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The tone of his voice is high, a keening sound.

When she sang on Coleman’s 1972 LP “Science Fiction” — keening improvisation cutting through a ferocious band — the sax legend gave her a warning about America.

After a few moments of keening in the dark, Howze reaches his denouement in song: “I’m trying to be,” he sings.

Mr. Sonnier’s virtuoso accordion work and his vocals, by turns keening and supple, infused the country airwaves in the late 1980s with Cajun, rock, swamp-pop and jazz sensibilities.

The whale groaned, that keening sound that Razi couldn’t quite hear.