Tag: Hear

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Biden, Nonetheless Grieving His Son Beau, Finds That Not Everybody Desires to Hear About It

Biden, Still Grieving His Son Beau, Finds That Not Everyone Wants to Hear About It

But of his rocky reception with some families in Dover, Ms. Murray said, “I’m sure he understands the reaction he’s got better than many people.”

In his public meetings with world leaders, doctors, military officials and families, Mr. Biden often shares how his experience of sending his son to Iraq or fighting brain cancer affected his family. Conjuring Beau’s memory amid the violent collapse of Afghanistan, the result of the most politically explosive decision of his presidency to date, provided a rare moment for critics to indulge in a fondness of praising his son.

“Mr. Biden is not a Gold Star father and should stop playing one on television,” wrote William McGurn, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, in a comment in the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Biden never claimed to be Son died fighting, but he has spoken many times about his son’s overseas assignment and the toll he has taken on his family. Mr Biden’s supporters say military families have a right to their mourning, but the president is entitled to too his.

“The families who grieve are free to feel free to feel like they are,” Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. and who has received regular calls from Mr Biden, said in an interview. “But for everyone else who may have criticized: The President’s children, the living and the not, they formed the President.”

You have also influenced Mr Biden’s presidency from the start. In January, before Mr. Biden left Delaware for Washington, Mr. Biden told his advisors that he would give a farewell address at the Delaware National Guard headquarters. It’s a building named after his son.

“I have only one regret,” said Mr Biden as he made tearful remarks that day. “That he’s not here because we should introduce him as president.”

As Commander in Chief, Mr. Biden has no critical political advisor whose advice he trusted more than almost anyone else. He talks to his other children, Hunter and Ashley, daily, Helpers said, but he spoke to his eldest up to four times a day, exchanging notes, and discussing next steps.

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Health

Jury can hear restricted proof of CEO way of life

Jury can hear limited evidence of CEO lifestyle

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes leaves the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building with her defense team in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, May 4, 2021.

MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images | MediaNews Group | Getty Images

Jurors in the trial of Elizabeth Holmes will hear evidence about her extravagant lifestyle as Theranos CEO but with some limitations.

That’s the ruling issued by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila late Saturday as part of a 100 page response to motions in Holmes’ upcoming criminal trial.

The judge granted in part Holmes’ motion to exclude evidence referencing her extravagant lifestyle outside of her position as chief executive of the blood-testing start-up.

“The Government may introduce evidence that Holmes enjoyed a lifestyle as Theranos CEO that is comparable to those of other tech company CEOs. This includes salary, travel, celebrity, and other perks and benefits commensurate with the position,” Davila wrote in the filing.

However, “references to specific purchases or details reflecting branding of clothing, hotels, or other personal items is not relevant, and the prejudicial effect of that evidence outweighs any probative value,” the judge added.

The ruling is a partial victory for Holmes as prosecutors cannot introduce details about Holmes’ specific purchases and personal items outside of her position as CEO. Holmes lived in an expensive rental home, traveled by private jet, stayed at luxury hotels and employed Theranos-paid assistants to run her lavish shopping sprees.

“Each time Holmes made an extravagant purchase, it is reasonable to infer that she knew her fraudulent activity allowed her to pay for those items,” Davila wrote. “While the benefits of these purchases are not as directly tied to the fraud…it may still be probative of Holmes’ scienter.”

The ruling comes two weeks after Holmes battled it out with prosecutors in court over whether details of her wealth, lifestyle and perks she attained as CEO would be relevant to jurors in her trial.

At the height of Theranos, the start-up was valued at $9 billion and Holmes was touted as the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire. The company collapsed in 2018 following a Wall Street Journal investigation that revealed failings in the blood-testing technology.

Davila ruled on more than 20 dueling motions on what jurors can hear in her trial, scheduled to begin on Aug. 30.

A motion by the government to admit business-related text messages between Holmes and her co-defendant Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani was denied by Davila.

Prosecutors say the messages show the two top executives knew how much trouble Theranos was in before it collapsed. In a November 2014 text to Holmes, Balwani describes one Theranos lab as a “f*cking disaster zone,” adding he would “work on fixing this.”

Holmes and Balwani have both pled not guilty to a dozen criminal wire fraud charges in connection with deceiving investors, patients and doctors.

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Politics

Supreme Court docket to listen to Mississippi abortion case difficult Roe v. Wade

Supreme Court to hear Mississippi abortion case challenging Roe v. Wade

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear arguments in a major Mississippi abortion case that pushes the limits of abortion laws set by the landmark reproductive rights case, Roe v. Calf, which were cemented, could reset.

