Thompson, Ahmir (Questlove)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Juneteenth: 7 Events for Celebrating the Holiday in New York

      by

      On Saturday, many of the city’s cultural venues are holding performances and parties to mark the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.As New York reopens, its cultural rhythms are creeping back in, with museums and music venues filling up and outdoor concerts popping up in parks. The city is emerging just in time for Juneteenth on Saturday.The holiday — a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth” — began on June 19, 1865. More than two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, union troops arrived in Galveston, Tex., to notify enslaved African Americans there that the Civil War had ended — and that they were free.On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to recognize Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day, as a federal holiday. Opal Lee — the 94-year-old Texan activist known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth” — has no doubt that June 19 will become a national holiday, and soon.“So, the 4th of July? Slaves weren’t free. You know that, don’t you?” Lee told The Times in 2020. “I suggest that if we’re going to do some celebrating of freedom, that we have our festival, our educational components, our music, from June the 19th — Juneteenth — to the 4th of July. Now that would be celebrating freedom.”Here’s a selection of events — both in-person and virtual — for New Yorkers to celebrate that freedom this year.‘Summer of Soul’ in the ParkThe hip-hop musician Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson directed the documentary “Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” which releases in theaters on July 2. Part music film, part historical record, the film captures the previously untold story of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which took place in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). Stars like Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone and Sly and the Family Stone performed in the six-week festival celebrating Black history, culture and fashion. On Saturday at 5 p.m., New Yorkers can see the award-winning film in the park where much of it was filmed. Free tickets are required for entry.An Alvin Ailey Workshop West African Class at the Ailey Extension in Manhattan.Kyle FromanThe Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater emerged in 1958, when its founder, Alvin Ailey, recognized the power of dance as a tool for social change. Ailey described African-American cultural heritage as “sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful,” viewing it as one of America’s richest treasures. On Saturday, 12-1:15 p.m., the choreographer Maguette Camara will host a free, virtual dance class featuring live drumming, teaching the basics of traditional West African dance and rhythms.A Community Choir at the ShedTroy Anthony rehearsing “The Revival: It Is Our Duty,” his commission for the Shed in Manhattan. Mari UchidaIt’s not a performance. It’s a service. The composer, director and actor Troy Anthony made sure to clarify the difference for “The Revival: It Is Our Duty,” his commission for the Shed in Manhattan. “Juneteenth is not about Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves. It’s not about Black people finding out that they were free late,” Anthony said. “It’s about the fact that Black people found a path to liberate themselves.” The gospel musical event, includes a community choir and band, is part of The Shed’s “Open Call” series, “The Revival” starts on Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are free online.Soulfolk ExperienceSoulfolk Experience, from left, V. Jeffrey Smith, Maritri Garrett and David Pilgrim.Julie AtwellFrom MTV star to hip-hop guru to international ambassador, Kevin Powell has seen it all. And he’ll bring that experience to Brower Park in Brooklyn on Saturday, performing an original poetry suite. The rock-jazz-folk band the Soulfolk Experience composed and arranged music to accompany Powell’s performance at 12 p.m. behind the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. The event, presented by the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, is in partnership with the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and part of the Friends of Brower Park’s free Juneteenth celebration. Instrument making and other activities will accompany the music, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. The event is free.Culinary RootsOn the hit Netflix show “High on the Hog,” the food writer Stephen Satterfield traces African American cuisine from Benin to the Deep South. The show is based on a book by the same name by food historian Jessica B. Harris, who will appear at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn on Saturday. The virtual event, “Meals as Collective Memory,” 12:30-4 p.m., explores Black foodways in New York and beyond. The schedule includes learning to make a delicious family dinner at home and a lesson on food deserts; sessions are free online — just be sure to RSVP.After Parties and After-After PartiesThe Bell House in Brooklyn will host its third annual “Emancipation After Party” on Saturday at 6 p.m. — a stacked deck of music and comedy. Hosted by Chinisha S., a self-proclaimed “certified Prince super-fan, nerd/geek-girl, and cheerful nihilist,” the lineup includes DJ Monday Blue; the sketch-comedy team To Karen, With Love; and the comedians Alex English, Aminah Imani, Dave Lester and Jatty Robinson ($18.65 for tickets). Stick around for the after-after party: Brandon Collins and Gordon Baker-Bone will host a Juneteenth edition of their interactive show, “Black Drunk History,” also at the Bell House ($20 for advance tickets).‘Juneteenth in Queens’Come for the jerk chicken and waffles food truck. Stay for the Black beauty bazaar. “Juneteenth in Queens” was planned by Assemblywoman Alicia Hyndman, who also sponsored the legislation that made Juneteenth a state holiday in New York. The festival, which includes a virtual panel series this week, culminates with an in-person event on Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., in Roy Wilkins Park in Queens. Start your day with yoga for Black liberation, check out the Black art party and try an African dance master class in the afternoon. Register for the event and activities on Eventbrite. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      For Chloe Flower, the Décor Always Serves the Music

