Darron Leroy Moore

By Alejandra Marquez Janse, Juana Summers, Patrick Jarenwattananon Noah Caldwell John Fowler sat in the lobby of the Charles Theater comparing it to the place he used to know. There was no marquee outside announcing the next performer. The restaurants and shops around the street had changed. The building that used to have a library now consisted of popcorn machines and movie posters. And the two flights of stairs that had previously led to a ticketing area and a stage had disappeared. The building in downtown Baltimore used to be known as the Famous Ballroom. It's where Fowler spent most Sunday evenings decades ago, helping put together jazz concerts with some of the genre's giants: Art Blakey. Duke Ellington. Count Basie. John Coltrane. "There were plastic stars and plastic moons and plastic clouds in the ceiling," Fowler said. "It was a canopy that looked like a circus tent. It was a dance hall, but everybody knew: on Sundays, come to Charles Street." From the mid 1960s into the early '80s, nearly every Sunday starting at 5pm, the Famous Ballroom was reserved for concerts put on by volunteers from the Left Bank Jazz Society. Fowler was a charter member. "My son grew up here. You could bring your kids; the word got out that a woman could come to the Ballroom and not be bothered if she didn't want to be bothered," Fowler said. "So we put all of that together. We've had 1,200 people in that room." After hundreds of shows, the Ballroom deteriorated and the organization moved out by the early '80s. Still, hundreds of those live shows were recorded, mostly for the private listening of the Left Bank and for the artists themselves. Those recordings had been stored away for decades and only about a dozen had been released commercially. But now, thanks to a couple of producers, three more recordings are out for the public to hear. Bringing the legends back Three albums came out last month featuring performances by saxophonist Sonny Stitt, organist Shirley Scott, and pianist Walter Bishop, Jr. These releases come after years of work by producer Zev Feldman and musician Cory Weeds. Feldman grew up less than an hour from Baltimore, in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and has become a jazz detective, making a career out of finding archival jazz recordings. So once he had the opportunity to dive into the Famous Ballroom's, he took it. "We're talking about artists that traveled the whole world, but this is Maryland history," Feldman said. "This is Baltimore history. And it started here." Feldman said he wanted to honor the history of the Famous Ballroom and the Left Bank Jazz Society in producing these records, but also recognize these three artists that don't always feature in the jazz conversation. For him, the raw material he digs up can't simply be good; it has to be great. That's what he found in these recordings, after shifting through many boxes in Fowler's basement in Baltimore. Take, for example, the recording of a 1973 performance by Sonny Stitt – a pioneer in the industry who hailed from the bebop jazz movement. "He was someone who was one of the most amazing gunslingers, if you will, in jazz, with dexterity in the way he played," Feldman said. The newly-released record is called, Boppin' at the Bank: Live at the Left Bank. Fowler said the organization booked the saxophonist nine times: "In Baltimore, you say Sonny Stitt, you got a packed audience." "When he came to town, every local horn player in the city showed up. They all stood at the back of the Ballroom, like listening to the master," he said. "And once in a while, he would let one or two of them come up on stage. But, you know, you couldn't find anything better." Then there's the record titled Queen Talk: Live at the Left Bank, recorded when Shirley Scott performed at the Famous Ballroom in 1972. "It was a really wonderful live date. We were really struck by the energy. She opens up the recording with John Coltrane's 'Impressions,' but there's also some pop music and things from the day," Feldman said. Scott was an influential jazz artist, but as Fowler put it, she received less attention due to her gender.Women had to be harsh to make their way through the industry, he said, demanding respect and appropriate pay. "Of course, the men would say, 'Oh, they're ball busters,' [but] they were just looking out for themselves," Fowler said. "You could be as good on your instrument as the next guy, but because he was a man, he got better treatment than you got." Scott's marriage to another great saxophonist, Stanley Turrentine, also pushed her name to the side. The third and last album features Walter Bishop, Jr. It's titled Bish at the Bank: Live in Baltimore, from a show recorded in 1967. "When I listen to Walter Bishop, Jr., I hear the traditions of bebop jazz," Feldman said." You can hear it in his comping and his voicings, in his approach to playing the piano. And you hear that music; you hear that tradition." Talking about these three tapes, Feldman harped on the idea of enjoying the tapes: "You don't need an owner's manual. All you need to do is put it on and listen. And this music feels good." Connecting with the old to understand the new For Fowler, knowing the history of Baltimore's jazz scene is vital for understanding the current state of the genre. He said the reason why the city appealed to musicians for these legendary performances was, in part, because of its proximity to New York. But also, the Left Bank paid them on time. "Once the word got out, the phone would literally jump off the hook. Everybody wanted to come down and everybody wanted to bring the new group down to try them out in Baltimore," Fowler said. The Left Bank volunteers continued to put out shows in other venues after moving out of the Ballroom, but the crowds of jazz fans had started dwindling with the rise of other genres. In total, the organization promoted shows in Baltimore for about 40 years. But the way Fowler described it, the vibe at the Famous Ballroom was unmatched, on and off the stage. "Everybody had fried chicken, crab cakes, homemade potato salad, [even] the liquor, because you could bring everything with you. Once you walked through the door and bought your ticket, you could even bring your own ice if you wanted to," he said. That brought a diverse audience: young and old, and Black and white – something unusual at the time. "We didn't realize until a couple of writers from the newspaper mentioned that Left Bank was one of the few integrated concert venues in 1964," Fowler said. "We just said, 'Hey, they're jazz fans, we don't give a damn. You know, they could be green.' As long as you got the price of admission, we don't care." It was also a very demanding audience: "Gimmicks didn't work in Baltimore, you had to play. When you got a standing ovation at the Ballroom, you had really played." And for Fowler and Feldman, unearthing these recordings is about appreciating the history of this genre, to better understand where it is now, especially with the increasing number of vinyl album sales in the past 16 years. But Fowler turned to a quote that is commonly attributed to Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey: "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots." "Unless you understand this, you're going to miss Christian McBride and all of the new cats, but you've got to start with the basis," Fowler said. And putting that work in front of the public is what they are trying to do – with these three albums and future ones from the Left Bank Jazz Society.

By Olivia Hampton, Barry Gordemer Crisp, warm, responsive. The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is on a journey to meet these benchmarks under the baton of music director Gianandrea Noseda. One of the ways in which he's shaping a new sound is through some very old instruments. The oldest is a violin made in 1686 in Cremona, Italy. Since 2019, Noseda has been quietly loaning 17th - 19th century Italian string instruments from his private collection to the NSO. The musicians playing them had no idea that they came from their conductor — until now. "I'm not saying that good instruments make the orchestra; the orchestra is made by great musicians. But if you give a good driver a good Ferrari, the driver also will drive faster," Noseda told Morning Edition host Leila Fadel in an interview at his office in Washington, D.C. These seven violins and a viola are worth a total of around five million dollars. It's a major investment for Noseda, who grew up in a modest neighborhood of Milan, where his father was an electrical draftsman and his mother was a homemaker. From Italy to Tokyo Noseda got the idea of purchasing and donating instruments a few years ago. While guest-conducting Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2010, he noticed that many of the musicians were playing old Italian instruments. "The orchestra had a certain sound, very disciplined because of the Japanese culture, but also warm in a way given by the instruments," he recalled. "I was shocked by this experience." The following year, Noseda — who is a piano player, not a string player — purchased a violin and lent it to the concertmaster, or lead violinist, of the Teatro Regio Terino he directed at the time. "I immediately realized that it made a difference," Noseda said. That violin, made in 1725 by Santo Serafin in Venice, is now being played by Marissa Regni, the NSO's principal second violin. "The instrument is like a vessel to get the sound out. So if you've got a great instrument, you can really think about the tone, quality, all the most important things," Regni said. "If you don't have a great vessel.... it's like you're straining your voice, like you think you're being louder, it's not as beautiful a tone." Noseda's loan program gives right of first refusal to the lead players, or principals, of each applicable orchestra section, after which other musicians can obtain the instruments on a rotating two-year loan. "This instrument is much more mellow, round sound, very silvery on the E string but I feel like the G string is very chocolaty," Regni said, as she demonstrated on the violin. Changing the orchestra's sound But how do you do you go about changing the sound of a symphony orchestra? "The most important thing is when you work day by day, inspiring the way to make the orchestra interact... create an expanded chamber music where everybody knows what to listen for, how to cooperate," Noseda explained. Both he and Marissa Regni, the NSO's principal second violin, pointed to the importance of being surrounded by great musicians. "If you hear a beautiful sound near you... you want to sound as beautiful as that person," is how Regni put it. "It's not I want to be as good as them. It's because you want to create this incredible sound. In order to do that, you all have to do it right. You all have to have that goal." Crucial role of instrument loans Few classical musicians can afford valuable instruments made by esteemed luthiers like Antonio Stradivari (ca. 1644-1737). That's where foundations and wealthy benefactors come in. Noseda's instruments range from a violin made by Francesco Ruggeri in 1686 to an 1830 violin made by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda. Noseda also owns two cellos and intends to soon bring one to the NSO. The other is on loan to a young cellist in Italy. "At a certain point, you feel the real necessity to give back," Noseda told NPR's Leila Fadel. The instruments, he added, "will live longer than me. But now I think it's important that they will inspire people in the orchestra to also deliver a better sound world." But at the beating heart of the orchestra remain the dozens of living souls who bring the ensemble to life. "Once a very close friend of mine conductor told me that it's not important that you become a star," Noseda recalled. "As a music director, it is even more important if you are surrounded by stars. Because all the light they produce will make you brighter."

