Latest news with #BerkleeCollegeOfMusic
The Guardian
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
US singer-songwriter Tyler Ballgame: ‘It shocked me out of depression. I had this spiritual awakening'
Four years ago, Tyler Perry's stepfather offered him a job in the office of his dog-training company in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Perry had little else to fill his time: he was 29 and living in his mother's basement, uncertain what he should do with the rest of his life. In 2017, he had left Berklee College of Music, where he had ostensibly studied songwriting, but largely smoked weed and skipped class. The songs he wrote then were introspective and folk-driven, in the lineage of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith – artists he had been drawn to in his senior year of high school, who had spoken to him just as depression had first set in. 'I was depressed for, like, 10 years,' he says. In idle moments in the office, he would scour Craigslist, imagining a different life in New York or Nashville or LA. One day, on a whim, he applied for a recruitment job at a commercial real estate company in Los Angeles. He lied about his experience, and the fact he didn't have a degree. 'I just wrote a really good email,' he says. 'And 20 minutes later they called me. I went through two interviews in a day, and then they said: 'Can you be here in two weeks?'' Perry had never been to Los Angeles. That evening, he talked it over with his family and friends. 'And my mom said: 'What do you have to lose? A few thousand dollars? You can always come back.' So I moved to Venice Beach, California.' In a clip of Perry that began to circulate online last autumn, the singer was filmed at Eagle Rock bar The Fable performing Help Me Out – a song that longs for self-acceptance the way one might yearn for a lover. He moves around the stage with a sensuous majesty, a large man in triple denim, flicking his hair, courting the mic stand, his voice moving effortlessly from earth-deep to celestial. There is something of Elvis and Roy Orbison and Harry Nilsson; the kind of easy, confident performance that feels like alchemy. In person, Perry is a faintly beatific presence, sitting in a Brighton cafe in the gap between shows at the city's Great Escape festival. He speaks gently, his conversation ranging from the suburbs of Rhode Island to the free kombucha at WeWork via countercultural philosopher Alan Watts's thoughts on ego. What quickly becomes clear is the distance between the solid assurance of Perry's stage self and the more tentative man sitting across the table. Before all of this – before the dog-training office and the real estate application – Perry had begun working with a counsellor and dietician named Courtney Huard. For a couple of years the pair worked on improving Perry's sense of body positivity and mental health, and the impact was immense. 'She was an incredible person and I'm really lucky I came across her,' Perry says. Around the same time, he discovered the work of self-help teacher Eckhart Tolle and his book The Power of Now, and took an Enneagram personality test. 'I pinned my personality to a wall, and I got to see it for the first time,' he says. 'And it shocked me out of depression. I had this kind of spiritual awakening.' The problem was that this newly awakened Perry did not fit quite so well with his catalogue of melancholy folk songs. For years, when he played live, he had hidden behind his guitar, his voice flat and whispered. 'I was wanting to be 'cool' in that sense of 'mystical, can't grasp it …'' he says. 'But I don't think that's necessarily me.' In California, he lived out of a suitcase, worked for the property company in the day, and at night played open mics across the city. Mostly he would play a couple of his own folk songs, and then a cover of Roy Orbison's Crying. It was this last song that hit the sweet spot. 'People would freak out, and it would be like it was my birthday,' he says. 'Everybody in the place looking at me and clapping.' He realised that covering Orbison's song called on the skills he had first learned doing musical theatre in high school: a supported singing voice, a sense of generosity and occasion. Perry wondered if this might be a new direction for him – one that drew on all of his musical loves, from showtunes to Fleet Foxes, via Jonathan Richman and the Who's 1969 rock opera, Tommy. He dreamed up a character for himself, called it Tyler Ballgame – a nod to the nickname of legendary Boston Red Sox baseball player, Ted Williams, and a joking put-down to himself, a man who had spent years squandering his talent in his mother's basement, being the very opposite of a sporting legend. He set about working out how this Tyler Ballgame might write and perform. At Berklee, Perry had attended a performance studies class taught by Livingston Taylor (brother of singer-songwriter James Taylor). The classes were held in a theatre, and on the first day, Taylor invited each of his 40 students to stand on the stage. You had to go up and hold your palms out to the audience, and shift your weight from one foot to the other in time, and look everybody in the eye. It struck Perry as brilliant. In Los Angeles, Perry remembered the class, and it struck him as an act of radical presence; something Tyler Ballgame might do. He started to try it in his live shows. 