The case will be the first major abortion dispute in which all three people appointed by former President Donald Trump will be considered in the Supreme Court, including the newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The Supreme Court announced in an order that it would hear the dispute, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 19-1392. The court will hear the case during its term in office from October. A decision is expected to be made in June 2022.

The case concerns a 2018 Mississippi abortion law that bans abortions after 15 weeks with limited exceptions. The law was blocked by the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Under the existing Supreme Court precedent, states cannot prohibit abortions that occur before the fetus is viable, typically about 22 weeks or later.

In this case, Mississippi is asking the judges to re-examine that viability standard. The state argued that the viability rule prevents states from adequately defending maternal health and potential life.

“It is long time the court reassessed the wisdom of the profitability rule,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch wrote in a brief report filed with the judges.

The Mississippi abortion clinic that challenged the law, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, called on the Supreme Court not to take the case.

“In an uninterrupted series of decisions over the past fifty years, this court has ruled that the constitution guarantees everyone the right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy before viability,” wrote Hillary Schneller, an attorney who runs the clinic represents, in a file.

Schneller said Mississippi’s argument was based “on a misunderstanding of the core principle” of previous Supreme Court rulings.

She wrote, “While the state has interests throughout pregnancy.”[b]Prior to viability, state interests are not strong enough to support an abortion ban. “

Conservatives passed a number of bills that challenged Roe and were passed in 1973 in hopes of getting the court to reconsider its previous precedents. With the people appointed by Trump, the nation’s Supreme Court now has a Conservative majority of 6-3.

The struggle for abortion revitalized the confirmation hearings for Barrett, a devout Catholic who, after the death of the liberal judiciary, was the favorite among anti-abortion groups to seek the success of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

While Barrett has not made her exact legal views on abortion clear from the bank, the Democrats have taken up her earlier comments identifying aborted fetuses as “unborn victims” among other potential harbingers of their views.

The other two Trump nominees on the bench, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, voted last June to allow a restrictive abortion law to come into effect for Louisiana in the first major reproductive rights case before them. Chief Justice John Roberts, a Conservative, sided with the Liberals in the 5-4 decision that blocked the law.

In a statement, Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northup said: “Alarm bells are ringing loudly about the threat to reproductive rights.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights represented the abortion clinic alongside the Paul Weiss law firm and the Mississippi Center for Justice.

“The consequences of a Roe reversal would be devastating. Over 20 states would directly ban abortion. Eleven states – including Mississippi – currently have trigger bans on the books that would immediately ban abortion if Roe is overturned,” Northup said.

Diane Derzis, owner of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said in a statement, “As the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, we see patients who spent weeks saving the money to travel here and pay for childcare for shelter.” and everything else. “

“If this ban went into effect, we would be forced to turn many of these patients away and they would lose their right to abortion in that condition,” Derzis said.

Fitch, the Mississippi attorney general, said the state legislature “enacted this law in accordance with the will of its constituents to promote the health of women and preserve the dignity and sanctity of life.”

“I continue to advocate for women and defend Mississippi’s legal right to protect the unborn,” she said.

Anti-abortion groups welcomed the Supreme Court move. Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the court’s decision to hear the case was a “landmark opportunity,” citing the enormous number of bills recently passed to improve access to abortion to restrict.

“Across the country, state lawmakers acting according to the will of the people have introduced 536 pro-life bills aimed at humanizing our laws and challenging the radical status quo imposed by Roe,” she said.

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DMX Songs: Hear 10 Songs That Confirmed His Vary

DMX Songs: Hear 10 Songs That Showed His Range

Earl Simmons, the gruff, formidable rapper from Yonkers, NY better known as DMX, died Friday at the age of 50. He spent his last days on life support at White Plains Hospital in Westchester County after suffering a heart attack on April 2nd.

DMX was one of the most famous MCs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when hardcore New York rap could still make a claim as a central concern of hip hop.

Signed with Def Jam Recordings, his first five albums all debuted at # 1, an achievement no rapper has achieved before or since. DMX cut a unique figure for a superstar rapper: he fought his inner demons with the horror-centered imagery loved by heavy metal bands, but his albums reliably offered heartfelt, often a cappella, prayers to God. He made huge pop crossover hits, but they were bubbling with ferocious threats better suited to grindhouse theater. His shout rap energy made him a favorite in the outwardly fearful era of Woodstock ’99 and the nü-metal band Korn’s Family Values ​​Tour, but he was also a shirtless sex symbol who stood in the moonlight as an actor.