Make way for Dionne Warwick To an over sixty year career driving American music, what even is a genre? Soul, pop, jazz, R&B –– none do justice to the legendary 82-year-old songstress Dionne Warwick. She is defined simply by that voice. On Saturday, Jan. 21, Des Moines’ historic Hoyt Sherman Place will celebrate its 100th anniversary season in spectacular fashion, rolling out the red carpet for Dionne Warwick’s very first visit to Iowa. “It’s my pleasure,” says Warwick. “To be invited to perform in places that people say ‘hey we want you to be here with us too,’ it’s a joy to comply.” A voice synonymous with love, Warwick is known internationally for classics such as “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again,” “Walk on By,” “This Girl’s in Love with You,” “All the Love in the World,” “Make It Easy on Yourself,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” many produced in collaboration with friends composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David. One of the most-charted vocalists of all time, Warwick began her career working with the likes of Sam Cooke, Ben E. King, Dinah Washington and Ray Charles. “I was on tour with many, many megastars at that point in my life. I had a hit record called Don’t Make Me Over. It went on, after that, to ‘Walk on By’ and ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ and a few others that hopefully people remember and know. And graduated from those particular tours to world tours. So, you know, it’s kind of difficult capsulize sixty years in ten minutes.” Bacharach-David-Warwick Shopping at Ragged Records in Davenport, I discovered and purchased a 1970 compilation album called On the Move: apparently part of a CBS-TV special sponsored by Chevrolet. On the back were sleek images of the newest Chevy arrivals, including the 1970 Monte Carlo, Caprice and ‘tough’ Chevelle SS muscle car with two mean black stripes running down the hood. I asked her if this record rang any bells. “So, you’re really testing my memory aren’t you,” teases Warwick with a laugh. “My goodness. My God, that was so long ago. It was wonderful. [The Dionne Warwick Chevy Special] was my very first special. Chevrolet was the sponsor of it. My guest was Glen Campbell and Burt Bacharach, with orchestra, dancers. It was a wonderful time period in my life.” During this time, Bacharach and David were some of the most in-demand songbook authors in the world. They often chose Warwick to record demo songs meant for the stage, and wrote many hits with her voice in mind. “Basically, that was my part of the trio…was to interpret what was written for me to sing,” says Warwick. “All I can say is that Hal David wrote some of the most prolific words for me to sing and Burt wrote the most incredible melodies for me to sing… and it depends upon me to bring that to your listening ears, to have you believe what was being given as the composition. That’s the only explanation I can give you.” Legendary lyricist Hal David died in September 2012. He was known for penning some of the most classic lines in American music and film, from “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” and “This Guy’s In Love With You” to “What’s New Pussycat?” and “The Look of Love.” Warwick wants to make sure David’s contribution to her famous catalog is fairly represented. “We cannot negate the name David,” says Warwick. “Hal David is probably the most vital part of that trio, because without Hal David’s lyrics we’d all be humming, instead of saying beautiful words to each other. We will never, ever say Bacharach’s name without mentioning Hal David.” One of my favorite Warwick songs, “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again,” was composed by Bacharach with lyrics by David, originally for the 1968 Broadway musical comedy Promises, Promises, Neil Simon’s stage adaptation of the Billy Wilder film The Apartment. At the tail end of 1969, Warwick released a recording of the song that has become the quintessential rendition. During our interview, I asked Warwick to dive into David’s lyrics and tell me what in her life inspired her performance on the recording. She was having none of that. “That had nothing to do with it!” says Warwick. “That song was written specifically for the play Promises, Promises. I recorded it well…after the play was on Broadway. The song has nothing to do with my personal life at all. It has to do with everything Hal David thought to write for that particular part of the play.” Instead of accepting this answer, I asked more questions about the song’s meaning. She pushed back. “You know what you’re doing?” Warwick snaps, with a laugh. “You are comparing those lyrics to my personal life, which it has nothing to do with at all. I’m glad it affected you in that way…because that was [a testament] to Hal David’s lyrics.” The early 70’s marked the end of her time attached to Bacharach and David; she would go on to start her own label, later signing contracts with Warner, Arista and Concord Records. She’s Back, like she never left Let’s be clear, Dionne Warwick never went anywhere. Sure, recent stints as the Mouse on FOX’s The Masked Singer and herself on Ego Nwodim’s masterful Saturday Night Live sketch "The Dionne Warwick Talk Show" might suggest some sort of renaissance for the star, but she’s been here. Even early on, stardom was never too far away for the “Alfie” singer. First appearing on television in the early 60’s alongside her Drinkard-Warwick (actually Warrick) family gospel group The Drinkard Singers, Dionne would occasionally lend her talents to the successful 50’s gospel ensemble, which also happened to be managed by her mother. Since then, she’s appeared in countless TV concerts on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show and American Bandstand, produced late night programming and even tried her hand at reality television. In Hollywood, she contributed her voice to the iconic Valley of the Dolls (1967) soundtrack and was recently featured in Nope (2022). Dionne Warwick’s sound has translated effortlessly from vinyl to digital. As her classic hits continue to mature, she continues to search for innovative ways of showcasing her voice. “Am I Dreaming (feat. Musiq Soulchild),” the first song off 2019’s album She’s Back, weaves the two vocalists’ iconic voices together in a hypnotic, drum machine-heavy, new-age lullaby, with lyrics: Am I dreaming? / Am I dreaming? Am I just imagining you're here in my life? Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? Can't somebody teach me to see Teach me to see if it's real 'Cause my mind can't decide In 2014, Dionne Warwick released Feels So Good, an album of duets revisiting some of her greatest songs, and brought together an eclectic group of collaborators, including Ne-Yo, Billy Ray Cyrus, Cyndi Lauper, trumpeter Phil Driscoll, CeeLo Green, Mýa, Ziggy Marley and more. Not unlike the complementary role played by Barry Gibb throughout Warwick’s 1982 hit record Heartbreaker, Jamie Foxx lends his voice to a starry, slow jamz spin on 1979’s “Deja Vu.” “It was wonderful,” says Warwick. “The mere fact that they all wanted to be a part of the project was very important. And to lend their enormous talents to me and those particular songs that they chose to sing with me, [it] was a joy.” Next up for Warwick: A lot. “I’m in the throes of putting together my inspirational CD,” says Warwick. “I’m getting ready to complete my duet with Dolly Parton, which, she wrote a beautiful gospel song and wanted me to be a part of that. I’m getting ready to come to Iowa to see all you guys and do a wonderful concert for you… “Actually, I’m getting ready to get out of this car and go into my next interview, that’s what I’m getting ready to do,” says Warwick. The Oreo beef Dionne Warwick is known for not pulling any punches on Twitter. In October of 2021, @DionneWarwick began putting brands on blast for an obvious oversight. In a video tweet, captioned “If these youngsters can secure brand deals, so can I. Nobody asked for this, but here is my audition tape for @Oreo, @Popeyes, @BushsBeans, and @Hellmanns,” Warwick shared what can only be described as internet gold. The verified @Oreo account took immediate interest (“We don't even have to watch the audition. We're in.”) which prompted Warwick to publish a string of tweets, one of which ranks among my top five favorite Twitter exchanges: “Hello, What is your weirdest flavor? Why are ya’ll doing the most? The one flavor was fine.” In a classic case of things-nobody-asked-for, Warwick was surprised months later to receive a package from Oreo HQ including –– and this is real –– Oreo-shaped lip balm and a package of Java Chip Oreo cookies. She took to Twitter. “After asking @Oreo to stick to the original flavor, they sent me these outrageous items as a response.” With seconds left in our interview, I asked the “We Are The World” contributor (after Michael Jackson, before Willie Nelson) whether she ate those coffee-flavored Oreos. After a laugh and a pause, she replied “No, I didn’t eat ‘em.” “You know,” says Warwick, “once you are accustomed to a certain taste and look and feel, if it ain’t broke why fix it?” An Evening With Dionne Warwick Fans of Dionne Warwick’s classics will be delighted to know that’s exactly what’s on the menu for her Jan. 21 engagement. “I’m doing the songs that people expect me to sing, of course,” says Warwick. “And the songs are the reason that I am coming to you to do this concert. I’ve been very, very blessed and fortunate that people have been very loyal and have been responsive to what I do musically. I’m just very, very happy that people are cognizant of the work that I’ve done musically and are still enjoying it.” The Soul Train Legend Award-honored singer will be visiting Des Moines on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, for An Evening With Dionne Warwick at Hoyt Sherman Place. Tickets available at hoytsherman.org.