      by

      With a few exceptions, the composer and social media influencer’s walls are bare. But who needs art when you have Liberace’s piano?The test of a first-rate intelligence, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time while still managing to function.Chloe Flower (neé Won), the composer, pianist and influencer can relate: For the past three years, she has lived happily on the 63rd floor of New York by Gehry, an apartment tower in the financial district. And yet, she is also “really scared of heights.”But Ms. Flower, 35, the spirited, couture-clad presence at the keyboard when Cardi B performed “Money” at the 2019 Grammys, is nothing if not pragmatic. The music videos she shoots in her two-bedroom rental — the cityscape a key element — have helped her build a robust following on social media.“I took one for the team because of Instagram,” said Ms. Flower, whose repertoire includes hits by the likes of Drake, Nicki Minaj and Kendrick Lamar, played in the style of Bach and Beethoven — or, as Ms. Flower characterizes it, pop-sical. “But really, when you look out the window and straight across, you don’t have a sense of depth.”Chloe Flower was born Chloe Won, but was nicknamed Flower as a child, and flowers are always close at hand. An arrangement sits atop the bedazzled Baldwin concert grand, a loaner from the Liberace estate.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesChloe Flower, 35Occupation: Composer and pianistSpecial Delivery: “During Covid, I was buying cabinets online from Restoration Hardware, and I forgot to remove the bed I had put in the shopping cart. When the guys from the shipping company arrived, they said, ‘We have your bed,’ and I said, ‘What bed?’ So now I have an accidental blue bed.”Also, up there in the stratosphere, Ms. Flower is at a considerable remove from ambient street noise. She was, thus, able to record most of her self-titled debut album at home. It’s due out July 16.Location. Location. Location. So goes the real estate mantra. To which Ms. Flower responds: Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? “Whenever I’m looking for an apartment, I’m never concerned where it is, because I’m either working from home or working in a studio,” she said.“I prefer certain areas of New York, of course,” added Ms. Flower, who previously rented in Union Square and Gramercy Park. “But New York has everything everywhere. Same with Los Angeles.”In fact, she was living in L.A. when she and her boyfriend, Michael Sepso, a New York-based entrepreneur, decided to move in together and began looking for suitable quarters.It was the musician Questlove who introduced his pal Ms. Flower to New York by Gehry. He is a tenant, “and when I saw his place, that was it,” she said. “I was, like, ‘Wait. Hold on. The view.’ I was so excited.”One attraction was the bay window in the living room, which “makes the apartment feel much bigger,” Ms. Flower said of the space, which is almost 1,400 square feet.Much of it is ceded to the Steinway Spirio|r, a piano that can record and play back performances, and to a Baldwin SD10 concert grand with a transparent lid and a cladding of hundreds of glass tiles, a loaner from the estate of Liberace to add flash to those Instagram videos. The man known as Mr. Showmanship often took it on tour. “Aesthetically, it doesn’t look like any piano you’ve ever seen. It’s really, really cool,” Ms. Flower said.“I love Liberace,” she added. “I know he’s not a traditional classical pianist, but he used his flair and drama and passion to break into the mainstream pop world. I like to celebrate him.”Ms. Flower loves having friends and family visit. Pre-Covid, everyone in her orbit referred to the second bedroom, now an office-slash-workout area, as Hotel Chloe. But visitors don’t have too many places to perch. There are no easy chairs, and Ms. Flower ditched her purple Ligne Roset sofa two years ago, when the Liberace joined the Steinway.“It was beautiful,” she said. “But when I had to choose between a second piano and a couch, it was, like, ‘A piano, of course.’”To be sure, there are other things in the living-and-dining room: a wood dining table; a teak tree-trunk console, a Yamaha keyboard, a pair of sculptural bookshelves, a vase or three of flowers, and many white candles. Ms. Flower buys them by the dozen from Amazon, lighting and shuffling them around as the spirit moves her.“I love their glow. I like the way they look when they’ve burned down,” she said. “They’re romantic and I think they set a mood, especially at night against the city lights.”But the décor must always serve the music. “When I’m composing, I don’t like to have a lot of distractions, and clutter is distracting,” she said. “I like the space to be clear, so I feel I have a clean slate.”Ms. Flower wrote her latest composition, “Tamie,” on the Steinway.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesConsequently, with the exception of a gilded mirror and a TV screen that doubles as a canvas to display digital art, the walls are bare. So are most surfaces.The annotated piano books and sheet music that Ms. Flower has had since childhood — “if there were a fire, I’d take them out first” — were briefly on a shelf in the living room.“But they just looked a little messy, a lot of loose paper,” she said, so she consigned them to a Restoration Hardware cabinet in the couple’s bedroom. She even turned down the offer of a candelabra from the Liberace estate because it would block the view — a key source of inspiration during the creative process.Ms. Flower describes herself as a homebody. But she would be that much happier at home if it had a dedicated recording studio and sufficient space to show off some of her mother’s artwork.“And,” she said, “there’s a third piano I want to buy. I asked my boyfriend, ‘What if we got rid of the dining table?’”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Questlove’s ‘Summer of Soul’ Wins at Sundance