Here is a small selection from an artist with a range that spanned the shocking, the sincere, and the simply incredible. (Listen here on Spotify.)

After years as a ruthless battle rapper, mixtape hustler and early beneficiary of The Source magazine’s Unsigned Hype column, DMX and the up-and-coming label Ruff Ryder released the seldom heard “Born Loser” on a handful of 12-inch records. Soon after, “Born Loser” became the only song released as part of DMX’s false start on Columbia Records. Both DMX and the rapper K-Solo had claimed a rhyming style in which individual words are spelled out in bars. For example, on his 1990 hit “Spellbound”, K-Solo raps: “I spell very well / I only spell so everyone can say it.” Following the success of “Spellbound,” DMX wrote this track while it was raging in a Westchester prison cell. “Born Loser” wasn’t a hit, but as punch line rap where DMX makes itself a punch line, it would anticipate the self-disgorging rhymes of rappers like Eminem and Fatlip: “They kicked me out of the shelter for saying , I would have smelled a / little like the living dead and looked like Helter Skelter. “

This single would be epoch-making for several reasons. It sparked the lyrical war between LL Cool J and Canibus, perhaps the last wax battle on real vinyl – soon things like that were being fought out in the areas of mixtapes and MP3s. And “4, 3, 2, 1” was the breakout single for DMX, a new Def Jam signer at the time, taking on members of an elite group of MCs. Here he raps death threats through a filmmaker’s eye for details: “Believe what I say when I tell you / Don’t let me take you to a place where no one can smell you. “

DMX recorded its debut solo single Def Jam in the era of ’80s pop samples, big budget videos and a general feeling of being “nervous”. “I wasn’t done with all that pretty Happy-Go-Lucky [expletive]”Said DMX in” EARL: The Autobiography of DMX. “He added that Sean” Puffy “Combs” had the radio on, the clubs aflame, people thought hip-hop was all about bright lights and shiny suits went, and smiled up to the bench – X on the other hand, still lived in the dark. “Get at Me Dog” is a pure, unfiltered rhyme about a loop by the disco-funk band BT Express. If it sounds like mixtape rap, it started like this: Beat and hook were part of a freestyle for DJ Clue The song not only introduced DMX, the solo artist, but also his trademark bark and growl, sounds inspired by his beloved pit bulls. The video – a black and white affair directed by Hype Williams – was on New York’s hip-hop hangout was shot in the tunnel where Funkmaster Flex held court on Sunday nights, and the song became one of the most popular “tunnel bangers”.

The third single from DMX’s debut album “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot” shimmered a little brighter than its predecessor. His rhymes were no less uncompromising and violent – “Had it, should have shot it / Now you’ve left dearly,” he raps. But the song heralded the funky, pixelated debut of producer Swizz Beatz, whose sound would ultimately determine the next few years of the Ruff Ryder orbit: DMX, Eve, The Lox, Drag-On and Swizz Beatz’s own solo work. Swizz Beatz told Vibe it took a week to convince DMX to do the song: “He said, ‘I don’t want those white boy beats. ‘“Swizz then produced top 10 singles for Beyoncé, Lil Wayne, TI and Busta Rhymes and co-founded the popular quarantined streaming battle Verzuz.

The rapper’s most famous narrative rhyme involves having a conversation with the devil – a play about battling his own temptations. “At the time, X was in a really dark place, in and out of jail,” producer Dame Grease told Okayplayer. “He told me he thought he was spiritually in hell and could hear the devil talking to him. He wanted to find a way to restore that feeling. “This was followed by two sequels, including” The Omen (Damien II) “, also in 1998, with a guest appearance by shock rocker Marilyn Manson, who had a notable influence on hip-hop and influenced modern Gothic artists such as Travis Scott and Lil Uzi Vert among others. The second sequel is “Damien III” (2001).

On this bloody, emotionally rough track DMX meets his difficult upbringing, his time in various institutions and his addiction with a sober eye. It was a personal and vulnerable look at his life and struggles in the style of Diarist rappers like Tupac Shakur and Scarface. “X was slippin ‘for a while – six months, a year,” Ruff Ryders founder Joaquin “Waah” Dean told The Fader. “He wanted this song to affect people’s lives.”

Perhaps the most indelible DMX song “Party Up (Up in Here)” has a singable, dizzying chorus that denies the nimble, strict trash talk in the verses. (“Look, your ass is about to be missed / you know who’s going to find you? An old man is fishing.”) “It’s called ‘Party Up’ but it’s very disrespectful,” DMX told GQ, adding, ” The beat is for the club, I just spit out a few real ones [expletive] to. “The long-lived track has a long lifespan thanks to its use in films like ‘Disappeared in 60 Seconds’ and TV shows like ‘The Mindy Project’. Earl Simmons has a conversation due to interpolation in ‘Meet Me Inside,’ a song between Alexander Hamilton and George Washington describes, even a written contribution in the time-defining musical “Hamilton”.