By Michel Martin, Gemma Watters, Emma Bowman With their signature harmonies, tight choreography and flashy outfits, The Temptations helped define the Motown sound. Lesser known is what the five young men from Detroit had to sacrifice to get there. A new musical, appropriately titled Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, chronicles the tumultuous journey of the Motown group. Behind their chart-topping hits and smooth melodies, the original group's climb to globetrotting superstardom was fraught with departures, deaths and ego during a turbulent 1960s America. But the quintet's one constant was its co-founder and sole surviving member, Otis Williams. The production, now at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., before it hits Broadway, is based on Williams' memoir and authored by award-winning playwright and Detroit-native Dominique Morisseau. Williams, "the glue" of the group, tells NPR about the "emotional" experience of watching his memories play out on the big stage. After seeing Ain't Too Proud, he says, "It was emotional. I was moved to tears. You know, 'cause I'm saying, 'Wow. I lived through all that?' Never had any idea that when we started singing that we would be going through a lot of craziness, being baptized in fire by certain aspects of life." Interview Highlights On his Motown education See, at Motown, we had to go to school. By that I mean, Motown had a division called artist development. And we would have to be there at 10 in the morning, 11 in the morning, 'till 6 in the evening. Motown said look: "We want to show you the correct way of getting on the stage. Then while you're on the stage you know what you have to do. And then the correct way of coming off the stage." So, OK, that's easy. He said, "But here's the kicker. We have to teach you guys how to carry yourself when you're off stage." I say, "Oh, really, why?" He said, "Because people know what you do on stage. They want to see how you are when you're not on stage." On being "the glue" of the group I've been called "the glue." ... Shelly [Berger], our manager, and various people that were very instrumental in The Temptations' career — they said, "You know, Otis. If it wasn't for you, there would be no Temptations." Because I've always been in the kind of thinking of, "Let's take care of business, fellas." We can have fun, but we gotta be at the studio at a certain time. On whether he ever felt the price to keep the group together was too high No. Even in losing the classic Temptations, life goes on. The one thing that's constant in life is change. And sometimes when it's that kind of change you will find out what you're made of. You have to stay strong and stay focused and — you can't fall apart because you lose certain things, because life is like that at times. Sometimes that's the only way you can find out what you're really made of. On the difficult times the group went through I don't think it's bad luck, I just think that's part of life. You know, sometimes we choose our own wealth. Doing certain things and a lot of times that's not a good thing. Especially when you can start the drinking or the drugs. I've always stayed focus[ed]. Not to say that I'm a saint, you know 'cause I mean I had my fun. But I learned about myself that, as a governor of me, I would see certain artist friends of mine do certain things. And I would look at 'em, I said, "Nah, I'm not doin' that." On his experience watching Ain't Too Proud To see my play in a different perspective, it was touching. And I'm glad that I felt that way because when they come to see the play I don't want them to think just, "Oh the Tempts dancing and singing — that's it." No, no, no. We were shot at down South. I never will forget. We were in Columbia, South Carolina, the first time we went there in 1964 doing a Motor Town review tour. They had a rope right down the center of the auditorium — whites on one side, blacks on the other. We came back to that same place then the following year — no rope. Blacks and whites sitting side by side, high-fiving, enjoying the show. And if wasn't for the sweat we were perspiring from dancing and singing, they would've seen five guys on stage crying. The power of what music can do. On not being encouraged to use their celebrity to be outspoken during contentious times Back then, during that time, the way we would get back at 'em is through the music. And there were times that we would say that we did not like this. I'll give you a case in point. Ole Miss in Mississippi. So we were gonna play there, we got there early, and as we were standing there watching them get everything ready for us to perform, black folks came down and they wanted to sit right down front. ... But they didn't have the tickets to sit there. So, when the white folks came, it almost became a nasty situation. So Eddie Kendricks and myself, we walked out and we had the guys turn the microphone on. And we said, "Hey, look. Please. Don't do this. We came here to perform for everybody. Let's not have an ugly situation." Know the most amazing thing? Black folks went and sat — now they weren't in the back, they were just on the side. And white folks sat down in front. As we walked away from the microphone, we said, "Wow, we're only entertainers but they listened, and we stopped a possible nasty situation." So we had our moments of speaking out about "don't do this, this is wrong." On why he thinks the music of The Temptations endures When I listen at the "My Girls," when I listen at "What's Going On" ... last night I was listening to Stevie's "Sign, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours." That music was so profoundly effective, but you don't realize it until years later. Everybody can identify with it or relate to it to some extent, and it's just the kind of music that makes you say, "Wow. I lived through that. I love that music." I would bring all kind of memories. On a moment that showed him the power of The Temptations I often get a lot of fan mail. So this one particular day, I got a fan mail. It started off, "Mr. Williams, if you get this, would you please call me? My mother would like to talk to you." So I call. I say "Hi, this is Otis Williams. I'm responding to your letter." The daughter said, "Uh, Mr. Williams, hold on, let me get my mother. Mother came to the phone, the first thing that came out her mouth was, "I asked God not to take me until I talk to Otis Williams." How do you say anything behind that? And she said, "Let me tell you what you guys meant to me and my life and the music that you made." And as she's telling me all this, I'm sitting there, tears running down my eyes. And after she finished, she said, "Now God can take me." So I've had moments like that, which lets me know that the music that we've made and continue to make has such a profound effect on people, just depending on the person or the people.

By NPR Radio Rachel Martin, Vince Pearson Piano & a Microphone 1983, is the first posthumous album released by the Prince Estate since the superstar's death two years ago. It's an intimate recording of the artist before he was a giant, international star working through songs in a home studio — just Prince and his piano. The never-before-heard recording was discovered in the singer's personal vault on a cassette tape and takes place in Prince's Kiowa Trail home studio in Chanhassen, Minn. But don't think of this release as some unearthed demos meant for others to hear. As NPR Music critic Ann Powers explains, these songs were for Prince to try out ideas and develop new material. "We are being allowed into a moment that we don't necessarily get and we never would have had access to, honestly, while Prince was alive," Powers says. The album contains the fledgling beginnings and snippets of songs like "Purple Rain," which would go on to be one of Prince's most massive hits, a cover of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" and a re-imagination of the gospel classic "Mary Don't You Weep." Above all, what the stripped-down piano on the album shows listeners is the process of how Prince worked. "What his piano-playing shows us is how he finds his voice," Powers notes. "His vocal style is related to the instrument." As working tapes, Powers believes that if Prince were alive he would "most certainly not" want this early music out in the world. But she also argues that the release of Piano & A Microphone 1983 isn't an exploitation of the artist. "I think we understand Prince's creativity in a different way because of it and for that reason, it doesn't feel like a violation, it feels like a gift," Powers says.

