Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman head out for a duo tour of Europe, starting with two shows in Spain this weekend, followed by stops in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Luxembourg, with a return to Spain for a final tour stop at the Voll-Damm Barcelona International Jazz Festival. The duo head to Australia in January and resume their US duo tour in the spring. Mehldau has a number of solo gigs ahead as well, a duo show with Joe Henry in London, and a trio show with Joe Martin and original Brad Mehldau Trio dummer Jorge Rossy in Spain.

The Black Keys' new album, El Camino, is due out in less than four weeks. If you've seen the video for "Lonely Boy," you've gotten a taste of what's to come. Now comes a first listen of another album track, "Run Right Back," which premiered on BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe show. Listen online at bbc.co.uk. Both songs are on the limited-edition vinyl 12-inch available at participating indie music retailers on Record Store Day's "Back to Black" Friday, November 25.

Randy Newman, whose new live performance CD+DVD Live in London was released this week, is set to make his Austin City Limits television debut when the show presents an episode dedicated exclusively to his work this Saturday, November 12, on PBS stations across the US. The set list features 17 songs from throughout Newman's career, including "Short People," "Political Science," and "You Can Leave Your Hat On." Read the complete set list and watch Newman's ACL performance of "You've Got a Friend in Me" here.

Gidon Kremer recently performed in Lincoln Center's White Light Festival in a program titled Homage to J.S. Bach. "Kremer's performance of the Bach Chaconne was the wonder of the night," writes The New Yorker's Alex Ross. "Herbert von Karajan once declared that Kremer was the greatest violinist alive; this still seems to be the case. His legendary reading of the Chaconne ... has grown ever deeper with age." Kremer joins the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra for a brief European tour starting next weekend.

While touring in support of his 2008 album Harps and Angels, Randy Newman performed a special concert at London’s intimate LSO St. Luke’s. He was accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ziegler, and the program was televised by the BBC. The concert is out now on CD+DVD as Randy Newman: Live in London. (The UK release follows next week.) Time Out London calls it "essential viewing for fans." Newman makes his Austin City Limits television debut on PBS this Saturday and will tour Europe in February and March.

The acclaimed 1999 album Jim Hall & Pat Metheny, reissued for the first time on Nonesuch Records, is out now. Pat Metheny's duo collaboration with Jim Hall, whom he has called the "father of modern guitar playing," features 17 tracks: original tunes from each guitarist, several improvisations captured in the studio, plus six tunes recorded live in concert, including Gershwin's "Summertime." "The excellence of the playing is the heart of the matter," says the Philadelphia Inquirer of the album. "It's a privilege to listen in." The Los Angeles Times calls it "extraordinary."

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are featured on the new documentary Give Me the Banjo, which premiered on PBS on Friday night and is now available online. Narrated by Steve Martin, Give Me the Banjo is a musical odyssey through 300 years of American history and culture by way of the banjo. Watch Carolina Chocolate Drops member Rhiannon Giddens perform a song from the film here. On a very different note, the band has launched a cookie recipe contest with proceeds from sales of the winning cookies donated to the Food Bank of North Carolina.

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang kicked off their three-week tour of Australia outside Perth on Saturday. "From the first long, soaring notes of the night she was in spectacular, pitch-perfect voice," says the West Australian. The Australian says: "To watch k.d. lang is to observe someone doing what they were surely born to do. Rarely do you see someone so at ease on stage, standing behind nothing but talent, wits and her sheer joy of performing." lang and the band give the first of six performances in Sydney on Wednesday. Fans in the area: read more for a chance to ask lang a question on TV next week.

Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, who passed away a year ago this week, will be celebrated in a free memorial concert at New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge tonight. The all-Górecki program, presented by LPR and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, features Górecki's Kleines Requiem für eine Polka, performed by Ensemble Signal, led by Brad Lubman, and Quasi una Fantasia: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 64, performed by the JACK Quartet.

The Black Keys, whose new album, El Camino, is due out December 6, are featured on the cover of the latest issue of American Songwriter. The band talks about the heady year-and-a-half that has followed the release of their album Brothers and about finding time between tour dates to write songs for the new album with producer Danger Mouse and put the record together in Auerbach's Nashville studio. "The hard work paid off," says American Songwriter. "El Camino cherry-picks the best things about previous Black Keys records ... and filters them through a smudged-up rock and roll lens."

Kronos Quartet will take part in a weeklong residency at Syracuse University that gets under way today. It will include workshops, a screening of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream with a post-screening Q&A, and a concert featuring Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 and the world premiere of Douglas Quin's Polar Suite. The piece incorporates soundscape recordings from the polar regions of the earth and outer space, processed samples, plus interactive electronics involving the K-Bow Bluetooth Sensor Bow designed by Keith McMillen.

Punch Brothers kick off their fall tour supporting legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon across the US South and Midwest. The nearly three-week tour opens at the UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans tonight and runs through November 23 at the EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall in Akron, Ohio. While on the road with Simon, Punch Brothers will play a solo show at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, Wisconsin, a week from Saturday.