The Fania All-Stars player and record-label impresario worked with Latin music giants including Celia Cruz and fostered a more intense, political salsa sound
Johnny Pacheco, the co-founder of trailblazing salsa label Fania Records, has died aged 85. The cause was complications from pneumonia.
A representative for Fania said Pacheco was “the man most responsible for the genre of salsa music. He was a visionary and his music will live on eternally.”
Continue reading...The TV adventurer talks near-death experiences, what he learned from Eton and why he decided to go public about his religious faith
“The ninjas of the future,” says Bear Grylls, “are going to be those who can learn how to navigate the fear. It’s like a firefight. You can’t move backwards. You’ve got to move towards it, you know?” Not really. But I’ve never been in a firefight. And if I saw one, I doubt I’d move towards it. Like most people, I’ve been raised in mimsy, risk-averse Britain. Few of us have acquired the wild wisdom of Edward Michael “Bear” Grylls OBE. Unlike the 46-year-old TV adventurer, we have never simmered a sheep’s eyeball in geyser water, paused on Everest to reflect on the corpse of a late friend, wrestled snakes, outrun lions, or broken our backs parachuting. Rather, we’ve been raised in a land where a PE lesson can consist of Tudor-dancing.
Grylls wants to change all that. He wants kids to embrace fear and risk. “If you meet somebody who says they don’t have fear, it means one of two things: one, they’re not telling the truth; or two, they’re not going for anything big enough in their life. What I’ve learned through many trips and many failures is that you have got to move towards the difficult stuff. And the irony is that the things we fear most often dissipate.”
Continue reading...The theatre legends look back at working with Laurence Olivier and Peter O’Toole, the pain of biting reviews, the joy of a good run – and the agonies of being miscast
Derek Jacobi and Simon Callow first met at the Old Vic in London. Jacobi was treading the boards with Laurence Olivier, Peter O’Toole and other greats in the fledgling National Theatre company; the younger Callow was working at the box office. Prolific as ever through this lockdown year, both are juggling an assortment of stage and screen projects from home. They took time off to talk about Shakespeare, scathing reviews and how rifling through their family’s wardrobes led them into an acting career.
Derek Jacobi: Have we ever worked together, Simon? I can’t remember!
Continue reading...Heilung jam with Siberian shamans and play with human bones, while Wardruna record songs submerged in rivers and on burial mounds. Now this vibrant undergound music scene is finding a wider audience
In 2002, holed up in an attic studio on the majestic Norwegian coast, Einar Selvik had a vision. He would create a trilogy of albums based on the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark, the world’s oldest runic alphabet. The multi-instrumentalist’s epiphany kicked off what is now one of the world’s most vibrant underground music scenes.
Calling on vocalists Lindy-Fay Hella and Gaahl, with whom Selvik had played in black metal band Gorgoroth, he created the band Wardruna and the first instalment of the trilogy arrived in 2009. It was called Runaljod: Gap Var Ginnunga (Sound of Runes: The Gap Was Vast) and had taken seven years to research, write and record. Each song told a story behind Nordic culture and traditions, via dark and ambient folk, played on ancient string and horn instruments, as well as animal hide drums.
Continue reading...Julie Walters among signatories to letter saying post-Brexit changes a ‘towering hurdle’ to working in Europe
New visa rules for British artists, actors and theatre workers who want to work in Europe after Brexit are a “towering hurdle” that must be urgently addressed, according to an open letter signed by stars including Sir Ian McKellen, Julie Walters and Patrick Stewart.
In the letter from the performing arts union Equity, some of the biggest names in British theatre have implored the prime minister to go back to the negotiating table to ensure visa-free work in the EU.
Continue reading...The Sussexes’ baby announcement shared on Valentine’s Day is a confident image of defiance that seems to take us inside their love – granny must find it utterly baffling
The Duke of Sussex’s left foot steals the show. His knobbly toes shove themselves into the foreground, bulging out to rhyme with his wife’s baby bump. Misan Harriman, the Nigerian-born photographer and friend of Meghan who took the picture remotely from his home in Woking, has created an unbuttoned romantic pastoral that doesn’t so much rebel against royal portraiture as bring it to an end.