New Your Public Radio Anastasia Tsioulcas For years, classical music fans have been left behind in the streaming revolution. Finding particular works and recordings has been hit or miss on the major platforms, which were basically built to search for an artist's name and a song title. Apple Music Classical, launched last month, is the latest streaming service to take a serious swing at the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Bartók. For years, I've been complaining quite publicly about how streaming services have blundered when it comes to reaching audiences interested in classical music recordings. Why have they stumbled? For a couple of reasons. Firstly, the metadata for classical music — including the name of a piece of music, the individual movements or sections of that piece, the composer, the various performers involved, and so forth — is inherently more complicated than it is for pop music. Secondly, classical works often span several tracks, not self-contained within one "song." By contrast, most streaming sites assume you want to listen to one track and then move on to something new. For today's listeners, a world of great music is, at least in theory, no more than a click away, as pianist and composer Ethan Iverson recently wrote. But recorded music functionally ceases to exist if you can't find it. Historically, most popular streaming services have ignored those fundamental truths, either for lack of a market base (or so I've been told) or out of disinterest (same). In that breach, several classical specialty sites sprang up, with varying degrees of success. Before I joined NPR in 2011, I was the founding editor of one of those services, which tried — and failed — to reach classical music fans. Two years ago, Apple bought just such a company, called Primephonic — and built their new service on Primephonic's bones. Jonathan Gruber heads classical for Apple Music. He says, "Fundamentally, the thing about this app is that it's trying to do something that has not been done adequately before and do it really well, which is deliver an excellent customer experience, listening experience for classical music lovers. It's made for classical music lovers by classical music lovers." (It's also free — but only if you already have a subscription to Apple Music.) The last time I wrote at length about classical music metadata and streaming services was back in 2015 — an eon ago, in technical terms. Some services have improved significantly, while others have not. For one example: Say I want to find a great recording of Beethoven's grand and glorious Symphony No. 9. On any streaming platform, I get back hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of results. The first match I get on Spotify is conductor Herbert von Karajan's 1984 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic. (Not bad, considering that Karajan recorded the Ninth Symphony four times over his career.) If I were a newcomer to classical music, I wouldn't get much information about this recording, nor would I have much in the way of guided pathways to aid further exploration. I don't fare nearly so well on YouTube. After I search "Beethoven Symphony 9," the first hit I get is not a symphony, not a piece for orchestra, and not even music by Beethoven. Instead, I get a recording of Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. In my exploration of Apple Music Classical, the app usually gave me the results I sought on the first search attempt. For popular pieces of music, such as Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" — for which there are 817 (!) recordings available — the app provides a brief text introduction to the work, a human curator-recommended "Editor's Choice" recording, several "popular recordings" of the piece, and then a list of some related works, including recordings of other Beethoven works for piano, as well as suggestions of other pieces by other composers (Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Saint-Saens) that might appeal as well. Gruber says that as of launch, Apple has more classical music available than any other streaming service: "We have a database which has 20,000 composers, more than 100,000 unique works, 300,000 movements, 5 million tracks, 50 million data points in order to make this happen," he notes. (We reached out repeatedly to Spotify to ask for comparable statistics but did not receive any response). Financially speaking, it's unclear why Apple felt this was a good time to create a classical music service. Several years ago, classical music sales accounted for about 3% of the overall music market in the U.S. According to a 2022 year-end report from the firm Luminate (formerly Nielsen Music), classical now hovers at about 1% of total music consumption in this country. According to Gruber, Apple's research has found that far from being music snobs, classical fans actually listen to many more kinds of music than listeners to other music genres. "What we found," he says, "is that classical customers are not sitting in an elite corner somewhere. They're actually the biggest music fans there are. They're the ones who listen to the widest variety of genres, way above the average of your average listener of music." Apple Music Classical is not perfect. The much-vaunted metadata listing soloists and other performers are sometimes missing. For example, when I looked up the Nonesuch recording of John Adams' opera Nixon in China, starring James Maddalena as the former president, Apple Music Classical had no metadata on any of the singers. Instead, it lists the conductor (Edo de Waart), orchestra (Orchestra of St. Luke's), and album producer. Moreover, it gives an incorrect release date for the album (1995 rather than the correct 1988). A service is only as good as its metadata. Moreover, if you use an Android phone, you're still out of luck — at least for now — and Apple Music Classical isn't available on a desktop. As of launch, Apple's curated playlists tilt much more toward Classical 101 than deep-dive delights, and there are no liner notes or libretti available. Perhaps most pressingly, Apple Classical is a standalone experience — disconnected from the rest of Apple Music. So it's hard for fans who generally listen to other genres to fall down any classical rabbit holes. In the meantime, though, several prominent venues and ensembles seem to be betting on Apple Classical. The service promises exclusive content from Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and the London Symphony Orchestra, among others. (Over the past decade or so, several of these prestigious ensembles and organizations have experimented with their own self-contained platforms and streaming sites, but it's unclear if they ever reached some kind of critical audience mass). Can Apple succeed with classical music fans when so many other services have failed? That's still an open question. But at least one of the biggest players in streaming is finally paying attention.

National Public Radio Elizabeth Blair Singer, actor and human rights activist Harry Belafonte died Tuesday at age 96 of congestive heart failure. He broke racial barriers and balanced his activism with his artistry in ways that made people around the world listen. Belafonte, who was an EGOT holder for his Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards, died at his home in New York, his publicist announced. Style, class and charisma: That was Harry Belafonte as a performer. In the 1950s, his recordings for RCA Victor, which included his iconic version of the Jamaican folk song "Day-O" (also known as "The Banana Boat Song") set off a craze for calypso music. With his good looks and his shirt unbuttoned to his chest, audiences — Black and white — adored Belafonte at a time when most of America was still segregated. Belafonte was born in Harlem. His parents were from the Caribbean; his mother was Jamaican, and his father was from the island of Martinique. His mother, who was a cleaning lady, took him back to her native Jamaica, where he absorbed the island's culture. The singer told NPR in 2011 that his recording of "The Banana Boat Song" was inspired by the vendors he heard singing in the streets. "The song is a work song," he said. "It's about men who sweat all day long, and they are underpaid. They're begging for the tallyman to come and give them an honest count: 'Count the bananas that I've picked so I can be paid.' When people sing in delight and dance and love it, they don't really understand unless they study the song — that they're singing a work song that's a song of rebellion." And that song of rebellion was a smash. The album Calypso was a bestseller, holding a spot at the top of Billboard's then newly created album charts for several weeks in 1956. Years earlier, Harry Belafonte dropped out of high school and joined the Navy. After serving in World War II, he was working as a janitor's assistant when someone gave him tickets to a performance at the American Negro Theatre. He was riveted. He started training there, alongside Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. He also started singing in clubs. Pretty soon, he had a recording contract. In 1954, he won a Tony Award for a revue called "John Murray Anderson's Almanac: A Musical Harlequinade." He starred in movies and appeared on TV variety shows. In 1959, he was given a one-hour show on CBS. Called The Revlon Revue: Tonight With Belafonte, the program had dance numbers, folk songs, and both Black and white performers. The program won an Emmy Award — the first for an African American. Revlon asked him for more shows. According to Belafonte, CBS stations in the South complained about its integrated cast. In