The 2000 film “Romeo Must Die” was the first for R&B superstar Aaliyah and the second for DMX. Although they don’t play love interests in the film, they teamed up for this song from the soundtrack, a tune in the form of hip-hop-soul duets like Method Man and Mary J. Bliges “I’ll be there for you” / You is all i need to get through “It’s almost like DMX refusing to meet R&B halfway though: he’s rhyming a non-apologetic street narrative while Aaliyah plays a beleaguered partner who just wants him to be safe.

“Who We Be” is a simple list of political and personal grievances that comes with the roaring fire of an AC / DC song. It was the third and final DMX song to be nominated for a Grammy, but he never took one home.

Although it was a moderate hit when it was released as a single from the soundtrack “Cradle 2 the Grave” in 2003, “X Gon ‘Give It to Ya” has ultimately become the most popular DMX song of the streaming era thanks to its use in the “Deadpool” films and, on television, “Rick and Morty”. DMX intended it for his fifth album, “Grand Champ”, but when he saw its potential, “Cradle 2 the Grave” producer Joel Silver intervened. It went platinum in 2017, almost 15 years after its release.

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Entertainment

5 Classical Albums to Hear Proper Now

5 Classical Albums to Hear Right Now

Piotr Anderszewski, piano (Warner Classics)

Piotr Anderszewski is perhaps the most convincing unconventional Bach pianist since Glenn Gould, and he certainly approached his first fascinating recording of preludes and fugues from “The Well-Tempered Clavier” creatively. Not for him the typical step-by-step ascent through each of the keys from C to B minor; Instead, a jumbled selection of contrasts and additions that will raise your eyebrows but will win you over to your ears.

And how! Anderszewski’s game is a miracle of touch and temperament. When there is a chance for something unusual, something unexpected, Anderszewski takes it, as in the puckish F minor prelude or in the percussive, prickly fugue in F. Regardless of his ability to dance, he has always been a dreamer at heart, and it is also in the agony of the minor fugues that its concentrated intensity captivates and overwhelms. The one in D flat minor is reminiscent of the most deserted solitude imaginable, and a few more. the B minor somehow transforms fear into anger; The G sharp minor wanders robbed and brooding, as if it were the darkest Schumann. This is one of the great Bach recordings from that time. DAVID ALLEN

Antoine Tamestit, viola; Cédric Tiberghien, piano; Matthias Goerne, baritone (Harmonia Mundi)

“Herbstlich” is the word most often used in connection with Brahms’ viola sonatas. These intimate, ruminating works, originally written for the clarinet, are the last chamber pieces that Brahms wrote. And there is the subdued glow of the viola’s timbre, the range of which a human voice can comfortably follow. In a duet, the sound of the viola nestles modestly into that of the piano, without the flights and lightning strikes of a violin or clarinet.

Yet there is no cozy pathos in this profound recording of Antoine Tamestit, a violist with a rare combination of stage magnetism and literal devotion to the practice of historical performance. He approaches the opening of the Sonata in E flat like a consummate dancer – sleek, elegant, and attentive. In slow movements like the dreamy Andante of the Sonata in F minor, he weaves lines of effortless charisma, equal parts light and air. Cédric Tiberghien plays a Bechstein piano from 1899 with a mother-of-pearl-colored, soft tone and is a responsive and expressive partner.

The vocal quality of Tamestit’s viola lends itself well to two arrangements of songs by Brahms: “Nachtigall” (“Nightingale”) and the famous lullaby “Wiegenlied”, which is played with sweet, wavy speed. For the last two tracks, Matthias Goerne gives the “Zwei Gesänge” (op. 91) his silky baritone, two songs in which voice and viola intertwine like lines drawn with a calligraphy brush. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM

Imani winds (bright shiny things)

The metaphor at the heart of this new album by the Imani Winds quintet is written on the cover: “Bruits” in large, bold letters over pronunciation instructions and a definition: “Noises made by blood moving through clogged arteries and onto the Body indicates is endangered. “As a homophone, it is also reminiscent of” Brutes “- brute force, brutality.