Producing babies has been the primary business of royalty since time immemorial. Harry and Meghan’s new child will be eighth in line to the British throne, but the picture tells us quite flamboyantly the Sussexes are not in Britain and have no desire to be. It is a confident image of defiance. A cup of California dreamin’. The garden looks semi-tropical. Harriman’s preference for black and white gives the sun-kissed lawn a lovely silvery glow that sets the couple almost in a vision of paradise. But at the same time, their intimate casualness – those toes again – is intended to show us they are anchored to the reality that matters.
Continue reading...A corporate destruction project offers a symbolic backdrop for this poignant drama about a father-son relationship
Its plot featuring a giant mining corporation known as “the monster” tearing up the landscape and causing bitter division among the hard-drinking local populace, this handsomely shot drama could be taking place in rust-belt America. But this is backwoods Greece, where forest rancher Nikitas (Vangelis Mourikis), first seen fending off a landslide caused by the miners’ activities, is fighting a running battle to keep them from despoiling the haven he loves. A motorbike throttle at midnight announces the arrival of his estranged son Johnny (Argyris Pandazaras), whose need to claim his inheritance adds to the pressure on Nikitas to ship out.
Related: Europe in 25 films: the critics’ choice
Continue reading...Kim Novak starred in Vertigo – voted the best film ever made – but knew she was too fragile for fame. She talks about her tough childhood, the sensitive side of Sinatra and starting again in her forties
Kim Novak apologises for the mess. And, to be fair, the studio at her Oregon home is fabulously messy. Behind her are a couple of canvases she has been working on; to the left and right, all sorts of all sorts. At the back of the room, her rescue dog, Patches, lies on a sofa, half snoozing, half listening. Occasionally, Sadie Ann, her husband’s pudelpointer, wanders in, sniffs around and leaves.
Novak, who turned 88 two days ago, is so much more than a Hollywood legend. The star of Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a wonderful artist, a mental health activist (she is proudly bipolar), an anti-bullying campaigner, a vet’s assistant and one of the greatest life forces I’ve spoken to.
Continue reading...The £150m repair of Hammersmith Bridge, closed since 2019, is mired in squabbling – and it’s just one of many across the UK that need work
Toby Gordon-Smith can see the district of Hammersmith from his flat. In normal times it takes him a few minutes to get there in his wheelchair. His cannabidiol products business is there, with the accessible tube station that he needs to get to the rest of London. The station is the reason why he moved to the area, but now it might as well be in another city. For he lives in Barnes, on the south side of the River Thames, opposite Hammersmith, and the bridge that connected them is closed for safety reasons – to vehicles since April 2019, and to pedestrians, cyclists and wheelchair users since last August. Although it is nearly two years since the first closure, there is still no clear plan for fixing the bridge.
There are thousands of stories like Gordon-Smith’s. For children in Barnes who go to schools in Hammersmith, what was once a 15-minute walk is now a tortuous three-mile journey along a towpath regularly flooded by the tide, up flights of steps on to a railway bridge (which makes cycling difficult) and through an ill-lit park with high rates of crime. Or they can take a long bus ride, which means getting up at 6am, if you’re going to beat the rush-hour traffic. The area’s main hospital, Charing Cross, is on the north side of the river, so those of its staff who live to the south, and patients needing such things as chemotherapy, now have to make gruelling journeys of an hour or more each way. Ambulances face potentially lethal delays.
Continue reading...Two eminent voices on the climate crisis present clear strategies for tackling emissions, deniers and doomsayers
President Joe Biden has promised a new era of American leadership on global climate action, after four years of unscientific denial and misinformation under Donald Trump. Two important new books by prominent American authors, both written before the result of the presidential election was known, should help to capitalise on the new spirit of cautious optimism by laying out bold but well-argued plans for accelerating action against climate change.