interviews, he said he was asked to make it all-Black. He says he refused, and left the show. Belafonte was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s most trusted friends. In 1963, he helped organize the Freedom March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech. Clarence Jones, who helped draft that speech, told NPR's Fresh Air in 2011 that it was Belafonte who explained to them how to use the power of television. "He said," Jones recalled, "'You have to look at this as a media event, not just as a march.' And so, for example, Harry was responsible for assembling what was called the 'celebrity delegation,' a lot of celebrities from Hollywood and performing artists. And he was very firm that they should sit in a certain strategic part on the podium, because he knew that the television cameras would pan to them, would look to them. And so he wanted to be sure that they were strategically situated, so that in looking at the celebrities, they'd also see a picture of the march and the other performers." When Dr. King was held in a Birmingham jail, Belafonte raised money to bail him out. Coretta Scott King wrote in her autobiography, "Whenever we got into trouble or when tragedy struck, Harry has always come to our aid, his generous heart wide-open." His relationship with the King family later turned rocky after Belafonte filed a lawsuit against King's estate in 2013 over the fate of three documents that the civil rights leader had given him, and which Belafonte tried to auction off in order to fund nonprofit work; the family claimed that the singer and actor had "wrongfully acquired" the documents. Belafonte and the estate settled out of court the next year, with Belafonte retaining the materials. Throughout his career, Belafonte received numerous honors for his humanitarian work and the arts. He also helped organize Nelson Mandela's first trip to the U.S. after he was released from prison. He was also an outspoken critic of people in power, including President Barack Obama, whom he once chastised for not showing enough concern for the poor. He singled out African American artists Jay-Z and Beyonce, telling an interviewer they've "turned their back on social responsibility." Jay-Z responded on his track "Nickels And Dimes": "Mr. Day-O, major fail." The two men eventually made up. Harry Belafonte was an activist into his 90s. He told NPR in 2011 that was something he learned from his mother. "She was tenacious about her dignity not being crushed. And one day, she said to me — she was talking about coming back from a day when she couldn't find work. Fighting back tears, she said, 'Don't ever let injustice go by unchallenged.'" As his good friend Sidney Poitier once put it, Belafonte was an "invaluable energy force" and "always a gutsy guy." Harry Belafonte is survived by his wife, Pamela Frank; four children; two stepchildren; and eight grandchildren. Edited by: Anastasia Tsioulcas Audio story edited by: Rose Friedman Audio story produced by: Kelli Wessinger

National Public Radio Reporter: Debbie Elliott HAVANA — It's a bit chaotic in the band room of the Guillermo Tomas music school, on the outskirts of Havana, where scores of young players tune up their instruments, ready to learn some new music. Troy Andrews, aka Trombone Shorty, the busy New Orleans musician, is sitting on the front row to take in the performance. "They say 'do you speak Spanish?' and I say I'm from the Treme, so I speak Tremish," he jokes. Andrews, who grew up in the historic Treme neighborhood, is here for a cultural exchange between musicians from New Orleans and Cuba. It's sponsored in part by his Trombone Shorty Foundation, a program that nurtures budding young artists in his hometown. Eight of them are on this trip, spending the day at this conservatory learning alongside Cuban students. They'll also get to see concerts by famous Cuban musicians, including singer-songwriter Carlos Varela. Andrews first came to Cuba as a young teenager, on a similar cultural exchange trip. "It had a long-lasting effect on me in a beautiful way," he says. "I feel like New Orleans and Havana are like sisters and brothers." He says the style of music he discovered then has stayed with him ever since, as has the connection between the two cultures. "We can see the food is very important here. The music is played in the streets, in the backyards and the clubs is the same thing," Andrews says. "Most importantly, the soul – the resilience of the people here is almost identical to what we experience in New Orleans. So that's why when I come here, I don't feel like I'm in a foreign place." He's excited to see these young musicians pick up on that, and "understand that there's a connection to the rhythms that we play in the streets of New Orleans and the rhythms that's happening here," he says. That plays out in a free-for-all binational jam session at the school led by Trombone Shorty and his band Orleans Avenue. Members of the New Orleans funk band Galactic, and the Cuban star Cimafunk and his band are also in the mix. Discovering Shared Rhythms and Roots What started as a New Orleans-style second line song morphed into something with a Latin flair. "They played the right notes, they just accented in a different way," Andrews explains. No words were exchanged. "It was all music. There was just one note that made it feel very different, very salsa-like instead of second line." The students are into it, leaning in with their trumpets and clarinets, each showing the other something. "Just one day of me being here I've seen so much that I've never heard," says Yordi Santiago-Cortez, a clarinet player and high school senior from Kenner, La. "It opened me up for quite literally a whole other world of music." He's bonded with a Cuban clarinet player about his same age – Jorge. "That man is going to stay in mind like, for as long as I play clarinet," says Santiago-Cortez. "He not only taught me things, I taught him some things." The students were exchanging social media handles by the day's end, promising to stay in touch. "You know how Troy said earlier about it being like his home musically? I feel the same way," Santiago-Cortez says. John Rhodes, a 16-year-old drummer from Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, picked up on things that reminded him of home, like the architecture in the French Quarter and what he saw in Old Havana. "The streets were bricks and also the little small balconies when you look up, it's just all similarities," Rhodes says. "They big on music too." He says he got a rush at how easily their sounds meshed. "The Latin groove and the Big Four brass band second line, it all coincides when it comes to us playing together," he says. "No matter where we come from, no matter what language you speak, no matter what race ... music is a universal language." These students share more than just a love for music, says Lilian Lombera Herrera, a cultural producer with Horns to Havana, one of the groups involved in this cultural exchange. "All of that is part of our same ancestors," she says, referencing people of West-African descent captured and brought here during the Atlantic slave trade. "Some of the Latin tinge about the flavor of the second lines and of the music comes from the Caribbean," Lombera Herrera, who is Cuban and now lives in Lombera Herrera says helping the students recognize that shared heritage was her goal. "It's something that you can't deny. You feel it even in how people interact, how people look at the eyes between each other." Those Afro-Cuban roots are what Erik Alejandro Iglesias Rodríguez, who records as Cimafunk, is all about. The stage name is a nod to his heritage: Cimarrons were African captives who escaped slavery. For several years he's been spending time in New Orleans, collaborating with artists there including Tank and the Bangas, the Soul Rebels and now Trombone Shorty. "You feel that kind of crazy vibe around us – it's the same in New Orleans," he says. "At the same time, all the problems and all the situations – the economic, social, everything, but you feel that the people keep the soul." The economic situation in Cuba is dire, with shortages of food and fuel, and power blackouts. Record numbers of migrants are fleeing the Communist-controlled island. The crisis is a culmination of several things, including the pandemic, U.S. sanctions and a tight grip on the economy by a one-party government that hasn't followed through on promised economic reforms. Frustrations boiled up in street demonstrations last year that were met with a severe government crackdown after which nnew, harsher controls on freedom of expression were put in place. Some artists were jailed and others were forced into exile. "This is wrong," Cimafunk says. "This is happening and keeps happening." But he doesn't think fleeing Cuba is the answer. He's hopeful that exchanges like this one can open up possibility. Back at the Guillermo Tomas School, the students are working on songs that they will perform together as the opening act for a Trombone Shorty concert in Havana – one New Orleans classic, one Cuban. The 14-year-old Juan Licor Doreste has a wide grin as he weaves around the other musicians, snapping his fingers with the beat – a seeming band leader in the making. "I play the trumpet," he says, explaining his enthusiasm. "This jam session with them, I mean, it's been amazing," he says. He's one of several Cuban students to get new instruments from this contingent from the United States, which included tourists who paid to come see concerts put on by both Cuban and New Orleans bands. Licor Doreste dreams of someday having his own jazz band. He says he wants to be the next Wynton Marsalis.