'I'd reach out to the audience and look them in the eye. Like, we're both here to do something. I'm trying to connect, and we're going to live this experience together.' The songs came with an ease. Soulful, and sad sometimes, but also brimming with something hopeful and alive. They carried the richness and simplicity of the classics. Perry relocated to East Los Angeles, began collaborating with other neighbouring musicians, and playing live as much as he could. One day, the producer Jonathan Rado, famed for his work with Miley Cyrus and the Killers, happened to see an Instagram story of a Tyler Ballgame show and contacted him. The singer went over to Rado's studio shortly afterwards and over the next couple of weeks, the pair recorded more than an album's worth of material. Word of Tyler Ballgame soon spread, and by last autumn, record labels had begun making fevered bids to sign him. In the end, Perry went with the British independent Rough Trade, connecting with them over a shared love of Nick Drake and Arthur Russell. 'I had a lot of options and it was really flattering and really crazy,' he says, 'but I just kept coming back to Rough Trade, because of that kindred spirit of whatever music I make naturally, in my soul, they already love, because they've already put out all the music that I love.' Perry makes for easy company, and after an hour and a half of conversation I ask if there is anything else he might like to tell me. 'I don't know,' he says slowly, and hesitates. 'Maybe I'd like to mention my counsellor, Courtney, again,' he says. 'She had her life taken, really horrifically.' Huard was killed by her husband, who later killed himself. Perry learned of her death when a friend sent him a news article from his local newspaper back in Rhode Island. Perry saw the photograph and was stunned. At that precise moment he had been writing Help Me Out, a song largely inspired by Huard. 'She made me realise your value is not tied to the size of your body, or how people look at you – things which had kept me from even being on stage at all. 'There are so many people on the messageboards of her funeral posts and her obituary saying: 'She set me on the course of my life.' She was a really special person, and it just shows how precious life is. So I live for her.' It is a hot afternoon, but Perry takes to the stage at the UnBarred Brewery wearing a woollen jumper. He looks out to the crowd, gently spreads his palms, and begins to sing. It is a golden performance, the songs sounding almost as if they have always existed, and Perry entirely mesmerising. As he plays, I think of something he told me over lunch – about the freedom and fluidity of performance. 'I want to be totally in the flow state, like gone,' he said. 'Where nothing is canned or prepared or contrived.' Some shows, he told me, you get it, and the rest of the band get it, and the audience gets it, too. 'And then it's like real magic. It's a celebration of the joy of performance and the joy of music.' Today as Perry and the band play, the air is filled with a kind of joy – with something like real magic in the warmth of a Sussex afternoon. Tyler Ballgame's new single New Car is out now. He plays the End of the Road festival, nr Blandford Forum, 30 August, and The Lexington, London, 10 September.
CBS News
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Malcolm-Jamal Warner remembered at Berklee College of Music, "humanity is his real legacy"
The world is honoring Malcolm-Jamal Warner for his impact in helping shift culture on American television. In Boston, he's being remembered as a role model who was generous with his time in programs at Berklee College of Music. Warner was an iconic figure on the 1980s cultural phenomenon "The Cosby Show" as Theo Huxtable. The world is mourning the actor who tragically drowned in Costa Rica on a family vacation. Investigators say a strong current pulled the 54-year-old into deep water. "There's a duality in the loss right. I think prior to being able to be in his presence and have him be what I consider a brother; Theo was everybody's brother," said Misael Martinez Assistant Vice President, Social Entrepreneurship and Creative Youth Development at Berklee. Beyond the screen, Warner had a special and close connection to Berklee College of Music, especially with the Berklee City Music students. In 2023, as a special guest and emcee, Warner helped raise more than a million dollars for scholarships for the underserved youth to develop musically, academically, socially, and emotionally. Few knew that Warner was an avid and passionate bass player, and he worked closely with Martinez at the college. In 2015, Warner received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for the song "Jesus Children" alongside Robert Glasper Experiment and Lalah Hathaway. "I think that his humanity is his real legacy the way that he lived and treated people every day," said Martinez. "He was just the most caring and beautiful person when he came into the office and the campus, the way that he treated everyone with equity, love and respect, and he always yearned to learn more." In 2014, he was praised for his performance of the Huntington Theatre's production of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" - a classic film tackling interracial marriage. Martinez reflected on the impact of Warner's many roles. "It actually framed a narrative that hadn't been said for a long time, and it allowed people to see themselves in a way that wasn't always depicted in television, so I think in that way he was a trailblazer," said Martinez. A trailblazer and devoted family man, who leaves behind his wife and daughter. "You think, 'oh my God' he's no longer here, but then most importantly you go back to the humanity, the impact of how fragile life is," Martinez said.