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates presents a compelling explanation of how the world can stop global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions effectively to zero. Gates and his wife, Melinda, are well known for their foundation’s tremendous work on improving health and tackling disease around the world, particularly in poor countries. It is this concern for the most vulnerable people on the planet that has meant Gates has occasionally appeared equivocal about climate and energy policies that he thought could undermine the fight against poverty and illness. However, this book lays out forcefully his understanding that the impact of climate change poses a far bigger threat to lives and livelihoods in developing countries – it is thwarting efforts to raise living standards because poor people, in every country, are the most at risk from droughts, floods and heatwaves.
Continue reading...Naval hero praises Jenner’s cowpox jab in a newly found love letter to Emma Hamilton, written as he prepared for war
He is best remembered as the one-armed hero who defeated Napoleon, rewrote the rules of naval warfare and died at sea, in battle, onboard HMS Victory.
Now, the “chance discovery” of a 220-year-old love letter from Admiral Horatio Nelson to Lady Emma Hamilton, his mistress, reveals how open-minded and ahead of his time the formidable captain was about a radical new scientific breakthrough: the smallpox vaccine. In the letter, dated July 1801, Nelson appears to advocate the use of the brand new vaccine on his own baby daughter.
Continue reading...In the singer-songwriter’s simplistic directorial debut, a cartoonish portrayal of autism clashes with a tale of addiction
For many years, Australian pop star Sia has hidden behind a fringe that covers her eyes. Using actors instead of starring in her own music videos, she has preferred not to centre herself. Yet her directorial debut appears to draw from her own experiences with addiction; its protagonist Zu (a near-bald Kate Hudson) is a recovering alcoholic. This is confusing, given that the film’s title refers to her non-speaking, neurodivergent younger sister Music (Maddie Ziegler), whose main purpose is to absolve Zu from her troubled past.
Ziegler, who appeared on the reality TV show Dance Moms, and features in some of Sia’s best-known videos (including Chandelier and Elastic Heart), is not herself on the autistic spectrum. It’s a problem, especially given the cartoonishness of her portrayal, which sees her gurning, grimacing and mumbling through her scenes. Music uses an augmentative and alternative communication device to translate rudimentary expressions such as “I am happy” and “I am sad”. Her interior world is just as simplistic, conveyed via goofy musical interludes rendered in childlike primary colours and abstract shapes. The lyrics, jaunty platitudes about Music’s “magic mind” and failing body, are offensive too. These self-consciously upbeat moments clash horribly with the wider redemption narrative.
Continue reading...Harrison, who defended contestant who attended ‘old south’ party, says he is ‘deeply remorseful … [for] excusing historical racism’
Chris Harrison, the host of the hit reality series The Bachelor, said on Saturday he was “stepping aside” from ABC’s hit franchise for a “period of time”, following comments in defense of a current contestant caught up in a racism storm.
The contestant, Rachael Kirkconnell, appears to have liked social media posts featuring the Confederate flag while photos have also emerged purportedly showing her at an “old south”-themed college party several years ago, according to reports.
Continue reading...Five years ago, Swedish designer and stylist Linda Ring experienced total burnout. After a few months doing nothing, she tried to adopt a slower lifestyle. “I started baking sourdough, but as it’s my nature to try to make everything beautiful, I began experimenting.”
Ring’s loaves became canvases for portraits and landscapes, scored into the raw dough. “You never know how the bread or the pattern will turn out, it’s enormously satisfying when I take it out of the oven and see.”
Continue reading...From flights of sublime abstraction with Miles Davis to virtuoso jazz fusion, Corea’s artistry was irresistible to the last
A certain melodic sparkle and an irresistible rhythmic vitality were the elements that allowed Chick Corea to move beyond the restricted audiences of the jazz world to capture listeners from other spheres. In so doing, he inspired generations of musicians, not just with the notes he played and the ideas he explored, but with his ability to communicate those often complex elements in an approachable way.
