For the first time since his 1980 release 80/81, Pat Metheny has recorded with a band that features tenor saxophone. Unity Band, due out June 12, introduces a new Metheny ensemble with Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums, and the up-and-coming Ben Williams on bass. The album features nine new Metheny compositions. The Pat Metheny Unity Band will tour the US this summer and fall, with stops in 39 cities. Pre-orders of Unity Band are available now in the Nonesuch Store with a signed print and an instant download of the opening track, “New Year.”

To mark the May 15 release of his Nonesuch label debut, pianist Jeremy Denk will make his first appearance at (Le) Poisson Rouge, taking over the downtown NYC venue for a one-night-only Ligeti/Beethoven celebration on Monday, May 21. The concert program comprises Book 1 of Ligeti’s Piano Études and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111. (The new album adds selections from Ligeti’s Piano Études, Book 2). Other spring tour highlights include concerts in DC, Chicago, and San Francisco.

The 2012 New Orleans Jazz Fest got under way last weekend. Carolina Chocolate Drops gave "a joyous, emotionally committed show," reports the Times-Picayune, which calls Cheikh Lô's set "as colorful and unique as his signature patchwork tunic," and notes that Dr. John sounded "newly invigorated" as on his new album, Locked Down. He also joined Bruce Springsteen on stage to help close the first weekend in style. This coming weekend sees Dr. John's return and a set from another favorite son of New Orleans, Allen Toussaint.

This year's Newport Folk Festival in July includes sets from Punch Brothers and Sara Watkins. A new short documentary from sö pa productions and Ryan Mastro revisits last year's festival and looks into what makes Newport so special. The video features interviews and performances from artists at last year's festival, including Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Low Anthem, Chris Thile, Michael Daves, Wanda Jackson, and Emmylou Harris. "In the story of my life, folk music brought me to music," says Harris. Newport "was where these people that I just kind of worshiped gathered." Watch the documentary here.

Though Here Lies Love, the new David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical exploring the life of Imelda Marcos, opens at the Public Theater in New York City next year, theatergoers can catch an early look at the production next month at MASS MoCA, June 21–24, in association with the Public Theater and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Tickets for MASS MocA are available now. Nonesuch released the song cycle recording of Here Lies Love in 2010, featuring Florence + the Machine, Natalie Merchant, Santigold, St. Vincent, and others.

Sara Watkins' new album, Sun Midnight Sun, is due out next week, May 8. The album, which was produced by Blake Mills and features special guest appearances by Fiona Apple, Jackson Browne, Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Benmont Tench, and Sean Watkins, is streaming in full all this week as an NPR First Listen. "Sara Watkins paints on a canvas called roots music, only to delve into any number of adjacent genres," says NPR. "She's a subtle star, but a star nonetheless." Watkins, currently touring the US, will join Browne as his very special guest on his tour this summer.

Director Peter Sellars, a frequent collaborator of composer John Adams's, was awarded an Opera News Award in a ceremony at the Plaza Hotel in New York City last night. Sellars has directed the world premiere performances of all of Adams's operas and unforgettable performances by Dawn Upshaw, Rokia Traoré, and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. "Peter Sellars has created a body of work that will transcend epoch and place, style and fad," says Opera News. "It will be esteemed as timeless, because it will still find a way to speak directly to audiences even after our time has run out."

Billy Bragg has been featured across the BBC airwaves to celebrate the release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, on which Bragg and Wilco set Woody Guthrie's words to music. The Sunday Times and Details both dub it a "must-have." BBC Music says that "nobody has picked up on Woody as effectively—or unexpectedly—as this transatlantic get-together." The Mermaid Avenue project "was always an interesting idea," says a four-star Q review. "That it produced such a wealth of quality material is remarkable." Pitchfork too says: "What's remarkable is the wealth of material available to these artists and the number of gems these sessions produced." Drowned in Sound rates this "wonderful reissue" a nine out of ten. "Even for those who already have both of the previous volumes," says DiS, "Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions is a fascinating look at one of America’s greatest writers."

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.

Punch Brothers make their headlining debut at NYC's Town Hall in a sold-out show tonight. "They are an all-star bluegrass band, five virtuosos led by Chris Thile, the mercurial mandolin player, but their songs smash the three-chord harmonies and blazing march rhythm of bluegrass," says the New York Times. "It is restless music, by musicians so preternaturally talented they get bored easily with fiddle tunes." The New York Daily News says they "have not only turned a rural sound urban, they’ve achieved that most rare of musical feats—to create something genuinely new." Listen to their complete performance on WNYC's Soundcheck here and watch them perform three songs from the show.

Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, has announced its 2012–13 season, which will feature Kronos Quartet as the season's Artists in Residence; Philip Glass's groundbreaking work with Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach; Fatoumata Diawara's debut; a Sérgio & Odair Assad concert with Paquito D'Rivera; and the return of the Mark Morris Dance Company with the holiday favorite Hard Nut. Subscription sales begin on Friday.

Fatoumata Diawara has won the 2012 Songlines Music Award for Newcomer of the Year for her debut album, Fatou. The album was released in the UK to great critical acclaim on World Circuit. She was introduced to North American audiences with the release of her debut EP, Kanou, on World Circuit/Nonesuch Records. "The youthful Malian songbird draws on the Wassoulou tradition of southern Mali," says Songlines. "There's a unique but subtle intensity to her beguiling songs." Chris Thile, with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer, has won the award for Cross-Cultural Collaboration on their album The Goat Rodeo Sessions.