Singing, for me, is actually life itself. It is communication, person to person and soul to soul, a physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual expression carried by the breath. Life! | | | | Jessye Norman at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Nov. 30, 1991.
(Frans Schellekens/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "Singing, for me, is actually life itself. It is communication, person to person and soul to soul, a physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual expression carried by the breath. Life!"
| | | | | | rantnrave:// If you've ever been intimidated by music you don't think you understand—free jazz, perhaps, or minimal techno, or the oft-feared opera—may I direct your attention to the childhood of JESSYE NORMAN, whose piano-playing mother introduced her to TV broadcasts of ARTURO TOSCANINI and the NBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA when she was 5 and who happened upon radio broadcasts of the METROPOLITAN OPERA when she was 10? "Nobody told me," Norman recalled a few years ago, "that I was supposed to know about opera. There was a man who told you what everybody was wearing and what the story was about. It didn't occur to me that I needed to know Italian in order to appreciate it." Availability and exposure matter. As does an open mind, preferably, perhaps, a childlike one. She discovered "that opera stories were not very different from other stores: a boy meets a girl, they fall in love, they cannot be together for some reason, and most of the time it does not end happily ever after. For me, opera stories were grown-up versions of stories that were familiar to me already." Norman, of course, grew up to be one of the great soprano singers, and a breaker of barriers for African Americans on opera stages. She credited forebears like MARIAN ANDERSON, DOROTHY MAYNOR and LEONTYNE PRICE for paving the way ("they have made it possible for me to say, 'I will sing French Opera' or 'I will sing German opera,' instead of being told 'You will sing PORGY AND BESS'"), but there was also her determination to perform the roles she wanted to sing and felt a connection to—and that suited her vocal range—rather than the ones other people thought were right for her. Early in her career, she turned down roles left and right in search of an eclectic, personal repertoire: MOZART, MEYERBEER and BERLIOZ in the 1970s, and works ranging from STRAUSS to STRAVINSKY to ROBERT WILSON's meditation on black spirituals, GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING, in later years. A deeply personal, self-curated, inspirational career. "Pigeonholes," she famously said, "are for pigeons." But also, as jazz pianist JASON MORAN tweeted Monday, "The voice the voice the voice! The phrases she sang charged the air." She died Monday, age 74. RIP... Norman spoke through the years of the racism and sexism she encountered in the opera and classical worlds. "Racial barriers in our world are not gone, so why can we imagine that racial barriers in classical music and the opera world are gone?," asked in 2014. "That would not make any sense, would it?" But, still, wow to this 1973 NEW YORK TIMES profile, on the eve of her New York debut, which takes pains to mention the singer "did not come struggling up out of the ghetto" and, "She seems to wear her blackness with more ease than many of her contemporaries." So much has changed. So much hasn't... Sure, it helps to have a good song, but, um, y'know... It also helps to be "bumped around [by the record industry] before you got your shot," according to 50 CENT, who believes young artists today aren't getting bumped around because "they meet the audience before they meet the record companies" and therefore they'll never learn how to write hits and therefore they'll disappear fast. But then again, um, y'know [choose your own link for this "y'know." The options are plentiful]... How a New York thrash drummer gave a teenage Swedish climate-change activist a death-metal makeover... He has nine tackles so far this season, half a sack and he's the NFL's resident Deadhead... BILLBOARD's Arena Power List... RIP also: JOSÉ JOSÉ, JIMMY SPICER, BUSBEE, BOB ESTY, RICHARD BRUNELLE and BILL DERN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | Vanity Fair | | In the mid-1990s, female musicians topped the charts and sold out shows, but were told over and over again that no one would pay to see more than one woman onstage. Sarah McLachlan set out to prove them wrong. | | | |  | W Magazine | | "When I worked on my first project, 'Nostalgia, Ultra,' I hardly told anyone. There's something that happens when you say what you're doing before it's done, and most of it is not positive. You're accountable for that version that you talk about, when it very well may undergo change. It's usually better for me to make what I make, put it out or don't, and then talk about it freely." | | | |  | The New York Times | | To be in the presence of the soprano Jessye Norman is to know the meaning of physical grandeur. Imposingly tall and heroic in size, Miss Norman offers the image of the diva as larger-than-life symbol - an emblematic figure whose dramatic appearance on the operatic stage gives import and substance to even the most tenuous aside. | | | |  | Limelight | | Limelight talks to the operatic icon about life, music, the value of community, reality TV… oh, and Hillary vs Donald. | | | |  | Los Angeles Review Of Books | | Mitch Therieau examines the cultural reception of late-career pop and rock songs. | | | |  | Americana Highways | | As a 21 year old in 1965, Roger Daltrey once sang the defiant words of Pete Townshend "I hope I die before I get old." And when asked by an interviewer if he could see himself singing "Satisfaction" at age 40, Mick Jagger, not yet thirty, said "I hope not." | | | |  | Roger Russell | | For many years, wires that were used to connect speaker systems were often zip or line cord. The longer the run was, the heavier the wire that was used. There were no special speaker wires--just plain old copper wire--solid or stranded. The emergence of high tech speaker wire has raised some fundamental questions about the benefits of these new and sometimes extremely expensive wires. | | | |  | Salon | | "Church with a twerk" hits Sunday morning as pastors take Lizzo's message from the pop charts to the pews. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | Meet our inaugural class of innovators and iconoclasts leading the music business into its next golden age. | | | |  | The Arizona Republic | | Brenda "Bubbles" Phillips met The Boss 30 years ago. She was tending bar in Prescott when he came in for a beer. What happened next changed her life. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | Nick Cave's fans arrived carrying gifts - flowers, handwritten letters, even a portrait of the artist himself set in stained glass, stoic and saintlike. But they had also come to receive something in return. | | | |  | The Guardian | | After its online parties and DJ sets brought huge commercial success, the company is now preparing to launch its first ever festival next month. | | | |  | WBEZ | | Over three decades, Aadam Jacobs obsessively documented Chicago's indie rock scene. Today, the future of his roughly 10,000 live recordings is unclear. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Independent artists continue to rise -- as first-party playlists take control in crucial market. | | | |  | The Conversation | | Creative thinking needs to go into implementing copyright in countries like Liberia. | | | | | Rolling Stone | | Maren Morris' "My Church," Keith Urban's "The Fighter," Pink's "Try" and more. | | | |  | Miami New Times | | The NFL is disrespecting Miami's music industry, writes Luther Campbell. | | | |  | The Wrap | | TheWrap's Steve Pond explains how a story Cameron Crowe chose not to publish helped inspire "Amost Famous," a film that's now becoming a musical. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | Blondie's Debbie Harry, who has a new memoir, "Face It," talks '70s New York, being "a woman with a man's brain" and why she broke up with Chris Stein. | | | |  | The Irish Times | | Long before Spotify, music buffs signed up to hear live concerts by telephone. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | With the Metropolitan Opera, New York, 1988. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group | | |
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