“Bruits” takes its name from a work by Vijay Iyer, which, like Reena Esmail’s “The Light Is the Same” and Frederic Rzewski’s “Sometimes”, received its first recording on the album. Iyer wrote it in 2014 for Imani Winds and the pianist Cory Smythe and responded to the murder of Trayvon Martin with a score that smoothly spans fluid improvisation and tight complexity and leads to a climatic, uniform eruption.

Esmail’s piece – its title inspired by the observation of a Rumi poem that in a world of many religions “the lamps may be different but the light is the same” – beautifully interweaves two contrasting Hindustani ragas. One dark and the other light, their sounds flow fluently into the same room before they come together in a blissful dance.

Also in Rzewski, who plays the hopeful words of the reconstruction scholar John Hope Franklin (spoken by his son John Whittington Franklin), there are contrasts to the hopeless lines of Langston Hughes’ poem “God to Hungry Child” (sung by the soprano Janai Brugger). Between the two, the spiritual “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” is deconstructed through a series of variations in which the theme never returns, and the end is denied a clean solution. JOSHUA BARONE

Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose, Conductor (BMOP / Sound)

The four most recent works by Robert Carl on “White Heron” all deal with space in different ways, as the composer emphasizes in the liner notes. The title track of the album was created from Carl’s intimate observation of bird life in the Florida Keys. “Rocking Chair Serenade” for string orchestra is an elegy for “Conversation and fellowship on the veranda in the Appalachians”, inspired by memories of his youth.

The concept of space is conveyed through extended stretches of these scores unfolding in expansive, trembling, sour sounds, often arising from what Carl calls personalized harmony (a term I like) of all 12 chromatic pitches. This technique is particularly expressed in “What’s Underfoot”. Yet even in seemingly calm episodes, Carl’s music is restless beneath the surface with riffs that stimulate internal intensity and thrust.

It is gripping, almost a relief, when a piece really takes off, as in sections of Symphony No. 5, “Land”, which are bursting with frenzied energy, streams of notes and cut out eruptions. The performances under Gil Rose capture both the tonal appeal and the multilayered complexity of the music. ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Claire Chase, flute; Seth Parker Woods, cello; Dana Jessen, bassoon (New Focus)

If you are aware of the work of composer and improviser George E. Lewis, you may be wondering if you have already heard a substantial portion of his latest album, The Recombinant Trilogy, which focuses on pieces for soloists and plus electronics. (The software used for all of these works uses interactive digital delays, spatiality, and timbre conversion in response to each instrument, as noted.)

And it’s true, two of the pieces were previously released on albums by the same players who are represented here. “Emergent” appeared on the album “Density 2036: Parts I and II” by flautist Claire Chase. And “Not Alone” was part of a 2016 recording by cellist Seth Parker Woods.

That Woods recording, which was pretty definitive, is simply duplicated (although remastered) in “The Recombinant Trilogy”. But Chase took another swing here on “Emergent,” and she found a new lyrical approach to its whispering polyphony. While her earlier take was punchy and harsh – both in its electronic timbres and acoustic play – this one sounds warmer.

The premiere recording on the album – “Seismologic” for bassoonist Dana Jessen – fits the trilogy perfectly. Some of the early motifs of the piece, dark yet seductive, could have come from the Wagnerian forests. Later flights into the advanced technique bring the piece into a zone in which both the influence of Stockhausen and the brisk American jazz can be felt. SETH COLTER WALLS

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Chick Corea: Hear 12 Important Performances

Chick Corea: Hear 12 Essential Performances

Chick Corea, the pioneering keyboardist and bandleader who passed away Tuesday at the age of 79, will forever be seen as a key architect of jazz-rock fusion.

It’s a fitting one-line homage. Whether alone, as the leader of the Return to Forever collective or as a companion for giants like Miles Davis (on pioneering albums such as “In a Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew”), Corea has enriched the jazz lexicon and its harmonic language with heaviness merged (and strengthened) rock and funk. But no description, not even so broad, can encompass such a limitless vision.

“After all, formal styles are just an afterthought – a result of the creative impulse,” Corea told the New York Times in 1983. “Nobody sits down and decides to specifically write in a given style.” A style is not something you learn, but something you synthesize. Musicians don’t care whether a particular composition is jazz, pop or classical music. They only care if it’s good music – if it’s challenging and exciting. “

For more than five decades Corea has modified his sound to follow this simple maxim – whims from bebop to free jazz to fusion to contemporary classical music. He recorded almost 90 albums as a band leader or co-leader. And he’s always prioritized melody and musicality over calorie-free showmanship (though few have matched his raw skills on the Fender Rhodes).

Here are 12 of his elite studio and live performances.

Corea and Joe Zawinul form a wall of Rhodes on this creeping, funky cut from Miles Davis ‘”Bitches Brew,” punctuated by John McLaughlin’s ice pick guitars and Davis’ sighing trumpet. The rhythm section is so dense that you can hardly enjoy everything: two electric basses (Dave Holland and Harvey Brooks), two drum sets (Don Alias ​​and Jack DeJohnette) and the congas by Juma Santos. Good thing it takes 14 minutes. The keyboard players switch from question mark to exclamation mark – one moment that hits the groove, the next that plays solo in colorful bursts of noise. “Trust yourself,” Corea said in 2020, was Davis’ philosophy. “When he says, ‘Play what you can’t hear,’ he means, trust your imagination. Trust yourself to say, “I don’t know what I’ll do next, but I’ll only do it because it’s fun. Because I love it. ‘”

Corea sprinkles this nine-minute monster with an electric piano from Larry Coryell’s “Spaces”, a pillar of the early fusion. The arrangement seems to fluctuate between structure and improvisation, straight groove and cosmic freedom. The line-up is the definition of a supergroup: Corea and Coryell as well as John McLaughlin on guitar, Miroslav Vitouš (later from Weather Report) on double bass and Billy Cobham on drums.

“Spain”, the rare fusion melody with a durability as a jazz standard, remains Corea’s characteristic composition – covered by artists like Stevie Wonder and Béla Fleck. The original of Return to Forevers “Light as a Feather” is untouchable: The keyboardist’s hands pirouette happily over Rhodes for almost 10 minutes, his melodious melodies match Flora Purim’s calm coo and Joe Farrell’s fluttering flute. The choir, with its truncated keyboard phrases and enthusiastic hand clapping, is one of the catchiest moments in the history of the merger, along with Weather Reports’ main theme “Birdland”.

Return to Forever was in its infancy with the intensity of most rock bands of the 70s. But it sounded positively massive on his third album, added two new recruits (powerhouse drummer Lenny White and guitarist Bill Connors) and made Stanley Clarke switch to electric bass. The group showed off their full dynamic range on this two-part track from Return to Forever’s “Anthem of the Seventh Galaxy,” which began with Corea’s dreamy Rhodes theme before breaking out into tightly packed funk. Connor’s bloody guitar and Clarke’s distorted bass drift into the realm of psycho-rock – but even when the keyboardist leans back a little, his steady chords remain the ensemble’s heartbeat.

Corea’s acoustic piano enters lush New Age territory in the first half of these tracks of Stanley Clarke’s “Journey to Love,” which features fanfare with Clarke’s Bowed bass and John McLaughlin’s acoustic guitar. The group strikes an intense Latin groove in the second half, with McLaughlin and Corea triggering fireworks. In the liner notes, Clarke dedicated the two-part piece to John Coltrane – and it does justice to the bill.

The final Return to Forever line-up – Corea, Clarke, White and guitarist Al Di Meola – split up after the 1976 album “Romantic Warrior”. But as this funky odyssey proves, they almost went out at the peak. White is considered a composer here, and his fidget drum groove definitely keeps the engine running. But Corea also finds “Sorceress” in its most versatile, keyboard-technical form – weaving in atmospheric pads, straightforward synth leads and Latin American themes on acoustic piano.

Corea has always been influenced by Latin music, and in 2019 he told Billboard that “that flavor is mostly in everything I do”. “It’s part of me. I don’t know how to tell the difference. “But he never went deeper than on his 10th solo LP” My Spanish Heart “. The record reaches its climax with this four-part whiplash suite, which ranges from elegant string and brass instruments to acoustic piano interludes and the tastiest jazz-rock rave-ups on this side of Steely Dan’s “Aja”.

This mini-epic was composed by Corea for the solo debut album “Land of the Midnight Sun” by his band colleague Di Meola and uses his virtuoso lightning bolt – both players sound as if they could drift off their instruments into the sky. But there are many graceful melodies in those five and a half minutes. Halfway through, Corea slips into a gentle chord composition while Di Meola ascends and descends the scales. Corea can even show off his marimba skills and add extra drama to a climatic boom.

Corea and Herbie Hancock, two of the Fusion’s elite keyboardists, embarked on an acoustic duo tour in 1978, and the pair, both veterans of the Miles Davis bands, make amazing use of the two live LPs that resulted from these dates are. A highlight is a 19-minute version of “Homecoming” by “CoreaHancock”, in which your instruments are expertly brought together to form an organism. You move from beauty to ugliness in the twinkling of an eye – halfway the piece turns into a section of guttural grunts, percussive knocks and prepared piano madness.