By National Public Radio Reporter Julian Hayda Before Russia invaded Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said that "Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood." But in the decades since the country gained independence, groups of working-class activists, intellectuals and clergy did their part to revive and preserve Ukrainian culture, much of which had been repressed by Soviet and Russian imperial governments. NPR met with three musicians who are bringing traditional Ukrainian music to the war effort. To the front lines The day after Russia's invasion, Taras Kompanichenko, a folk musician, rushed to join a Territorial Defense unit in Kyiv. At first, he wanted to pick up arms against the Russians – but his friends argued that his musical talents would be more useful to the war effort. "You can't hammer a nail with a microscope," Kompanichenko recalls a recruiter telling him. After some persistence, Ukraine's military gave him a rifle – but nonetheless assigned him to the same unit where religious chaplains tend to soldiers' spiritual needs. He performs in trenches and at enlistment ceremonies. There was a front-line wedding he accompanied. Even before Ukraine's independence, Kompanichenko was part of a movement to revive a form of indigenous music that belonged to "Kobzars," a name for the blind bards that roamed the countryside beginning in the 17th century. "They sang a very specific repertoire of epic songs called Dumy, which were historical songs, as well as philosophical and moralistic songs," says Julian Kytasty, a New York-based player of the bandura, one of the main instruments Kobzars used to accompany their music. According to Kompanichenko, performing Kobzar music gives soldiers a sense of cultural continuity — something worth fighting for at a time Ukraine is under threat. "I put these instruments in their hands so they can feel the same thing that people who fought for Ukraine felt a hundred years ago," he says. Members of the Kobzar revival claim that their predecessors were perhaps the only social group that's ever been persecuted on account of the genre they performed. "Kobzars became so important because there was no institutional way for Ukrainians to codify their experience [of persecution]," says Kytasty. "They were obviously not popular with most colonial governments." By the early 1930s, the art form nearly vanished amidst Stalin's purges in Ukraine. It's unclear what happened to all of the Kobzars, but many were executed or exiled by the Soviet secret police. Few of their instruments survived. "Kobzars sang about how important it is to know the difference between truth and a lie," says Kytasty, a theme Ukrainians recognize in contemporary struggles against disinformation and propaganda. In recent years, Ukraine's Culture Ministry has expressed some interest in the Kobzar revival, signaling a shift from Soviet-era tendencies to support more Western-style high arts. Pre-Soviet folk music had previously been the domain of anthropologists, not contemporary artists. It belonged in museums, not concerts. Losing inspiration and finding it again Tania Loboda rents a studio high atop a skyscraper, owned by the Ministry of Culture, in downtown Kyiv. She usually teaches people how to play on old-world Ukrainian instruments like the bandura, hurdy-gurdy, and torban. But, like Kompanichenko, she felt that if her duty was to preserve Ukrainian culture, her place to do that would be on the battlefield. "There was an avalanche of people," says Loboda, describing her attempt to enlist in Ukraine's Territorial Defense forces. Thousands of people stood in line at every recruitment center she visited. Eventually, she talked her way to the front of one, where she was accepted to teach field medicine, even though she'd only had experience as a music teacher. "I'm disciplined. I'm demanding," Loboda says; attributes that come in handy when teaching amateurs new skills. She spent the first three weeks of the war at a checkpoint near the front line, showing a rotating crew of soldiers how to use tourniquets and do other basic trauma care. At the time, she couldn't bring herself to sing. "An idea comes into my head, but then the inspiration totally fades because of the war," she says. But when Loboda had to return to her studio to take care of some Culture Ministry bills, she was inspired to create once again. The images from social media translated into the style of a Duma effortlessly.. "That's not a falcon closing the sky with its wings," she sings, "It's the horde from Moscow laying siege to Kyiv." Loboda's music has struck a chord with some new students from Eastern Ukraine. They come to learn the Kobzar repertoire to understand the cultural differences between Ukrainians and Russians — a notion that Russian cultural leaders deny. The guilds During the height of their cultural prominence, Kobzars organized themselves into guilds that would maintain their repertoire and pass along the skills to carve instruments. While none of the historic guilds remain, modern versions have rebooted across the country. Jurij Fedynsky owns a compound in Ukraine's Poltava region where he hosts workshops on how to build old-world banduras and torbans. "This music is optimism, hope, and reconstruction," he says of the Kobzar revival movement. As a full-scale Russian invasion seemed increasingly possible, Jurij Fedynsky took his pregnant wife and children to the airport to stay with relatives in the United States. As the leader of the Poltava Kobzar Guild, his next responsibility was to make sure his fellow musicians were safe. As Russian rockets rained on Ukraine in late February, they all piled into his van to drive west. But in a desperate attempt to find fuel, the group ended up in the middle of Kyiv. "When you have faith in God, fear washes away," said Fedynsky, who leans heavily on the Orthodox Christian religious philosophy of Kobzars. The guild stayed in Kyiv throughout the month-long Russian seige, performing at checkpoints and at bomb shelters. Oftentimes, they would return to their borrowed apartment after the city's strict curfew, driving past checkpoints where only days earlier troops had "shoot-to-kill" orders. "We'd drive very slowly with all of our lights on," says Fedynsky. "We tell stories, like the press." After the Russian military retreated, Fedynsky and his guild toured newly liberated towns like Borodyanka, where entire apartment buildings were reduced to rubble. Oleksandr Chernenko, a volunteer in Borodyanka, stopped by the Poltava Kobzar Guild's impromptu performance in the city's center square. "It's a bit depressing," says Chernenko, "but the music is fitting."

Story by Sam Gringlas Ari Shapiro In the fall of 1974, George Foreman and Muhammad Ali met in the country of Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo, for the legendary boxing match known as "The Rumble in the Jungle." Although the Rumble had to be postponed until later that autumn, a related promotional event went on as scheduled and turned out to be similarly momentous: Zaire 74, a music festival where some of America's greatest black artists played alongside Africa's leading talent to an audience of tens of thousands. Documentaries and albums chronicling that festival have concentrated on the American performers, such as James Brown and B.B. King. The African artists have not received the same shine — and disputes over money and control, which kept a tight lid on concert footage, have not helped. Except for the South African legend Miriam Makeba, these musicians were all Congolese, including rumba maestros Franco and Tabu Ley Rochereau. But now their performances can be heard, many of them in full, on a new live album titled Zaire 74: The African Artists. It was produced by South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela and American record producer Stewart Levine — the same men who organized that festival in Kinshasa more than 40 years ago with the aim of making the world more conscious of African music. Read on for highlights from Ari Shapiro's interview with Masekela and Levine, and listen at the audio link to hear the full conversation and snippets of music from Zaire 74: The African Artists. Interview Highlights On what organizing the festival was like Hugh Masekela: From the time we started to organize the festival, until after the festival, it was very hard work. I think we both lost about 20 pounds each. ... It was the first thing of its kind and it was very exciting, the artists were excited. The Congolese audience had never been to anything like it. And actually nobody had ever been to anything like it. Stewart Levine: You must remember one thing: The African artists had never played in front of such a large audience. So they were incredibly inspired. And the audience knew them better than they did James Brown, and they were out to cut James Brown. [Laughter.] On rediscovering the recordings that would become Zaire 74: The African Artists Levine: I refer to it as musical archaeology because we in fact had never heard these performances. They were recorded while, like Hugh says, we were running around trying to help get this thing organized and put up onstage. So when we opened these tapes up about a year and a half ago, we were stunned. We were mesmerized. Because with all due respect to the American artists, who were great, these guys were out to do it in front of their own people. You have to realize this was a big moment for this country, and a big moment for these performers. So you really do have this music being played at its highest level. We were lucky to have had these tapes. When we opened them, we just decided maybe after 42 years, we should remember the plot, which was to introduce this music to the world. So it's never too late, I guess. On the poignancy of these performances seeing the light of day only after the musicians' deaths Masekela: Louis Armstrong has been dead for a long time, but people still listen to his music. One thing that is great about the music is that you can be dead and [it can] become popular. You can get known whether you are alive or not. Music lasts forever. Levine: If we didn't think that these things were relevant and vibrant, then we wouldn't have released it, period. If they sounded like field recordings from the '20s, we wouldn't go near it. But they're hot! They're energized. We caught it. It was the golden age of multi-track recording, it was 16-track recording. They hold up, and besides just being a piece of history, it's a great piece of recording. I don't mean technically, I mean the recording is great when it captures the moment, and there you have it. These artists become alive when you put the needle down. Here they are!

Article by NPR's Chloe Veltman Music fans responded with disbelief this week to the release on streaming and social media platforms of the viral song "Heart on My Sleeve." The hosts of the popular music-related YouTube channel LawTWINZ were among the many who weighed in, discussing whether the track, which uses artificial intelligence to simulate the music of pop stars Drake and The Weeknd, even surpasses the real pop stars' talents. Advances in AI have gotten to the point where the technology can quickly create new songs like "Heart on My Sleeve" that sound like they're the work of real artists. Recent examples, which include a faux song that sounds a lot like something the British alt-rock band Oasis would put out, hint at AI's bold, creative possibilities and its ethical and legal limitations. Now, artists, lawyers and other industry players are trying to figure out how the technology can be used responsibly. 'The cat is not going back in the bag' The popularity and revenue-earning potential of AI-generated songs have understandably put music industry gatekeepers on guard. Drake and The Weeknd label owner Universal Music Group invoked copyright violation to get the platforms to take "Heart on My Sleeve" down this week. "The training of generative AI using our artists' music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs [Demand Side Platforms], begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation," said the company in a statement shared with NPR. This wasn't the first time the music corporation flexed its litigation muscles, and it won't be the last; earlier this month, it ordered a takedown of an AI track based on the music of Eminem. The song featured lyrics like, "Cats, cats, cats, always on the prowl / They're sneaky and sly with their eyes on the goal." "The cat is not going back in the bag," said Stanford University associate professor Ge Wang, of the growing popularity of AI-generated music online. Wang, who teaches a class on AI and music, said as the technology becomes more widespread, people can no longer afford to think of it as the stuff of science fiction.

