THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER21, 2020 5
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MUSIC
Rez Abbasi: “Django-shift”
JAZZ The music of the legendary Romani
guitarist Django Reinhardt is Gallically ro-
mantic, effervescent, and almost aggressively
expressive; the music of the guitarist Rez Ab-
basi, as heard on his tribute album to Rein-
hardt, “Django-shift,” can be oddly shaped,
inward-leaning, and fervently free of nostalgia.
Abbasi, who mined his Pakistani roots for past
jazz-fusion explorations, adapts the Belgian
virtuoso’s influence to a trio format that makes
anachronistic use of electronic keyboards and
drums. If the magnetic allure of the earlier
guitarist—who even with a damaged fretting
hand could probably outplay any contemporary
shredder—is rarely evoked, an appealingly
off-kilter charm is still generated. It’s more
early-two-thousands Brooklyn than nine-
teen-thirties Paris.—Steve Futterman
Dua Lipa x the Blessed Madonna:
“Club Future Nostalgia”
POP The London-based American house-music
producer the Blessed Madonna’s new d.j.-
mixed version of Dua Lipa’s second album,
“Future Nostalgia,” is evidence that club
culture’s obsession with classic disco has
dovetailed neatly with mainstream pop’s re-
cent fascination with the genre. Many of the
guest remixers here offer touch-ups rather
than face-lifts, as in the Zach Witness and
Gen Hoshino version of “Good in Bed” or
Horse Meat Disco’s tighter, even more synth-
heavy revision of “Love Again.” And, rather
than wallowing in these grooves, the d.j.s’
occasional drop-ins of familiar hits by Neneh
Cherry and Jamiroquai keep the pacing briskly
pop.—Michaelangelo Matos
Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK
CLASSICAL The composer Ellen Reid writes
atmospheric music with a sense of intimacy
and immediacy, and now listeners can trek
through her soundscapes with the free smart-
phone app Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK. The
New York Philharmonic—in collaboration
with three other ensembles, including the
jazz band Poole and the Gang—has recorded
pieces that Reid wrote for Central Park’s
various areas and attractions; as a user strolls
through them, the soundtrack shifts dynami-
cally based on the geolocation. The glistening
work “When the World as You’ve Known It
Doesn’t Exist” comes up as an Easter egg
hidden in one of the park’s most beloved
locations. Also playing: As part of the N.Y.
Phil Bandwagon initiative, a small caravan of
the Philharmonic’s musicians travels around
the five boroughs to play pop-up concerts on
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through
mid-October.—Oussama Zahr
Josiah Johnson:
“Every Feeling on a Loop”
ROCK The path that led to Josiah Johnson’s
first album as a solo artist, “Every Feeling
on a Loop,” seems torn from an overheated
novel about a frayed musician. While plotting
a record for his indie-folk combo, the Head
and the Heart, the singer checked into rehab;
upon discharge, he found himself unwelcome
in the band he had co-founded. Undaunted,
he broke off a romantic engagement, em-
braced his previously covert queer identity,
and wrote a new batch of songs intended to
be private. The novelized version of Johnson
might be a rancorous hellion trailed by bro-
ken hearts and busted guitars, but the one re-
flected on this album seeks only placidity. At
times, Johnson turns to mid-tempo laments
to process days of fire and turbulence. But
his slow-burn songs can also stretch into a
Zen stillness, on an album that yearns for
healing.—Jay Ruttenberg
Jyoti: “Mama, You Can Bet!”
JAZZ Throughout her career, the forward-think-
ing Los Angeles musician Georgia Anne
Muldrow has expanded the parameters of
modern jazz to include rap, neo-soul, and
experimental elements. Under the moniker
Jyoti—a name given to her by Alice Coltrane,
a family friend—she makes some of her most
referential music. Seven years after the last
Jyoti odyssey, “Denderah,” Muldrow returns
to the project with “Mama, You Can Bet!,” a
new album that she has called a vocal docu-
ment of her inner feelings. These songs have
wondrous arrangements, riffing on ideas from
jazz titans, and taken together they begin to
form a self-portrait of Muldrow. But the most
powerful moment of expression is the title
track, a fitful piano ode to her mother, and
to single Black motherhood.—Sheldon Pearce
Locrian Chamber Players
CLASSICAL Founded in 1995, the Locrian Cham-
ber Players are among the hidden gems of
the New York City concert scene, contrib-
uting depth and variety with their policy of
playing only compositions less than a de-
cade old. Now, in a time of forced isolation,
ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL KENNEDY
Big Sean’s 2012 mixtape, “Detroit,” was a
turning point in his career. Moving away
from the goofy hashtag rap of his early
music and toward a more robust sound
and vision, he rapped about the stress of
being a home-town representative, and
his verses shed their slapstick quality
in favor of greater narrative form. On
“Detroit 2,” an album that he has de-
scribed as a return to his roots, “with a
stronger foundation,” he expands the
earlier mixtape’s homegrown concept to
mark another milestone. Produced pri-
marily by his longtime collaborators Hit-
Boy and Key Wane, this is the sharpest,
most assured music of Big Sean’s ca-
reer. After years of workshopping, his
clunker punch lines have steadily devel-
oped into thoughtful considerations of
how to shield himself from depression,
rejection, and duplicity.—Sheldon Pearce
HIP-HOP
the Locrians pursue their mission via Zoom
Webinar, presenting three concerts of works
for solo performers, free of charge, on suc-
cessive Saturday evenings. The first program
includes pieces by Thomas Adès and John
Luther Adams; subsequent concerts feature
music by Alvin Singleton, Eve Beglarian,
and Jessie Montgomery.—Steve Smith (Sept.
19 at 7:30.)
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DANCE
La Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla
The twenty-first iteration of this prestigious
festival is taking place, as always, in Seville.
But this year, for the first time, some events
are being live-streamed for free. On Sept. 16
(with a repeat broadcast on Sept. 18) comes
“Paraíso Perdido” (“Lost Paradise”). In the
Baroque church of San Luis de los Franceses,
the brilliant viola da gamba player Fahmi
Alqhai and the unvarnished flamenco dancer
Patricia Guerrero look back to the Seville of
the seventeenth century, and especially to
the era’s popular Afro-Caribbean music and
dance forms, such as the chacona and the illicit
zarabanda, which were refined in Baroque
concert music to become the chaconnes and
sarabandes of Bach.—Brian Seibert (youtube.
com/user/labienal)
Catherine Galasso
Galasso has been developing a choreographic
series inspired by the Decameron since 2017,
years before Boccaccio’s collection of stories
told during a plague became topical again. But
much about the series’ wistful and whimsical
fourth chapter, “Field Notes: Outdoor Dances
for This 21st Century,” is inevitably and inten-
tionally colored by COVID-19, starting with the
setting for performances, which run Sept. 18-19:
