10 THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER30, 2019
ILLUSTRATION BY NHUNG LE
Life could be a breeze for Cécile McLorin Salvant if she were content with
merely having the most glorious pipes of her generation; her voice allows her
to tunnel deep into the emotional core of a song while simultaneously main-
taining a winking distance that steers clear of easy irony. But this fresh phe-
nomenon, whose career took wing some nine years ago, after she won the The-
lonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Vocals Competition, embraces
ambition as a given—composing personal material and stationing herself in
intriguing musical situations seem to be where her muse beckons. At the Rose
Theatre, Sept. 27-28, Salvant joins the Mivos Quartet and a thirteen-piece
ensemble, led by the equally visionary arranger Darcy James Argue, to per-
form her “Ogresse,” a new work with fairy-tale overtones.—Steve FuttermanJAZZ
laden with the hammering snares and haughty
spoken phrases of ball nights and the buzzy
synths and general delirium of the best raves.
He’s equally antic on the decks—no song stays
untouched for long.—M.M. (Sept. 28.)
Moor Mother
Issue Project Room
There is often no better characterization of an
artist’s music than the one she provides herself.
Pick from any of the genre tags on Moor Moth-
er’s Bandcamp—“blk girl blues,” “witch rap,”
“coffee shop riot gurl songs,” “southern girl
dittys,” “black ghost songs”—and you might
get a sense of the sort of energy that the Philly-
based musician and poet can conjure in the
space of a track. The oppressive conditions of
the world may drive her to the studio, but her
music, which mines beauty out of survival, is
rooted in a love of both her people and her-
self.—B.Y. (Sept. 28.)
J Balvin
Madison Square Garden
The Colombian singer J Balvin has reached the
upper echelons of the mainstream pop world
through careful musical calibration. Since soar-
ing out of Medellin’s reggaetón scene, in the
early two-thousands, he’s judiciously balanced
eclectic urban genres, left-of-center pop, and
wily electronic beats. The globally palatable
brand he’s fashioned—thanks to his viral hit
“Mi Gente” and his collaboration with Cardi B
and Bad Bunny on “I Like It”—has helped make
progress toward crumbling language barriers in
the industry.—J.L. (Sept. 29.)The Good Ones
Joe’s Pub
A breathtakingly tender trio from Rwanda,
the Good Ones were formed in the wake of
genocide. Although they sing in Kinyarwanda,
the musicians evoke America’s rural blues in
haunted harmonies that seek light in the shadow
of devastation. The band headlines at Joe’s Pub
as part of their first U.S. tour; the previous
evening, they perform at a McNally Jackson
book event for the producer Ian Brennan,
who has championed the musicians since he
chanced upon them, a decade ago, during a trip
to Rwanda.—Jay Ruttenberg (Sept. 30.)Ty Segall
Various locations
The Laguna Beach native Ty Segall cultivates
an air of surf and slack, but there is an aesthete
lurking beneath his fuzz. Both are on display
on his combustible new album, “First Taste,”1
CLASSICALMUSIC
Anthony Braxton
Miller Theatre
Although Anthony Braxton is most closely
associated with the avant-garde jazz scene, of
which he has been a prominent figure since the
late sixties, this singular artist has been active
as a composer of notated concert works since
nearly the beginning of his career. Here, in
the first Miller Theatre “Composer Portrait”
of the new season, the JACK Quartet and the
ensemble Either/Or team up for a shrewdly
selected cross-section of Braxton’s canon, from
Composition No. 1 (1968) to Composition
No. 358 (2006).—Steve Smith (Sept. 25 at 8.)Israeli Chamber Project
Merkin Hall
The ever-changing Israeli Chamber Project
has earned acclaim for the thoughtfulness of
its programs and the generous sparkle of its
playing. This event assembles a contingent
of two violins, a viola, a clarinet, and a piano
to highlight works by European composers—
Bruch, Dvořák, Bartók, Martinů, and Kurtág—
that draw upon folk-music traditions.—S.S.
(Sept. 26 at 7:30.)New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall
The New York Philharmonic stages a double
bill of one-act dramas that belong to the genre
of psychological horror. In Schoenberg’s Ex-
pressionist masterpiece “Erwartung” (or “Ex-
pectation”), an unnamed woman, tormented
by lashes of anxiety, searches the woods for
the man who has betrayed her. Bartók’s “Blue-
beard’s Castle” features strings and woodwinds
flying through the air, like ravens portending
disaster, as the character Judith explores her
new husband’s home and finds that each room
brings fresh and terrifying insights about the
man she married. In both pieces, a woman
grasps in the dark for knowledge of her lover,
only to find herself delving further into the
recesses of the mind. Jaap van Zweden conducts
the Philharmonic and the singers Katarina
Karnéus, Nina Stemme, and Johannes Martin
Kränzle in Bengt Gomér’s production.—Ous-
sama Zahr (Sept. 26 at 7:30 and Sept. 27-28 at 8.)Rocco di Pietro
Roulette
What’s old becomes new again at Roulette,
where the Mivos Quartet premières Ben Neill’s
audiovisual piece “Fantini Futuro,” inspired bywhich features a mandolin and a koto but,
pointedly, not a lick of guitar. Who needs it?
Let Segall conduct the New York Philharmonic
and it, too, will resemble a blissed-out garage
band. Throughout this residency, split between
Brooklyn Steel (Oct. 1 and Oct. 5) and Bowery
Ballroom (Oct. 2-4), he sings “First Taste” in
full while playing drums and bouzouki, then
switches to guitar to perform a different album
from his catalogue each night.—J.R. (Oct. 1-5.)