The crowd at Clement's Place is primed. The acclaimed vibraphonist Stefon Harris and his band, Blackout, are onstage in this snug jazz club on the campus of Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. Harris has high ambitions. He seeks to use his instrument and his already considerable reputation to change the way people relate to each other — to create empathy. But on this night, he's also there to play. The band — Harris plus pianist Marc Cary, saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, bassist Ben Williams and drummer Terreon Gully — launches into "Bye Bye Blackbird," the 1920s pop hit that Miles Davis helped turn into a jazz standard. At first, Harris toys with his listeners, hinting at the melody. Then, in a heartbeat, the rest of the band charges into the tune up-tempo. Harris' mallets ricochet off the aluminum bars of the vibraphone, his face contorted in concentration. The former high-school wrestler, with his compact body, dominates the big instrument — pinning it, clinching it, dancing with it. A grinning woman at the bar shouts out, "Aw, you're just showin' off!" When the song ends, everybody leaps out of their seats in ecstatic appreciation. They now understand why critics rate Harris, year after year, as the best vibraphonist in jazz. Harris has been on the scene for more than 20 years, since his debut album was released on Blue Note in 1998. He's played with everybody from jazz legends Max Roach and Joe Henderson to vocalist Cassandra Wilson. He's won a slew of accolades and awards. The latest: last month the Apollo Theater gave him an Apollo New Works commission to keep composing. But Stefon Harris — vibraphonist, educator, thinker — is about a lot more than creating music. "The vibraphone, in my opinion, is just a bunch of metal and wood," he says. "It's not that important. Instruments are just tools. What's important is the mission behind the individual who's utilizing the tool. My ultimate passion is about the proliferation of empathy." That's right. The 47-year-old vibraphonist, who's considered the heir to Bobby Hutcherson and Gary Burton, says the vibes aren't important. "I'm hoping the impact, in the end, is not 'Oh, he was the greatest vibraphonist.' I hope the impact is that he taught generations of people to listen to one another and understand one another," he says. His TED Talk, "There are no mistakes on the bandstand," has had more than 750,000 views. He's co-developed an app called Harmony Cloud to help students with ear training. And he gives musical presentations to business groups using band dynamics to talk about corporate teamwork. "Empathy is essentially the science of understanding," Harris says. "And that's something that's necessary in local communities; it's necessary in elementary schools, on a collegiate level and in a corporate boardroom." Harris grew up in Albany, N.Y. His family lived in public housing, moved a lot and didn't have money for musical instruments or lessons. His earliest exposure to music came through the church and his mother, Euthia Benson, an Apostolic minister. "Music was there to amplify the pain that we were going through as a family and as a community," Harris told the crowd at Clement's Place before the show started. "Someone would stand up, Sister Johnson or whoever it would be, and testify. And maybe she said, 'My brother was sick last week and I want to let you know he's feeling better.' And you know what I mean? That G minor would just come out of nowhere." And as the organ chord swelled under her testimony, he learned that music was not purely for entertainment, it had a purpose. "Stefon, to me, approaches every musical situation trying to contribute both to what's happening between the musicians on stage, but also to reflect back to the audience something profound," says Wayne Winborne, director of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers and a longtime friend of Harris. "The term he uses is empathy. I tend to talk about it as humanity." Harris showed an early aptitude for music. He played around on a beat-up piano someone left in an empty apartment. Between a community center and his public school, he tried out two dozen instruments, including bassoon and trombone. "Trumpet, or small mouthpiece instruments, I was terrible at. I just couldn't get the hang of that," he remembers. Then he discovered a marimba in the seventh grade music room. He picked up the mallets and started playing scales. That eventually led to the vibraphone, with its physicality and lush vibrato. He was convinced he wanted to be a classical musician until one day he discovered jazz through the genius of Charlie Parker. Being captain of the wrestling team taught him to train and to work hard, and to perform when he played. "It's almost like you're painting visual images for people who are in the audience. So you're utilizing sound, they're watching your body language, they're watching the mallets dance," he says. Harris is about to step down as Director of Jazz Arts at the Manhattan School of Music and join the music faculty at Rutgers later this year. He will continue to teach what he believes about how to be a jazz musician and how to be an empathetic person. "I want my audience to feel the connection between human beings — five brothers who are on the stage who've known each other for a long time, who've had ups and downs but who love each other. Who are vulnerable, who are willing to take chances in the moment to discover beauty." He concludes with a smile, "The bandstand is a sacred space."

Dusty Henry takes us back to 1977 when a young DJ from the Bronx, Theodore Livingston, debuted a technique so powerful, so innovative, that it’s become an essential part of hip-hop: scratching. Audio production by Roddy Nikpour. Written by Dusty Henry. Sitting in his Bronx bedroom in 1975, Theodore Livingston stumbled onto something that would define hip-hop. Like most 12 year olds, Livingston loved playing his records loud in his room. And like most parents, his mother scolded him from the other room to turn it down. This day he was playing The Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache.” As he reached over to pause the record to hear what his mom was saying, Theodore accidentally moved the record playing back and forth. The sound piqued his interest. So he did it again. And again. Theodore spent days on end experimenting with this new sound he quite literally stumbled upon. Something we now know today as “scratching.” But let’s go back a little further for a minute. These were the early days of hip-hop and Theodore was acutely aware of what was going on. His older brothers Mean Gene was entrenched in the bubbling hip-hop phenomenon. Gene was also closer friends and a creative partner with another future legend of hip-hop, Grandmaster Flash. Gene and Flash picked up on Theodore’s natural DJ abilities early on and took the pre-teen under their wings. Theodore would join his mentors on crate digging expeditions in downtown Manhattn. They’d spin their days searching for new records that they could play before everyone else. Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Dizzy Gillespie, The Incredible Bongo band. Anything with a great beat that they could get to first. Flash and others were famously DJing in parks and abandoned buildings. Huge block parties with massive speakers, loud music, and the earliest forms of breakdancing. Theodore was right there for it. He, Mean Gene, and their other brother DJ Cordio formed their own group L-Brothers and began performing in the parks too. During this time, Flash was making huge innovations to DJing. As we’ve already discussed on this podcast, Kool Herc is ofteen credited with starting hip-hop in 1973 playing only the danceable breaks in records to keep the party going. Flash took that idea and started to make his own embellishments. After perfecting Herc’s break-beat technique, Flash took it to the next level. Here’s Flash speaking on his first ground-breaking method. Flash also developed “clock theory,” a method of identifying a certain segment of a record he liked that he could punch in back-and-forth on his turntables and create a new, continuous beat. Just the very act of putting his hands on the record was revolutionary, something that was considered a faux paus among DJs. So when Theodore was sitting in his room and started moving his records back and forth, he was unwittingly iterating on Flash’s technique. Theodore recalls the moment he discovered scratching in a 2014 interview with Hot 97 Where Flash’s quick-mix and clock theory’s were all about fluidity, Theodore’s new scratching technique was rough and jagged. Rhythmically scratching on his records started to develop a new sound. In 1977, the 14 year old Theodore debuted as Grand Wizzard Theodore and began performing his scratching technique for the first time at The Sparkle Club. His song of choice? “Apache” by The Incredible Bongo Band – the song he first accidentally scratched to when his mom told him to turn down the music. Here’s a rare clip recorded on cassette of Theodore scratching the next year in 1978 with L Brothers at Bronx River Centre. As we’ll undoubtedly reiterate on this series, it’s difficult to attribute specific people or dates and times in the origins of hip-hop, or any genre for that matter. Grand Wizzard Theodore certainly might not be the first person to jostle a record back and forth on the needle, but he was the first we know of to recognize it’s potential. He continued to be mentored under Grandmaster Flash, who took to the scratching technique and arguably began to perfect it. You hear it all over Flash’s seminal track “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.” Scratching continued to evolve over the years under the fingertips of artists like DJ Scratch, DJ Qbert, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and DJ Premiere, just to name a few.