Like most fusion giants who survived through the mid-80s, Corea took on the colors and contours of the time and formed his Elektric Band with drummer Dave Weckl, bassist John Patitucci and alternating guitarists Scott Henderson and Carlos Rios. The rhythm section runs freely on this neon-coated track from “The Chick Corea Elektric Band”, defined by its twisted, zappa-like rhythms and Corea’s weirdly bright synthesizer.

Corea stretched “Spain” out over the decades like Taffy and kept his interest by reworking it for various settings and band configurations. (“In 1976 or so I got tired of the song,” he told The Atlantic in 2011. “I started playing really perverted versions of it – I would relate to it for just a second, then I would go” on an improvisation . ”) One of his most impressive later interpretations is this acoustic live duet from“ Play ”with singer Bobby McFerrin, who breathes new life into the piece with its divine falsetto, rumbling bass lines and body percussion. For all sublime engineering, the greatest revelation is that these two giants snap into place in perfect symmetry with the main theme.

Corea teamed up with vibraphonist Gary Burton on the Grammy-winning double-CD live LP “The New Crystal Silence,” which is largely based on revised tracks from Corea’s back catalog. The duo had worked together for decades, and the music here feels appropriately natural and alive – even full-blown Zen, like the expanded version of Crystal Silence. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is recorded with razor-sharp fidelity at the studio level using the trading phrases and counterpoint patterns of Corea and Burton and rounds off the airy conversation.

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MF Doom Influenced Scores of Musicians. Hear 11 of Them.

MF Doom Influenced Scores of Musicians. Hear 11 of Them.

Daniel Dumile, the reclusive musician who appeared as the masked villain MF Doom, died on October 31 at 4 p.m., although the news did not become known until New Year’s Eve. Dumile spent more than two decades as one of the most famous and beloved artists in underground hip-hop, a rapper known for his unexpected word choices and intricate rhyme stacks.

However, Dumile’s influence went way beyond his formidable microphone skills. He hid his face behind a metal mask during public appearances – if he showed up for her at all – and separated his words from himself, rarely in a genre characterized by self-glorification and diaristical writing. His loyalty to independent labels like Stones Throw, Rhymesayers, Lex, Nature Sounds and Epitaph has paved a way through the established machines of the music industry. His beatmaking was idiosyncratic and he tried quiet storm records of the 80s instead of the hard funk of the 70s. He played the MPC sampler in a way that revealed the seams. “Madvillainy”, his groundbreaking collaboration with producer Madlib as Madvillain in 2004, dispensed with traditional songcraft for a psychedelic, dreamlike vortex of ideas.

His influence can be seen in the performance of musicians who have worked simultaneously over the past two decades – rappers, singers, and producers both inside and outside the hip-hop world. Here are 11 examples of how Doom’s aesthetic choices infiltrated the artistic impulses of several generations.

With three 12-inch singles released on Bobbito Garcia’s Fondle ‘Em Records in the late 1990s, MF Doom was part of an early wave of “underground hip-hop” musicians that purists recorded with independent beats and rhymes Labels between 1997 and 2004. At that time Dumile was already a major label victim. He appeared as Zev Love X in the group KMD in the early 90s and was dropped by Elektra in a controversy over the trio’s burn album. His early songs reinvented himself as MF Doom, showing that there was a sustainable way outside the system. The rapper Aesop Rock grew up on KMD and his music similarly navigates through labyrinthine patterns, pop culture detritus and SAT vocabulary. He became one of the signature acts on two labels that were the flag bearers of mid-00 underground rap, El-P’s Definitive Jux and Atmosphere’s Rhymesayers. In a verse about a recent MF Doom tribute, Aesop claims to have sold its 1999 demo outside of a Doom show at Brownie’s closed East Village Club.

Back when the lines between underground and mainstream hip-hop became much thicker, it was unheard of for a platinum-def-jam artist like Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang clan to break away from the lo-fi, gritty, underground Recover noise from beatmakers like MF Doom and J Dilla. Ghostface picked some beats from Doom’s 10-volume “Special Herbs” series for his fifth album “Fishscale” and not only amplified Doom’s unbalanced rhythmic genius, but also earned critical recognition. “He’s a great artist,” Ghostface told Mass Appeal in 2005. “He’s like me in a way, very creative.”

“In the end, it’s not rapping at all for me, it’s poetry,” Radiohead’s Thom Yorke told Dazed of his favorite rapper. “The way he freely shapes his verses and puts everything together, I don’t think anyone else would.” In 2007, between the release of his acclaimed, amorphous, beatwise solo debut “The Eraser” and Radiohead’s acclaimed, amorphous, beatwise seventh album, “In Rainbows”, Yorke released a playlist of 10 current favorites. Two of them contained Doom’s rhymes.

