I love the story of how RAY CHARLES—the real one—asked JAMIE FOXX to jam with him the first time they met, shortly after Foxx had been cast to play him in the movie RAY. The master led the student, who was somewhat of an accomplished pianist himself, through some blues standards, and the student had no problem keeping up. He was feeling good. Then Charles upped the ante. He started playing THELONIOUS MONK. Foxx, who wasn't *that* accomplished, was flummoxed. Completely lost. Charles showed him no mercy. He taunted, yelled, let Foxx flail. Until eventually Foxx had an emotional breakthrough. "Ray's not just testing him as a piano player, he's testing him as a man," is how director TAYLOR HACKFORD put it in this telling. The lesson in this other telling is that Foxx gets "that Ray’s whole life is sound. When his sound is out of whack, his life is out of whack.” Pick your lesson. There are plenty of other ways to read the moment. I like to think that it's partly the musician telling the actor, "This is my craft, this is my soul. You can play me, but don't even begin to think you can be me." Or maybe the actor's saying, "Reach for this. I've been reaching my whole life. And you can never, ever quite grab it." The early reviews of BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, which open next week, are high on RAMI MALEK as FREDDIE MERCURY, not so high on the movie itself. Which isn't so uncommon in the genre. It's hard to get a biopic right, to stay true to the heart of a story that's already deeply meaningful to a lot of the people paying to see it, while also staying true to Hollywood conventions. (I'm guessing. Movie criticism is not my expertise.) But there's something about playing a musician that has inspired scores of actors to deliver one of the performances of their lives. Music is a mysterious art, and I imagine there's an irresistible attraction to peering behind the wild eyes of the artists who make it happen. Maybe that's what drives those great performances. The mystery. My favorite film in the genre might be MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM's 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, which is more about a music businessman than about musicians, and which takes a fanciful, crooked path to discovering his truths. It lets you know right away that this isn't someone's life, per se; this is merely a film. And then, having freed itself and you from the burden of reality, it tells its epic story. MusicSET: "I Read the Lines: Actors Who Have Rocked You"... SPOTIFY opens its playlist pitching tool to all artists, FACEBOOK expands its music features, DASH RADIO has 10 million monthly listeners and raises almost as much money, and PANDORA, having played the field for a little while, comes home to SIRIUSXM... CAETANO VELOSO warns of "dark times" in a NEW YORK TIMES op-ed on Brazil's presidential election... KODAK BLACK's "ZEZE" is the zee-est song of all time, BILLBOARD reports in what might be my favorite chart news story ever... CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA fires concertmaster and principal trombonist after investigation of sexual misconduct... I've heard the song. It's objectively terrible...SONIC YOUTH gear for sale.