Corea’s background in jazz, classical and Latin music provided the ingredients for a career that went in many directions, from influential solo piano recordings and watercolour duets with the vibraphonist Gary Burton to jazz-rock explosions with his Elektric Band. If his keyboard skills set standards, his spirit of inquiry encouraged others to remove barriers and cross musical frontiers.
Continue reading...The authors of a study on the fate of Polish Jews under Nazism have been told to apologise to a woman for defaming her uncle. The implications for future historical work are alarming
Poland’s nationalists have won their latest battle to defend the country’s wartime reputation. On Tuesday, the Warsaw district court ordered two leading historians to apologise to a woman for defaming a relative in their book about the Holocaust. The landmark ruling has serious implications for academic freedom and the future of Holocaust research, with historians around the world condemning the judgment.
“These are not matters to be adjudicated by courts, this is a point that can be discussed by scholars or interested readers in the exchange of opinions. In that sense, it’s really scandalous,” says Jan Tomasz Gross, whose seminal book Neighbours was a watershed in Poland’s public discussion of the Holocaust more than 20 years ago. “It’s part of a broad effort to stifle any inquiry and particularly the complicity of the local population in the persecution of Jews during that time.”
Continue reading...For Richard Curtis it’s Gregory’s Girl, Gurinder Chadha prefers Tootsie and Katy Brand goes for Dirty Dancing. Whatever your relationship status, here are the film and TV romances to curl up with
When I wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, I wanted it to be half as good as Gregory’s Girl. John Gordon-Sinclair is so natural, and his best friend, Robert Buchanan, is the funniest movie best friend ever. Then it has the most brilliant plot twist and the definitive final romantic conversation with Clare Grogan, dancing on her back under a tree. If anyone’s thinking of writing a romantic comedy, this is the place to start: not with Hollywood stars and pop songs, but with the low-key, local, truthful bliss of Bill Forsyth’s first masterpiece. Richard Curtis, screenwriter and director
Continue reading...The composer, keyboardist and bandleader, who won 23 Grammy awards, has died of a rare form of cancer
The jazz pioneer Chick Corea has died at the age of 79.
According to a post on his Facebook page, the musician died from “a rare form of cancer which was only discovered very recently”. In his career, Corea won 23 Grammys and was the fourth most-nominated artist in Grammys history.
Continue reading...Brian Jacques’ tale of valiant mice and no-good rats introduced me to fantasy fiction. My daughters love it too, and here are some reasons why everyone should
If, like me, you are a fan of Brian Jacques, then the news that Netflix is working on an adaptation of Redwall will have you setting the abbey bells a-ringing in joy. Jacques’ bestselling stories of talking mice, squirrels and otters (the goodies) and rats, foxes and wildcats (the baddies) gave me so much happiness as a child. The first novel, 1986’s Redwall, was my introduction to fantasy: Matthias, a young orphan mouse, seeks a lost sword to see off an evil rat army led by Cluny the Scourge. (“Cluny was a God of War! Cluny was coming nearer!”) Heroism and sacrifice, comedy and evil – all of life is contained in Jacques’ anthropomorphic world.
After Redwall, Jacques told the story of how Redwall Abbey came to be, in the sequel Mossflower, as Martin the Warrior (another mouse, of course) arrives to save the creatures of the forest from the grip of the wildcats (Tsarmina Greeneyes is a particularly wonderful villain). Mattimeo continued the saga, following Matthias’s son as he is kidnapped by the slaver fox Slagar the Cruel (another excellent baddie; Jacques does villainous animals very well).
Continue reading...The singer recalls the joy of 60s California pop, being enthralled by Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and the Go-Go’s first gig
I grew up in Burbank in southern California. Music played a huge part in my life. I loved California radio – every summer, I would lie in front of the big speakers at my friend’s house. Her mother would go off to work and we would just sing along to the radio from 9am to 6pm every single day, every summer. When I was about 10, I saved up my babysitting and chore money to buy Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by the 5th Dimension on 45rpm. It was so joyous and still sounds fresh to this day.
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