If you haven’t booked an artist event in the past, you may not realize how stressful and complex the process can be. While it seems like it should be pretty straightforward (find the artist, pay the price they’re requesting, have them show up), there’s actually a lot more that goes into an artist’s booking fees than you might think. A lot of the minute details are specific to a particular artist, but there are plenty of higher-level details that are common for every artist that you may not be taking into account. So today, we’re going to take a look at both the big-picture items and the higher-level details that you might not have considered. Read on for more information – you might be surprised by some of the things we cover. Know your event (and what you want them to do). First things first, the easiest way to get a ballpark number for an artist booking is by knowing exactly what kind of event you’re having and by setting clear expectations on what you want the artist to do while they’re there. While you might think that an artist booking only consists of a performance, there are plenty of other options available to you (depending on your budget). For example, if you don’t have the budget for a full performance from an artist, you can try and book them for a hosting or walkthrough agreement. These tend to cost less than a performance because less is expected of the artist. A hosting agreement just involves hanging out at the event or venue for a specified amount of time and interacting with guests. And like the name implies, a walkthrough agreement means the artist just has to show up, be seen at your event or venue, maybe take a few pictures, and then they’re free to leave. A lot of artists like the hosting and walkthrough agreements – they tend to tour for most of the year, so any night where they don’t have to perform but can still get paid is an attractive option to them. For example, Nicki Minaj got paid $260,000 by a nightclub in Las Vegas a few years ago just to sit at a table in the club’s VIP section. It was a great deal for both parties; Nicki got paid to hang out at a club, and the venue brought in a ton of business from people looking to hang out with a celebrity. [Editor’s note: This is an extreme example of how a big-budget venue applies this strategy. Savvy operators with smaller budgets can do the same thing with careful planning and scaled-down execution.] The booking fee isn’t your only cost. One common mistake that people make is in assuming that the fee for booking an artist is the all-in cost. In almost all cases, the artist’s fee is strictly for them to show up and do what you’re asking them to do. There are separate costs that you’ll incur, and if you’re not careful, they can add up pretty quickly. For instance, you’ll also have to spend money to cover the cost of all the requirements specified in their contract rider, the cost of the artist’s travel and hotel (and the group they’re traveling with – artists don’t travel alone), the cost of any equipment they might need, the cost of transportation to and from your event or venue, and any food or drinks the artist and their group will need while they’re in town. A lot of bookers tend to overlook these costs or assume that they’re baked into the artist’s appearance fee, only to get a nasty surprise when they realize they have to pay extra money that they didn’t budget for. In some rare cases, you can try and include these costs in the artist’s appearance fee during the negotiation process (more on that in a minute), but don’t count on being able to do that. When you’re booking the artist makes a difference. An artist’s booking fee can also depend on when you want them to appear at your event or venue. Artists often charge more for weekend and holiday bookings, while weekday bookings are a little less expensive. And if the artist isn’t on tour that means all those additional costs listed above (travel, hotel, etc.) could go up. Many bookers prefer to wait to book an artist until the artist is touring, and even then, they prefer to book the artist when they’ll already be in the area. You’ll still be responsible for the artist’s hotel and travel costs, but since the artist will already be in your area, it won’t be as expensive as it would be if you were flying them across the country to attend your event or venue. Of course, touring is a grueling business, so there’s still a chance that even a touring artist won’t want to add another performance to their schedule. In that case, you can consider hiring them to host, either at your event or at an afterparty at your venue. This will allow you to utilize the built-in publicity and momentum from their tour to promote your event and get more people in the door. Fees vary from artist to artist… While it might seem like artists’ booking fees are dependent on the caliber of artist you want to book, there’s actually a lot of variances from one artist to the next in terms of their cost. For example, you might think Taylor Swift and Mariah Carey would cost the same for an appearance, but their prices are probably not as similar as you’d think. One thing that makes it so hard to determine what you should pay for an artist is the fact that their fees are not public information. Sure, you can try a Google search and see what number comes up, but in all likelihood, that booking price is completely wrong. …so, knowing how to negotiate is crucial. Just because an artist quotes a particular fee doesn’t necessarily mean you should pay it, nor does it mean that they expect to receive it. Knowing how to negotiate is a key way to save yourself some money, and being willing to negotiate on their fee can save you a lot of upfront costs. As with any negotiation, though, you have to know when to push and when to ease off. If you don’t, you run the risk of ensuring the artist will never consider doing a show with you again. There are a few easy ways to give yourself a leg up on the negotiation process. First, make sure never to make your first offer your best offer: set a limit for yourself based on your budget, then take 10% off of that number as an initial offer. If the artist’s agent doesn’t go for it, you can work from there, but at least you’ve given yourself some wiggle room. And second, always be willing to walk away. In order to effectively do that, you’ll need to have some backup options in mind if your first choice doesn’t go through. But showing a willingness to walk away from a negotiation gives you significant bargaining power. As mentioned above, each artist will likely have specific demands as a condition of their booking fees, so you’ll have to be prepared for those whenever you’re dealing with a particular artist’s agent. But using this information as a guide, you should now have a much clearer expectation of all the commonly overlooked details and fees that come with booking an artist, and it’ll prevent you from losing money on an artist booking. Booking an artist is usually considered a great way for promoters and event planners to make money. After all, if the artist is highly-regarded, they have a built-in customer base, and their fans will show up usually if they know about the show. And if they’re a little more obscure, the artist will be so grateful for the opportunity to showcase their talents that they’ll do a lot of the legwork in bringing people to their show, right? Too often, that’s not the case. In fact, many concert and event promoters actually lose money on artist bookings, and they learn the hard way that securing an artist for an event is only part of the equation. While it’s all well and good to secure the artist, there are a lot more considerations to take into account in order to determine whether it ends up being a profitable endeavor for the promoter. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the other factors that can be the difference between a positive experience with booking an artist and a nightmare. Overestimating the Artist’s Popularity When booking an artist, it’s easy to be drawn in by the amount of hype or buzz an artist has. When considering acts to book, some promoters simply do a quick straw poll of their friends and contacts to determine if they would see the show, but if you’re looking for a thousand or more people to attend, asking a handful of people isn’t going to give you an accurate projection of the turnout. Other promoters use things like the number of Spotify streams an artist gets as a barometer of that artist’s popularity, and they assume that just because a good amount of people listen to that artist, they can expect a similarly high turnout to their show. But there’s more to an artist’s popularity than the number of people listening to their music. After all, listening to a song is a mostly-passive activity: all the audience has to do is press “Play” and sit back and listen. On the other hand, actually attending a concert is an active endeavor: people have to pay money for the show, make plans to get there, and plan their entire evening around one activity. And it’s the difference between those types of activities that can determine whether or not people pay the price of admission. Finally, you should always take into account where an artist’s fanbase is located. Booking the Arctic Monkeys for an event in London is a smart move; booking them in Omaha is not. Underestimating the Artist’s Rider The most famous example of an artist’s rider is probably Van Halen’s “no brown M&M’s” stipulation. While it might seem like another example of a celebrity ego gone wild, there was actually a good reason for it: if a promoter hadn’t read the contract in enough detail to notice that request (or saw it and decided to ignore it anyway), then there was a good chance that they also didn’t see or chose to ignore the other stipulations in the rider (like the proper stage setup) that were there to ensure the band’s safety. Nearly every touring artist has a rider in their performing contract that sets terms for the equipment, setup and amenities they require. Depending on the artist, however, the specifics of the rider can vary, and not paying close attention to detail can cost promoters far more than they expected. Promoters should always take a careful look at an artist’s rider before agreeing to the terms of the contract. Lazy Accounting In addition to securing the artist and making sure people attend the show, promoters are also responsible for setting the ticket price. Like everything else in the realm of artist bookings, this can go bad fast if it’s not done correctly and responsibly. It’s a difficult balancing act: set the prices too low, and the promoter won’t make enough money to cover the costs; set them too high, and people won’t bother to pay for a ticket. When setting the ticket price, a lot of promoters make the mistake of dividing the cost of the artist and the venue by the expected number of people who will attend. So if the venue and artist cost $100,000 and the capacity for the venue is 5,000 people, the promoter thinks “I can charge $20 per ticket in order to break even, so I’ll charge $40 and make a profit.” And if it were that simple, we wouldn’t be talking about it. What this “math” (if you want to call it that) fails to take into account is, well, a laundry list of things. For one, the cost of the artist and the venue aren’t the only costs associated with putting on an event. If the artist’s rider adds $50,000 worth of equipment and other expenses to the bill, then the break-even number is now $30 per ticket. Well, still making a profit, right? Sure- assuming the place is filled to capacity. If only 4,000 people show up, the promoter loses $10,000 after paying all the expenses. And though it might be tempting to say “Next time, I’ll charge $60 per ticket just to be sure,” keep in mind that the higher that price gets, the less people are going to be willing to pay it. So when figuring out the ticket cost, promoters should first determine exactly how much they’ll need to spend on everything: the artist’s appearance fee, the items in their rider, the venue, security, et cetera. They should also confirm (and double-confirm) the artist’s fee before the contract is signed, and they should also look at the average percentage of attendance capacity the artist actually brings in. If an artist consistently only sells enough tickets to meet 75% of a venue’s capacity, the promoter should adjust the ticket price to reflect that. There are enough variables in the booking industry to keep promoters on their toes. But by using the data available to them and being thorough in their research, they can minimize the number of unknowns and focus on what they do best: putting on a great show.