CBS News
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Billboard-topping saxophonist "pays it forward" with program for young musicians in Boston
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester have offered music instruction for decades. But band instruments were not in the lineup, largely because of the cost. "It only works with instruments that we can share with as many kids as possible," explains music director Carleton Burke. "I can teach 20 kids to play piano on one piano. I can teach 20 kids how to play guitar on one guitar. I can't teach 20 kids to play trumpet on one trumpet." Brass, woodwind instruments, and drums were prohibitively expensive... until Billboard-topping saxophonist Elan Trotman chose the clubs as the Boston site for his Headstart Music Program. Headstart Music Program Trotman, who is also an associate professor at Berklee College of Music (his alma mater) established the Never Lose Your Drive Foundation to support the next generation of musicians. The foundation funds the Headstart Music Program which provides new band instruments and instruction to kids. He launched it in his native Barbados and added the Dorchester site in November 2024. "Music brings people together," he says smiling. Saxophonist Elan Trotman CBS Boston On a spring night in May, music also brings families to the Dorchester Avenue clubhouse for the kids' first recital. Six months after receiving the instruments, the performers--ages 10 to 17-- are ready to play. Elan arrives just as the event starts, fresh off a flight from California where he performed the night before. "Thank you for making room for us and giving us a home," he tells the crowd. He thanked his two instructors, Stephan Papandrea and Akili Jamal Haynes who teach the students several times a week. "You guys have two wonderful teachers who love music." Trotman's inspiration for the program was born years ago when, as a Boston Public School teacher at Mozart Elementary in Roslindale, a VH1 "Save the Music" grant purchased band instruments for beginner students. He left the school in 2012. But the idea stayed with him. "I knew that once I could get access to instruments and instructors, I had a curriculum-a vision for a curriculum-and how it works," he said. Companies donate the instruments and components. The single biggest donor is Utah-based Cannonball Musical Instruments. Other donors include Needham Music, Theo Wanne Mouthpieces, and Legere Reeds. Elan hosts two fundraising golf tournaments-one in Barbados and a newer tournament in Greater Boston-to pay the program's instructors. Burke, who accompanies the kids on guitar during the recital says, what was impossible now couldn't be easier. "Elan coming here just took all the issues-all the barriers-away from being able to do a concert band," Burke said. Students showcase talents For students Ellis Maynard, Dakhari Jones, and Jaralaney Ruiz, the program provides an opportunity to showcase their budding talents. As they perform the Herbie Hancock classic "Cantaloupe Island" audience members, including Elan, bob their heads and tap their toes to the rhythm. Earlier in the month, the trio performed for hundreds of people at the club's main fundraising event, the New England Women's Leadership Awards. Jaralaney says, partly because it is so challenging, it feels "amazing" to play trombone. "I just feel that I am heard through music," Jaralaney said. Young musicians perform during at the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester. CBS Boston Trotman can relate. He says he has always expressed himself through music and the arts. As a child, music and science, he says, were not his strengths but creative pursuits were. His music teachers, even early on, saw that he had a gift. His first instrument was piano. He fell in love with the sound of the saxophone as a teenager and never looked back. His full scholarship to Berklee made it possible to pursue his passion and graduate from the school debt-free. He does not take that good fortune for granted and says, "I want to create those opportunities for other people." Hope and happiness Thirteen-year-old Dakhari, who proudly belts out the Miles Davis classic "So What" could not be more thankful. He says that, without the program, he probably would not be able to own a trumpet. Playing makes him feel confident and grounded. It's a stress-reliever. Dakhari eventually wants to be a music producer. Asked what music means to him, he smiles. "Hope," he says and adds, "Happiness." Happiness also sums up what people feel listening to Trotman play the saxophone. His talents as a sought-after smooth jazz artist take him all over the world to perform. It seems that he is living his dream as a professional musician, educator, and philanthropist. Nurturing young musicians is central to his mission. "I see a lot of potential in some of our students," he says proudly. "There's one or two of them in each group that have that 'x factor,' that special thing." In addition to the 17 kids in Dorchester, he connects with high school students in Boston who participate in the five-week Aspire Program at Berklee. In 2023, his foundation provided scholarships to the program for two students from Barbados. Skilled and supportive, Trotman takes special pride in seeing--and listening to--the young people who'll be making music we all listen to in the future. "That's the hope. Plant the seeds and let them blossom." Elan Trotman upcoming tour dates Boston, June 22 (City Cruises) Martha's Vineyard, July 19 Boston, July 26 (House of Inspiration Family Music & Arts Festival) Cambridge, July 27 (Cambridge Jazz Festival)
