Jon Batiste Funks Up Carnegie Hall With Debut of His Grand ‘American Symphony’: Concert Review

Emanuel Okusanya Fast-rising Nigerian star Asake roared into New York Friday night with a show in support of his debut album, “Mr. Money With the Vibe,” which features Afrobeats icon Burna Boy as well as American rapper Russ. Asake (full name: Ahmed Ololade) released his first single in 2018 and has struck an individual blend of West African Afrobeats and South Africa’s Brazilian-tinged ampiano. His set Friday night at New York’s Palladium Times Square — the largest venue on his tour — saw him backed by a full band, including horns, to bring his jazz-influenced sound into a live setting. Clad in an all-denim ensemble and his trademark black sunglasses, he performed his entire debut album in order, starting with the album’s mid-tempo opener, “Dull.” But as the setlist continued and the songs became more lively, so did Asake.

Jon Stewart received mountains of praise Friday for his interview with Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who supported state legislation denying anyone under 18 years old access to gender-affirming treatments.

Christian Bale is confirming that he did intervene during some drama that went down on the American Hustle set.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Back in the day (“the day” being the 1990s), Pavement became so typecast as a cliché-lambasting, anti-rock band that they never really got credit for what a great rock band they were — and, as their ongoing 30th-ish anniversary tour shows, still are. The stereotypical scrawny, bookish, indie vibe and image of the group’s early records had become so cemented that few seemed to notice how tight and accomplished they became after drummer Steve West joined the group in 1993. Although they always downplayed their ability to “rock out” and still do, when the band locks in on hypnotic grooves while singer-guitarist Stephen Malkmus plays solos with a Lou Reed-ish combination of soaring melodies and brittle squall (usually finishing with some self-mocking gesture), they can hold their own with virtually any rock band. On their later albums, that seasoning carried over to their songwriting, as Malkmus’ almost run-on melodies were delivered in a cleaner, sharper manner, as if he were no longer quite so embarrassed by how pretty or catchy they can be.

Lily Moayeri Over the weekend, Desert Daze, California’s psych-rock festival (and two-time nominee as Pollstar’s festival of the year), celebrated its 10th anniversary as a destination event for the free-spirited, open-minded, anti-commercial, pro-instrument music fan. It was a veritable Australian takeover of the desert with two out of the three headliners being from that region: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who are practically the Desert Daze house band, and Tame Impala, who in 2018 had their set cut very short due to weather conditions and were returning to somewhat finish what they started. The hippie-natured festival’s titular ethos has involved several different locations in its decade-long history, with its latest headquarters, on the sand at Moreno Beach, Lake Perris, being one of the most scenic. The backdrop of craggy mountains and a crystal-clear lake is life-affirming for festival-goers who brave the relatively rough terrain of Desert Daze, where the focus is more on the vibe than it is on logistics.

William Earl “Don’t you pretend that I’m not alive” were the first words whispered by the Mars Volta vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s during the group’s reunion stop in New York City on Sept. 29. The tour, in support of a new self-titled record that marks the end of a decade-long hiatus for the Texas rockers, is a reminder not only that the group itself is back but keenly aware of their legacy as a taut, adventurous live act ready to blend genres at a breakneck pace. Their first four records, especially their beloved 2003 studio debut “De-Loused in the Comatorium,” have been a gateway for younger generations of prog fans, fresh to polyrhythms and double-digit song lengths. Yet the band’s final two pre-hiatus albums — 2009’s “Octahedron” and 2012’s “Noctourniquet” — felt like a group in need of a break. This year’s comeback album is perhaps their most far-afield, as it’s their approximation of a pop music, with the average song hovering at three minute mark and produced with a flatter palette than previous work.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Ed Sheeran has announced details for the North American leg of his “+ – = ÷ x Tour” (pronounced “The Mathematics Tour”), hitting stadiums across the continent for the first time since his 2018 “Divide” tour, Dates begin on May 6th at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX, before wrapping up on September 23rd at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA (see itinerary below). Main support on a majority of the dates comes from R&B singer Khalid (May 6th-September 2nd), with rapper/singer-songwriter Russ rounding out the tour (September 9th-23rd); Dylan, Cat Burns, Maisie Peters, and Rosa Linn alternate as first of three. Sheeran recently wrapped the European leg of the tour, performing in front of over 3 million people in six months, including a five-night stand at London’s Wembley Stadium.

