Happy International Jazz Day! Looking for a soundtrack to celebrate? Check out the Nonesuch: Jazz playlist on Spotify and Apple Music here, featuring new and classic songs from Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, Tigran Hamasyan, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Allen Toussaint, James Farm, Rokia Traoré, Joni Mitchell, and others. And to hear new tracks as they’re added with music from new and upcoming releases, subscribe to the playlist today.

Congratulations to Brad Mehldau, James Farm, and Tigran Hamasyan, who are all winners of ECHO Jazz 2016 Awards. James Farm was named International Ensemble of the Year for City Folk; Tigran Hamasyan was named International Instrumentalist of the Year, Piano, for Mockroot; and Brad Mehldau will be given a Sonderpreis ("special prize") for his box set 10 Years Solo Live. The ECHO Jazz 2016 Awards ceremony will take place in Hamburg on May 26 and will be televised by NDR.

The ECHO Jazz 2016 Award nominations have been announced, including three for Joshua Redman projects: International Saxophone Instrumentalist of the Year for his work with James Farm on their latest album, City Folk and International Ensemble of the Year to both James Farm and The Bad Plus Joshua Redman and their self-titled debut album. Tigran Hamasyan has been nominated for International Piano Instrumentalist of the Year for his Nonesuch debut, Mockroot. The ECHO Jazz Awards ceremony will take place in Hamburg on May 26.

NPR Music has announced its Favorite Songs of 2014, including songs from four Nonesuch releases: The Black Keys' "Weight of Love," from their new album, Turn Blue; Robert Plant's "Little Maggie," from his Nonesuch debut album, lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar; Conor Oberst's "Hundreds of Ways," from his Nonesuch debut, Upside Down Mountain; and James Farm's "Two Steps," from their sophomore album, City Folk.

James Farm’s sophomore album, City Folk, is out now, a new collection of ten original tunes written by all four members of the collaborative band: Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland. It earns five stars from the Financial Times ("ten beautifully crafted miniatures that rock with rhythm") and four stars from the Guardian, which notes the "enthralling improvisations [on] this inviting set," and the Evening Standard, which describes the band as "four crack musicians and improvisers whose fierce grooves and synergy make for spine-tingling listening." The Buffalo News calls City Folk "the second first-rate disc by one of the more impressive jazz quartets to come together in the past few years."

Nonesuch Records releases James Farm’s sophomore album, City Folk, on October 27, 2014. The album features a new collection of ten original tunes written by all four members of the collaborative band: saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland. Redman says, “The first record was more of a proposition, almost a question. ‘What is James Farm?’ The second record is, in a certain sense, a partial answer.” The album is available for pre-order on iTunes and in the Nonesuch Store with an instant download of the opening song “Two Steps” from the record, written by Penman, which you can hear here.

James Farm—the collaborative band featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland—launch a 13-city tour of Europe at the JazzOnze+ Festival in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday, followed by tour stops throughout Germany, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Austria, and Poland in the coming weeks. Redman kicks off the season's Wigmore Hall Jazz Series, which he curated, joining the Axis Saxophone Quartet in London tonight.

The North Sea Jazz Festival takes place this weekend in Rotterdam, Netherlands, featuring a diverse array of artists, including several familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Joshua Redman, James Farm, Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau Trio, Punch Brothers, Lianne La Havas, Fatoumata Diawara, and Oumou Sangare. Redman, in fact, is this year's North Sea Jazz Artist in Residence and as such performs on each festival day with varied musical projects.

James Farm—Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland—launch a tour of the Bay Area at the Napa Valley Opera House tonight, followed by sets at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz and a weekend of shows at Yoshi's Oakland. The group heads next to Japan for four nights at the Blue Note Tokyo. "We complement each other very well and have a type of intuitiveness with the way we play with each other," Harland tells the San Francisco Chronicle. "That's something that takes years to develop, so it's amazing that we kind of have that already, even though we don't tour that often."

James Farm—a collaborative band featuring Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland—released its self-titled debut album on Nonesuch almost exactly one year ago, on April 26, 2011. Last September, the band performed in the Opening Night concert of the BeanTown Jazz Festival at Boston's Berklee Performance Center. Now, on this week's episode of NPR's JazzSet, host Dee Dee Bridgewater broadcasts that performance, recorded by NPR member station WGBH in Boston.

James Farm, the self-titled debut album from the collaborative band featuring Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland, has made NPR Music's list of the ten Best Jazz Albums of 2011. "All contribute songs to the group's repertoire, and in doing so, they've clearly soaked up grooves and chord progressions from today's pop music without ever forcing the issue," says NPR's Patrick Jarenwattananon. "Then they worked out these textures and tunes on the road for a while before pressing record. The harvest feels unlike an all-star collective, and more like a homegrown band."

James Farm—the collaborative band featuring Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland—released its self-titled debut album earlier this year on Nonesuch, followed by several live performances that included a four-night residency at New York's Jazz Standard. As James Farm hits the road again, launching the next leg of its tour this Friday at the Monterey Jazz Festival, where Redman is artist-in-residence, the band has unveiled three videos from the Jazz Standard residency. Watch them here.