R&B ballad “Why Can’t We Live Together” and Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman.”In addition to Ms. Case, Mr. Smith is survived by four daughters, Lani Chambers, Chandra Thomas, Charisse Partridge and Vonnie Smith, and several grandchildren.In 2017 the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master, the country’s highest official honor for a jazz musician.“A lot of musicians get into music because they want to be rich, famous or all of the above,” Mr. Smith said in a 2012 interview. “You are already rich once you sit down and learn to play. That’s richness in itself.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Alemayehu Eshete, Singer Known as the ‘Abyssinian Elvis,’ Dies at 80

      by

      He became a swaggering star in the late 1960s, when Addis Ababa experienced a golden age of night life and music. Decades later, he was rediscovered.Alemayehu Eshete, a soulful Ethiopian pop singer widely known as the “Abyssinian Elvis” who became a star in the 1960s when a cultural revolution took hold of Addis Ababa, died on Sept. 2 at a hospital there. He was 80.Gilles Fruchaux, the president of Mr. Eshete’s reissue label, Buda Musique, confirmed the death.For years under Haile Selassie’s imperial rule, Ethiopia’s music industry was controlled by the state. Orchestras dutifully performed patriotic songs at government events, while defiant bands played Little Richard songs at night in clubs. It was forbidden to record and distribute music independently.“All the musicians used to work for the government,” Mr. Eshete said in a 2017 documentary about the era, “Ethiopiques: Revolt of the Soul.” “When they told you to perform, you had to perform. We were treated like average workers, not like real artists.”But in the late 1960s, as Selassie grew old and the grip of his rule loosened, Addis Ababa experienced a golden age of night life and music, and Mr. Eshete became a swaggering star of the so-called “swinging Addis” era.The sound that dominated this period was distinct: an infectious blend of Western-imported blues and R&B with traditional Ethiopian folk music. It was typified by hypnotic saxophone lines, funky electric guitar stabs and grooving piano riffs.As a teenager, Mr. Eshete was smitten with American rock ‘n’ roll, and his idol was Elvis Presley, so when he started singing in the clubs of Addis he imitated his hero. He sported a pompadour and wore big collared shirts as he gyrated onstage.“I dressed like an American, grew my hair, sang ‘Jailhouse Rock,’” he told The Guardian in 2008. “But the moment that I started singing Amharic songs, my popularity shot up.”He was soon enlisted in the fabled Police Orchestra, a state-run band composed of Ethiopia’s finest musicians, and he began playing with the ensemble at government functions in the city. After hours, he found refuge in the underground music scene.In 1969, the defiant act of Mr. Eshete and a young record shop owner named Amha Eshete (no relation) galvanized the scene.The acclaimed “Éthiopiques” album series, begun in 1997, ignited international interest in Ethiopian music. Two releases in the series are devoted to Mr. Eshete’s work.Buda MusiqueAmha Eshete decided to found a label, Amha Records, to commit to vinyl the Ethiopian pop music that bands were performing in clubs. Few musicians were willing to flout the law with him until Alemayehu Eshete stepped forward and offered to record the funky tune “Timarkialesh,” and Amha then had it manufactured as a 45 r.p.m. single in India.When copies of the record arrived, and Amha played it from a loudspeaker in his Harambee Music Shop, people started dancing outside and stopped traffic. The single became a hit, and when the government turned a blind eye toward this transgression, the city’s musical revolution exploded.Amha Records went on to release the work of giants of Ethiopian music like the vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed and the composer Mulatu Astatke. Mr. Eshete went on to found the Alem-Girma Band with the pianist and arranger Girma Beyene. He also became known for writing socially conscious songs, like “Temar Lije” (“Study, My Son”), which stressed the importance of education.But a Communist military junta, the Derg, took control of Ethiopia in the mid-1970s, and the swing in Addis came to an end.In what became known as the Ethiopian Red Terror, the Derg ousted Selassie, and thousands were massacred. A curfew extinguished night life in Addis and musicians left the country in droves, creating a lost generation of Ethiopian musical stars.Amha Eshete, who died in April, opened a nightclub and restaurant in Washington; Girma Beyene, who also landed there, became a gas station attendant. Alemayehu Eshete remained in Ethiopia to raise his family. He continued working as a musician under the Derg and returned to singing patriotic songs at state-sponsored events.“That time was hell,” he told The Guardian. “I was ordered to sing a song in Korean for Kim Il-sung, which I learned, though I had no idea what I was singing.”When the regime was overthrown nearly two decades later, much of the world didn’t know what had transpired musically in swinging Addis.But that changed in 1997 when a French musicologist, Francis Falceto, produced the first album in the acclaimed series “Éthiopiques,” which compiled the era’s lost treasures. Released on the Buda Musique label, the project, which now consists of 30 titles, ignited international interest in Ethiopian music. Two releases in the series are devoted to Mr. Eshete’s work.“Alemayehu is an icon of that era,” Mr. Falceto said in a phone interview. “He is a legend of the music of modern Ethiopia.”Alemayehu Eshete Andarge was born in June 1941 in Addis Ababa. His father, Eshete Andarge, was a taxi driver. His mother, Belaynesh Yusuf, was a homemaker.As a boy, Alemayehu liked watching Elvis Presley movies and singing Presley songs for his friends at school. Dreaming of stardom in Hollywood, he once ran away from home, hitching a ride to a port city in Eritrea, where he hoped to board a ship bound for America. His mission was foiled when someone got in touch with his family and he was sent home.Mr. Eshete is survived by his wife, Ayehu Kebede Desta; seven children; and six grandchildren.As Addis Ababa entered the new millennium, its musical past was revisited as part of a cultural revival. Young musicians played the old songs with reverence, and lost classics became radio hits again. Mr. Eshete began performing every Wednesday at a venue called the Jazzamba Lounge.In 2008, Mr. Eshete and three other notable Ethiopian musicians, Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu Astatke and the saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya, performed together at the Barbican in London and at the Glastonbury festival. In New York, backed by the New England-based Either/Orchestra, Mr. Eshete played at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park.“Mr. Eshete was at his charismatic best,” Nate Chinen wrote in a review of that show in The New York Times. “Each verse began with a single clarion note and then plunged into rapid-fire patter. He tried a few other approaches in his set, like an insinuative croon and a bark befitting his nickname, the Ethiopian James Brown.”A funeral ceremony attended by hundreds was held for Mr. Eshete at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa. An orchestra played before his coffin was driven away. Just months earlier, Mr. Eshete’s music had echoed across the square when he performed there with a band and sang his song, “Addis Ababa Bete” (“Addis Ababa, My Home”).Mr. Eshete had recorded that tune, a funky love letter to his city, in 1971 with his fellow musical outlaw, Amha. They sold it from Amha’s defiant little record shop, where it quickly became a hit and set swinging Addis on fire. More