Ethan Shanfeld Very few modern bands have a “Mr. Brightside.” Even fewer are able to whip it out in the first five minutes of a show and continue to entertain an arena for another 90 minutes. And even fewer are those who can hold their own in a three-song duet with Bruce Springsteen as he beams with excitement announcing their name to the crowd: “THE KILLERS!” “Everybody knows God made Saturday nights for rock ‘n’ roll,” frontman Brandon Flowers declared toward the beginning of the band’s set, the second of two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden. And the Killers delivered on that, taking New York City on a tour of its greatest songs from “Hot Fuss” to “Pressure Machine.”

Thania Garcia With only one more show left on the docket, Bad Bunny has just about finished the North American leg of his “World’s Hottest Tour.” That title has certainly lived up to its promise, as the Puerto Rican phenom achieved the top-grossing tour of August with this trek, consisting of several stops in the country’s biggest venues. Last night, he pulled out all the stops for the first of two back-to-back shows at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium. He brought out several guests — including the reggaeton pioneer Ivy Queen, who played a medley of her hottest hits — and declared his love for L.A., inciting cheers throughout the night with: “¡Los Latinos in L.A., que se sienta!”

A.D. Amorosi There’s a handsome backstory to Friday night’s concert “The Town Hall and T Bone Burnett Present a Tribute to Bob Dylan” — produced in partnership with the Bob Dylan Center — that went beyond present-day artists merely doing a set of covers. Dylan. New York City’s Town Hall. The two go hand-in-hand like whiskey and soda. In 1963, when the bourgeoning poet-folkie could no longer be confined by Greenwich Village’s coffee houses, his shrewd then-manager Albert Grossman chose the civic hall built by the League for Political Education to mark Dylan’s major league debut and unite his social consciousness with commerce for the first (but not the last) time.Dylan and T Bone Burnett also go hand-in-hand like whiskey and pretty-much-anything. Not only did Dylan pluck Burnett to be a guitarist on his legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour of the late 1970s, Burnett recently produced Dylan’s one-off recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” for Burnett’s Ionic Original acetate-format project with an auction price of nearly $1.8M. (Burnett is also linked to Town Hall with his smart co-production of 2013’s “Another Day, Another Time at the Hall”) in celebration of the Coen Brothers’ cinematic ’60s folk love letter “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

David Muir and Kelly Ripa have one of our favorite A-lister friendships so of course David was on hand to praise his best friend when she shared a new magazine cover.Kelly is promoting the release of her new book Live Wire and took to Instagram to share the new picture, writing: "If you heard, but I’ve written a book that hits the shelves TOMORROW!"WATCH: Kelly Ripa's love story with Mark ConsuelosDavid commented: "Hi pretty," which Kelly then liked. The two have been good friends for years, so much so that the Live with Kelly and Ryan star paid a heartfelt tribute to David in her book.An extract from the book - which was released on 30 September - was posted on Kelly's Instagram Stories over the weekend, and the message is included on a page of acknowledgements.It read: "To David Muir, you are the backbone and moral compass I need sometimes."David has been hugely supportive about Kelly's book and even took it out with him when he went for dinner the other night. Kelly Ripa paid tribute to David Muir in her book, Live WireHe took to his Instagram Stories to share a photograph of himself out enjoying dinner, and in his hand was Kelly's book.

EJ Panaligan editor Focus Features has shared the trailer for upcoming biographical drama “Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies” from director Michael Showalter. The film stars Jim Parsons as Michael Ausiello, a real-life entertainment journalist who experiences the death of his partner, Kit Cowan (played by Ben Aldridge) over a prolonged 11-month period due to terminal cancer. The film’s story, which was penned by screenwriters David Marshall Grant and Dan Savage, is based on Ausiello’s 2017 book of the same name. In the book, Ausiello chronicled the last year of his partner’s life and their 13-year relationship before Cowan died of a rare form of neuroendocrine cancer in February 2015.

