It’s difficult to fathom how a 23-year-old could wield so much influence on popular culture. And yet Selena Quintanilla, who was killed 30 years ago this week, did just that. Her fans love her just as fiercely and as loudly today as they did in the 1990s, and it’s not …
One night in 1984, Compay Segundo, the Cuban singer and guitarist, heard in his dreams what would become his signature song. “I woke up hearing those four sensitive notes,” Segundo recalled later on. “I gave them a lyric inspired by a children’s tale from my childhood, ‘Juanica y Chan Chan.’” …
It is the sort of buzzy production that was once a staple of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” with its Oscar-nominated lead man, Paul Mescal, has people clamoring for tickets to BAM’s production this month. The excitement recalls a period when the performing arts …
On a crisp Saturday morning in late February, Rachel Murdy joined a group of singers of various ages and experience levels at the 92nd Street Y and sang “Party Hat,” delivering the refrain “I’m going to put a party hat on my cat” with a playful spark. Murdy, a seasoned …
In late January, Lonnie Holley was scheduled to perform at a concert in Tulsa celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” as part of a lineup that included Elvis Costello and Lucinda Williams. Holley, 75, a venerated visual artist whose work has been displayed at the …
Jazz has experienced a meaningful resurgence in popularity over the past 15 years or so, especially among younger listeners. What’s driving that? You could make the case that there is a particular hunger, now that so much of life is lived in the digital cloud, for the messy and untamed …
One of the most significant innovations in recorded music took place a century ago in New York City. On Feb. 25, 1925, Art Gillham, a musician known as “the Whispering Pianist” for his gentle croon, entered Columbia Phonograph Company’s studio to test out a newly installed electrical system. Its totem …
Broadway OPERATION MINCEMEAT A sneaky compassion lies at the heart of this caper of a show, a deliciously eccentric London import that won the 2024 Olivier Award for best new musical. Starring the original West End cast, it’s a riff on a bizarre true story from World War II, when …
Nobody doubted that Lea Salonga could sing. She had won a Tony Award at the age of 20 for her breakout role as the besotted Vietnamese teen Kim in “Miss Saigon,” and sung her heart out as Éponine, and later Fantine, in Broadway productions of “Les Misérables.” She provided the …
This week in Newly Reviewed, Travis Diehl covers Glenn Ligon and Julius Eastman’s music, Flint Jamison’s robotics and Marc Kokopeli’s unnerving TVs. Tribeca Julius Eastman and Glenn Ligon Through March 22. 52 Walker, 52 Walker Street, Manhattan; 212-727-1961, 52walker.com. The invective of Glenn Ligon’s tart neon signs — like the …
