Earlier this year, Elvis Costello was a guest performer at Allen Toussaint's Village Vanguard performances in celebration of his Nonesuch debut, The Bright Mississippi. Tonight, Toussaint returns the favor as he joins Nick Lowe, Richard Thompson, and Levon Helm for a once-in-a-lifetime jam session on Costello's Sundance Channel interview and performance show, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with ...

Two New York Times music critics have Nonesuch albums on their Top Ten lists: Rokia Traoré's Tchamantché and Oumou Sangare's Seya. The Washington Post has Alarm Will Sound's a/rhythmia in its Top Ten classical albums; the Denver Post has Richard Goode and John Adams. Two Boston Globe critics have Wilco (the album) on their lists, while others there add BlakRoc and Seya. MTV includes Wilco plus Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali. PopMatters and American Songwriter cite Wilco as well, while the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle lists Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi.

The Wall Street Journal sees Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi as an example of "cause for optimism" in music this year. The Sunday Times places Amadou & Mariam's Dimanche à Bamako among the best pop/rock music of the '00s. Time Out includes Oumou Sangare's Seya and Christina Courtin's debut among the year's best albums and NYC performances by Toumani Diabaté and Wilco among the year's best shows. In "a phenomenal decade for world music," says WNYC, Ali Farka Touré's Savane is among the decade's best, with Youssou N'Dour's Egypt at No. 1.

The Associated Press has announced its Top Ten list of the best albums of 2009, and on it are Wilco's Wilco (the album) at No. 3 and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi at No. 9. Included as Honorable Mention is Dan Auerbach's solo debut, Keep It Hid, and Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali is "also one of the year's best."

The Times (UK) weighed in on the decade's best music late last month, including Nonesuch albums in each of four categories. Now, the Sunday Times  offers its list of the best albums of 2009, and Nonesuch artists are one again represented across genres: Wilco for Wilco (the album) in rock/pop, Kronos Quartet's Floodplain in world, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi in jazz. SPIN includes Wilco (the album) and Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali on its own list of the year's best.

The nominations are in for the 52nd Grammy Awards and include five Nonesuch artists: Allen Toussaint for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, The Bright Mississippi; Wilco for Best Americana Album, Wilco (the album); Shawn Colvin for Best Contemporary Folk Album, Live; and, for Best Contemporary World Music Album, both Amadou & Mariam (Welcome to Mali) and Oumou Sangare (Seya). Steven Epstein was nominated as Producer of the Year, Classical, for work including John Adams's Doctor Atomic Symphony.

Three Nonesuch albums have made the list of the Best Albums of 2009 from David Dye, host of NPR's World Cafe: Wilco's Wilco (the album) ("a masterpiece that felt both ambitious and lived-in"), Dan Auerbach's Keep It Hid, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi. Dye also picks "You and I," Jeff Tweedy's duet with Leslie Feist off Wilco (the album), among his choices of the year's best songs.

Allen Toussaint and Amadou & Mariam are featured guests on the American broadcast of the famed UK performance show Later ... with Jools Holland. The episode, which previously aired in the UK, is being shown for the first time in the US tonight on the cable arts channel Ovation TV, at 9 PM. And tune in next month to catch The Carolina Chocolate Drops on the show November 5.

 

Summer may be the season of festivals, but this fall weekend has two standouts: Austin City Limits and San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a free outdoor event that has three Nonesuch artists—Emmylou Harris, Allen Toussaint, and Amadou & Mariam—set to perform in Golden Gate Park. Both Harris and Amadou & Mariam have concerts in LA earlier in the week; the latter plays live on KCRW this morning.

Allen Toussaint brought his inimitable style to both coasts of North America over the past few days, including sets in Boston, New York, and Vancouver. At Thursday's shows at Scullers in Boston, "the 71-year-old New Orleans icon used," says the Boston Herald, "the power of music to smother us Yankees in Big Easy love," including a "jaw-dropping" medley of tunes. "The audience ate it up."

Allen Toussaint recently rounded out some concert dates in Europe with a set at the Jazz Cafe in London this past Sunday. He and his recent Nonesuch debut album, The Bright Mississippi, are the focus of an encore broadcast of Words & Music from Studio-A, from New York NPR member station WFUV. "There is no separating Allen Toussaint from New Orleans or the Crescent City from his music," says WFUV's Claudia Marshall her introduction to the episode, "and on his latest album, Allen looks even further into his hometown history, paying tribute to the forefathers of jazz."

Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi was released to great critical acclaim, followed by an equally lauded residency at New York's Village Vanguard, and a string of performances in Japan. The Wall Street Journal writes that, with the album, Toussaint keeps alive "the tradition of distinctive New Orleans pianists, within which he clearly belongs; and of jazz, which was never far from the surface of his music ...  He simply possesses each tune fully, courtesy of rolling chords, well-placed tremolos, notable restraint and the defining force of his musical presence." Blurt talks to Toussaint about the project and trusting producer Joe Henry's choice of what he calls "these wonderful songs."