The 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, better known as Jazz Fest, gets under way today and runs through this weekend and the next at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans. Among the performers set to take the various stage at the festival this year are four artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: two New Orleans legends and hometown heroes, Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, plus two artists whose unique musical styles will make them feel right at home at Jazz Fest, Carolina Chocolate Drops and Cheikh Lô.

Carolina Chocolate Drops joined The Chieftains for a performance on Later ... with Jools Holland on BBC Two last night, marking the legendary Irish band's 50th anniversary and the UK release of its new album, Voice of Ages, on which Carolina Chocolate Drops perform "Pretty Little Girl" with The Chieftains. The two bands performed the song together live on the Later. Watch it here. Then tune in to Later on Friday for a song from the Chocolate Drops' new album, Leaving Eden. The band resumes its US tour in New Orleans this weekend.

Carolina Chocolate Drops join The Chieftains as the legendary Irish band marks its 50th anniversary and the UK release of its new album, Voice of Ages, on which Carolina Chocolate Drops perform. The bands play together on Later ... with Jools Holland tonight on BBC Two; the Chocolate Drops will also perform a tune of their own on Friday's show. Also on this week: Jack White, Norah Jones, Alabama Shakes, and Grimes. The Guardian calls "Pretty Little Girl," the Carolina Chocolate Drops' tune on Voice of Ages,"a romping collaboration."

The schedule for the 2012 season of Central Park SummerStage free concerts has been announced, and among the performers taking to the stage in the heart of New York City's Central Park this summer are Amadou & Mariam, on August 4, and Carolina Chocolate Drops, on August 11. Theophilus London, a contributor on Amadou & Mariam's recently released new album, Folila, joins the Malian duo for their SummerStage concert; Buckwheat Zydeco and Abigail Washburn join Carolina Chocolate Drops for theirs.

Happy Record Store Day! Nonesuch Records has made a series of special releases available today in honor of the fifth annual Record Store Day, a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA and hundreds of similar stores internationally. Among the artists releasing albums and singles today are The Black Keys, Dr. John, Billy Bragg & Wilco, Sara Watkins, and Carolina Chocolate Drops. A limited quantity of each Record Store Day title is also available on the Nonesuch Store now.

Carolina Chocolate Drops brought their US tour to California over the weekend for three stops with special guest David Wax Museum: at UCLA's Royce Hall on Friday, Slim’s in San Francisco on Saturday, and the Mystic Theater in Petaluma on Sunday. "These are not only obsessive music-historians but also expert players whose fret-board fingers traveled miles over the course of the night," reports the Los Angeles Times. "The Carolina Chocolate Drops didn’t just manifest this music but proved how much energy remains within these songs." The band heads next to New Mexico and Arizona.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, whose new album, Leaving Eden, was release on vinyl yesterday, are featured in a new piece on PBS Newshour's Art Beat that examines the roots of their music. Watch the piece here along with a recent performance at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Carolina Chocolate Drops "push an appreciation of home grown songs into brand new territory," explains The Morton Report. "It's not unlike jazz musicians who take popular music into the stratosphere. Carolina Chocolate Drops have essentially erased the rulebook and allowed freedom to become their watchword."

Carolina Chocolate Drops' new album, Leaving Eden, is out now on vinyl. The LP, pressed on 140-gram, audiophile-quality vinyl, also includes a CD of the complete album. The repertoire on Leaving Eden showcases "the inclusive, always-evolving musical range of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who since 2005 have emerged as an American roots-music phenomenon," writes the Wall Street Journal. "Exciting audiences as instrumentalists, singers, even as dancers, while digging further into the broad legacy of Southern music, particularly African-American Southern music, the group ... have defied genre classification by charging, fully prepared, into many fields."

The film The Hunger Games is due out this week and with it a companion album, The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond, out today. The album, produced by T Bone Burnett, features songs inspired by the film by artists like Arcade Fire, Neko Case, Taylor Swift, The Decemberists, and three Nonesuch artists: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, and The Low Anthem. "Burnett has managed to create a deftly meditative soundtrack to the movie adaption of the best-selling book," says The Huffington Post, "bringing together big names and indie darlings of all stripes."

Carolina Chocolate Drops continued their US tour over weekend with two sold-out shows and could be heard far and wide all over the public-radio airwaves, on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday and PRI's Here and Now discussing their new album, Leaving Eden, and on PRI's Studio 360. "The Carolina Chocolate Drops put new life into old-timey music with their 2010 release Genuine Negro Jig, put a contemporary spin on southern string tunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries," says Weekend Edition's Scott Simon. "And that collection went on to win a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album. Now, the Chocolate Drops have returned with their banjos, bare bones and fiddles."

Nonesuch Records will make a series of special releases available on Saturday, April 21, in honor of the fifth annual Record Store Day, a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA and hundreds of similar stores internationally. Included are a deluxe vinyl edition of The Black Keys' El Camino; Dr. John's new album, Locked Down, on vinyl; a 3CD/DVD set of Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions; and limited-edition 7" vinyl singles of Sara Watkins covering The Everly Brothers and Carolina Chocolate Drops taking on Run-DMC.

Carolina Chocolate Drops are on tour in North America, performing music from their new album, Leaving Eden, in New England this week. During a recent tour stop in NYC, the band performed three songs off the album live on WNYC's Soundcheck and spoke with host John Schaefer about the new album. Listen to the show and watch the performance of "Boodle-De-Bum-Bum" here. Glide gives the album four stars: "On Leaving Eden, Carolina Chocolate Drops move music forward, paying homage to the past while remaining rooted in the present. The result is a thoroughly enjoyable work that challenges our definition of string band music."