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyQuestlove’s ‘Summer of Soul’ Wins at SundanceThe documentary took home two prizes while “Coda” won several honors for its fictional tale of a hearing teenager in a deaf family.Sly Stone in the documentary  “Summer of Soul,” about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival.Credit…Mass Distraction MediaFeb. 2, 2021A documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, often called the Black Woodstock, and a feature about a hearing daughter in a deaf family took top honors Tuesday night at the first virtual edition of the Sundance Film Festival.In the nonfiction category, both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award went to “Summer of Soul,” a potent mix of never-before-seen concert footage and history lesson by the first-time filmmaker Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove.Among dramatic features, both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award went to “Coda,” an acronym for “child of deaf adults.” Sian Heder (“Tallulah”) wrote and directed the crowd-pleasing tale starring Emilia Jones as a teenager who serves as an interpreter for her working-class family in Gloucester, Mass. Additionally, Heder won the directing award for American features, and the film won a special honor for its acting ensemble.In the world-cinema feature competition, “Hive,” which follows the wife of a soldier missing in the Kosovo war, won both the grand jury and audience prizes as well as the directing award for its filmmaker, Blerta Basholli. Among world-cinema documentaries, “Flee,” Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated look at an Afghan refugee in Denmark, won the grand jury prize. The audience award went to “Writing With Fire,” from Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, about India’s only newspaper run by women of the Dalit, or “untouchable” caste.Other directing winners included, for American documentaries, Natalia Almada, whose “Users” examines the human costs of technology, and in the world cinema documentary category, Hogir Hirori for “Sabaya,” about an effort to save Yazidi women and girls held captive by ISIS.Because of the pandemic, this edition of the festival, which officially ends Wednesday, was pared back and conducted largely online. For a complete list of winners, see sundance.org.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More