“I never thought that you could do a whole album without hooks and make it sound this good,” Danny Brown told Complex about one of his favorite LPs, “Madvillainy”. “This album showed me that music has no rules. Before, I thought you needed 16 bars and hooks to make a good song. “Thanks to his uncompromising vision, Brown has become one of the most successful underground rappers in the last 10 years. His breakthrough, “XXX” from 2011, had elaborate songs and spiraling slivers like “Adderall Admiral”, a 103-second melody based on a particularly loud sample by the post-punk band This Heat.

The Super Bowl’s Super Bowl, which stars at halftime, is an avowed MF Doom fan who featured it on Instagram and recently paid tribute to it with a few songs on its Apple Music radio show. Though the Weeknd is doing more hedonistic R&B with a retro flavor, it’s hard to imagine that born Abel Tesfaye didn’t learn a lesson about building mystique from the metal-faced rapper. Tesfaye originally had a breakthrough after releasing songs like “Loft Music” with complete anonymity in 2010. He recently performed with bandaged and prosthetic faces.

When the then young rapper Earl Sweatshirt went viral in 2010, his lyrics were full of insane assonance and crazy images: “Twisted, sicker than crazy beasts, I actually have six different liqueurs with a Prince wig. “It’s no surprise that he studied Doom and ultimately helped build a small rap empire with the Odd Future collective. Songs like “Chum” revolve not only with Doom’s sophisticated word-finding, but also with his dazed, dazed moods. “I relied on myself in many ways in trying to rape his [expletive] when I learned how to do it, ”Earl told guerrilla interviewer Nardwuar in 2014.

A small branch of “chill-hop” artists has made downtempo flair atmospheric beats best known for the internet popularity of “Lofi Hip Hop Radio – Beats for Relaxing / Learning”. While the Lo-Fi Hip-Hop subgenre is mostly inspired by Detroit sample innovator J Dilla and Japan’s jazz-spotted nujabes, it owes much to Dumile’s instrumental series, Special Herbs, which was recorded as Metal Fingers. As a producer, he often painted with nostalgic and dreamy tools, borrowing R&B, jazz-funk, soft rock and sade. Although California beatmaker Jinsang is relatively unknown, this song has more than 61 million streams on Spotify.

Los Angeles Open rapper Open Mike Eagle admired Doom’s ability to succeed with the things he loved most about rap: “The freedom to sample and rhyme over every loop that appeals to you,” said Eagle to Vice. “To be motivated to get as crazy as possible with the pun.” Eagle is known for his tricky punch lines – he briefly had a Comedy Central show where Doom did a rap for Episode 2. And like Doom, Eagle isn’t afraid to grapple with big concepts or step outside of it. On his critically acclaimed LP Brick Body Kids Still Daydream, he raps truths and fictions about Chicago’s notoriously poorly managed Robert Taylor Homes housing project.

Perhaps no modern rapper embodies Doom’s penchant for tangled references and architectural rhyme schemes better than Brooklyn’s Your Old Droog, a man who once boasted, “While I made sure every bar is tough / you played herbs, Pokémon and chased Charizard.” As his career began, Droog Doom took Doom’s seclusion to heart, leading to an internet conspiracy theory that he was actually Nas in disguise. “I don’t want to walk around like this rapper all the time,” he told Spin of his early decision to remain anonymous. “I learned that from my favorite rapper MF Doom – how he approached it and conducted interviews. People are involved in these characters and believe that they are. “

“DOOM was my favorite MC and producer,” Chicago avant R&B writer KeiyaA wrote on Twitter, adding that he “really showed me a new kind of emotion, how to be honest in my expressions, how to build worlds. ” Her debut, “Forever, Ya Girl!”, Has a bit of Doom’s homemade grit in its lo-fi textures and sample pileups.

Contemporary underground rap explodes with rhymes that work in the same model as Doom circa “Madvillainy”: high-tech bars rattle, often delivered with effortless coolness. Two of his late 90s colleagues – Roc Marciano and Ka – restarted each other about a decade ago, and there was no shortage of ice cold precisionists. The most popular right now is Buffalo’s Griselda collective, which includes Conway the Machine, Benny the Butcher, and Westside Gunn who collaborated with Doom on a 12-inch two-song song in 2017. On “George Bondo” Benny the Butcher raps: I think it’s a game until I homie Patrick Kane / That pushes through with a stick and shoots you off the goalkeeper. “