Olivia Rodrigo hailed Alanis Morissette as the “most incredible human being” at the Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame at the weekend.The 19-year-old pop star took to the stage at Massey Hall in Toronto on Saturday (September 24) to induct Morissette.Referring to how the latter’s 1995 album ‘Jagged Little Pill’ changed Rodrigo’s life at 13, the former said (via ET Canada): “My life was completely changed. Alanis’ songwriting was unlike anything I’d ever heard before and I haven’t heard anything quite like it since.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If the planet was under threat of annihilation from beyond, and we had to present our divine or interplanetary overlords with just two musical emissaries to make a case that humankind is worth being spared as a species, Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples might be the couple we’d want to pick. Fortunately, with no such emergency yet in sight, they’ve managed to pair up of their own volition for a segment of Raitt’s current headlining tour that makes for a two-sided portrait of what heart, soul and understated heroism look like in music. Not that those kinds of superlatives showed up anywhere but in the subtext of Saturday night’s show at the Greek Theatre in L.A. It was a show where you could think about what Staples meant during the civil rights movement, and since, or about Raitt’s role as a warrior without uniform in the early days of women fighting to get their due in rock. Or you could just enjoy the chops and grease that feed into the respective performances of historically significant figures who wear their mantles as lightly as anything else they’d need to peel off upon stepping into a humid roadhouse.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian art wing of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most unique and visually arresting places in a city filled with them, containing the 2,000-year-old Temple itself along with other sculptures and pieces of art, a large reflecting pool and a giant, 25-foot-tall floor-to-ceiling window that extends the entire length of the hall and overlooks Central Park. It also may be the most unique and visually arresting music venue in the city. Over the years the room has hosted concerts by everyone from Interpol to the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, but it’s hard to think of a more fitting artist for such a setting than Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab, who won a Grammy earlier this year for her song “Mohabbat” from her latest album “Vulture Prince,” and was also nominated for Best New Artist.

Ethan Shanfeld As the Arctic Monkeys waltzed onstage at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre Thursday night, they were met with such rapturous applause and overwhelming screams that when Alex Turner sat at the piano and sang, “Don’t get emotional,” it was as if he was speaking directly to the audience. While the band opened the show with new single “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball,” which came out just a few weeks ago, the crowd embraced it like an old classic. As Turner sang the song’s title for the final time, in falsetto, a giant disco ball lowered from the ceiling and lit up the exuberant Kings Theatre.  To be clear: there’s good reason for the Monkeymania. Thursday’s show marked the band’s first headlining concert in the U.S. since 2018, and even though their seminal album “AM” came out nearly a decade ago (feel old?), the Tumblr-era thirst for Turner is still very much alive. The audience erupted in shouts at the frontman’s every move — cheering when he ditched his guitar for “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?,” when he hoisted the mic stand above his head during “Arabella” and, of course, when he snarled between songs, “How’s everybody doing,” in a British accent thicker than the bass tone on “Crying Lightning.”

Emanuel Okusanya It hardly seems possible that, more than three years after the blockbuster success of “Old Town Road” — which became the longest-charting single in Billboard history and the most-platinum-certified single, with 15 at last count — and many, sometimes-controversial videos and television performances, Lil Nas X is only now on his first major tour. The artist’s 29-date “Long Live Montero” tour made two sold-out stops at New York’s prestigious Radio City Music Hall this week, and he didn’t disappoint in terms of music or visuals (although he did keep things relatively PG, apart from kissing one of his male dancers behind a curtain).

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic “Reasonable Doubt” has a healthy amount of “Scandal” in its DNA. The series was created by former “Scandal” writer and producer Raamla Mohamed; Kerry Washington directs the first episode. And the swirling intrigue around a self-styled do-gooder protagonist — who’s unconventional in her methods, and irresistibly drawn to drama — will recall Olivia Pope, the character Washington played on the ABC drama. Back then, Olivia unwound with a glass of red wine; as if to flex the looser, loucher possibilities of streaming, Emayatzy Corinealdi’s Jax Stewart ends her day with a cigarette. That seems an apt distillation of a series that’s charged with a nervy energy; “Reasonable Doubt” places Corinealdi’s very flawed protagonist at its center and watches as she generates smoke, and steam. Jax is a former public defender who now works in high-profile criminal defense in Los Angeles; her attention is divided between her caseload and her attraction to a man she once defended, incarcerated for many, years but still a vivid part of her life.

A.D. Amorosi Since the pandemic’s start, songwriting singer Halsey has changed their world several times over with the release of the dystopian multi-genre pop of 2020’s “Manic,” then the industrial earth mother vibe of 2022’s “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.” During that time, they also announced “they/them” pronouns and had a baby. But even with all that, performing in an intimate setting – SiriusXM’s Small Stage series, for subscribers and contest winners held at Philadelphia’s 1,200-capacity Union Transfer on Tuesday – was perfect Halsey’s whisper-to-scream vocals and dramatic, personal asides. Plus, as a native of nearby Edison, New Jersey, Halsey rhapsodized about being a fan in attendance at many a gig at the venue. “I used to wonder if the people on stage here could see me in the audience,” said Halsey to a brace of fans pressed against the stage, some of whom had waited in line since 4 a.m. “The answer is yes, because I can see all of your faces clearly.”