Nonesuch Records is pleased to announce that singer/songwriter/guitarist Dan Auerbach, best known as half of The Black Keys, will release his solo debut, Keep It Hid, on February 10, 2009. Dan will begin a national tour with performances in New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC, with opening acts Those Darlins and Hacienda, the latter also lending support as Auerbach’s backing band.

Rokia Traoré's latest Nonesuch album, Tchamantché is due to hit stores in the US come January. It was released earlier this year in the UK to rave reviews. The Independent calls it her best yet and recommends her set this Wednesday at London's Jazz Café as a "show you shouldn't miss." The album earned a perfect five stars from The Guardian, which called it "an intriguing, sophisticated and often intimate set that is quite unlike any of the other great music Mali has produced." The Times gives the album four stars, exclaiming that with it, "the breadth of her artistic vision has emerged fully formed in her music." The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, and The Evening Standard all give Tchamantché four stars as well, and The Daily Telegraph named it Pop CD of the week upon its release.

Don Byron celebrates his 50th at New York's Jazz Standard with music from his Nonesuch catalog ... Kronos plays Adams's Fellow Traveler ... The Black Keys tour the UK with Liam Finn ... Shawn Colvin plays NY state ... Toumani Diabaté concludes his US fall tour ... Bill Frisell rounds out his European Trio tour of film music at the Barbican ... Emmylou Harris joins Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion ... k.d. lang closes out the latest leg of her Watershed tour ... Brad plays the Greek Theatre's final concert of the season ... the Nicholas Payton Quintet plays the high seas ... Joshua Redman plays Portugal ... Allen Toussaint does two dates in Virginia ... Dawn Upshaw brings Kurtág's Kafka Fragments to Lincoln Center ... and more ...

Toumani Diabaté's US fall tour comes to a close tomorrow night at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music after a show tonight at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. The Seattle Times reports from his "showstopper" performance at the Earshot Jazz Festival last weekend that "Diabaté did not disappoint" with "a sometimes diabolically impossible round of riffs and variations." The Minneapolis City Pages calls Toumani's latest release, The Mandé Variations, a "tour de force" and "a shimmering mix of traditional and startling experimental pieces played with the exquisite touch and resolute soulfulness that are his trademarks." Time Out Chicago calls it "exquisite" as well, and the Chicago Tribune says the new album from this "legend from Mali ... affirms that he's only gotten better and bolder" over the years.

Clarinetist/composer Don Byron celebrates his 50th birthday with a series of four different programs at New York's Jazz Standard, beginning tonight and running through Sunday. Opening the festivities this evening is Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz, in which Byron revisits his groundbreaking 1993 klezmer-rooted Nonesuch album of the same name. Next is music from Byron's classic 1996 release Bug Music, featuring works by Duke Ellington and others. On Saturday, the Don Byron Quartet takes the stage, and closing out the celebration on Sunday, Byron returns to his Nonesuch catalog and his Latin-focused 1995 recording, Music for Six Musicians.

Bill Frisell has been traveling across Europe with Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen playing film music to the films of Buster Keaton, Bill Morrison, and Jim Woodring. The trio will take the show to the Barbican in London this Saturday night as part of the London Jazz Festival. In a feature profile, The Times (UK) calls the mild-mannered guitarist "a one-off ... the Clark Kent of jazz guitar—beneath his mild exterior lurks a supernatural talent," and his latest release, History, Mystery, "delightful."

Punch Brothers kicked off a string of November tour dates this past weekend. These latest dates marked the debut of Punch Brothers' new bassist, Paul Kowert, who, fittingly, studied with Chris Thile's recent duo partner, Edgar Meyer. The Bluegrass Blog says Kowert is "more than up to the task. Not only has he memorized the demanding Punch Brothers repertoire, but he is a brilliant soloist in his own right." The band, the review concludes is "the most technically gifted string ensemble yet assembled, and the discipline they exhibit individually and as a unit is a wonder to behold."

Laurie Anderson's European tour of Homeland comes to a close this week in Italy this Wednesday, after two shows in Tel Aviv, Israel, last week with special guest Lou Reed. The Jerusalem Post calls Laurie's pieces "all-encompassing experiences" and Homeland in particular a "thought-provoking performance." The addition of Reed to the lineup "charmingly combined her artistic style with his rock," for "an exceptional show that ranged from the finest in performance art to a classic rock experience."

David Byrne brings his show—"as enigmatic and adventurous as his three decades-long career" (Boston Globe)—to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and DC ... Adams's Doctor Atomic explodes onto movie screens around the world ... Laurie Anderson's Homeland tours Italy ... Shawn Colvin tours the Northeast and talks to the Washington Post ... Toumani Diabaté travels the West Coast ... Bill Frisell Trio's film music plays Eastern Europe ... Glass-scored ballets leap from Toronto to Miami to Sweden ... Kronos does Denver with Alternative Radio ... k.d. lang plays the Mile High City too ... Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman trios meet up in Spain ... Punch Brothers play the Peace Center Bluegrass Festival ... Pacific Northwest Ballet performs to Reich ... Laura Veirs plays Portland's Siren Festival ... and more ...

Following its Met premiere earlier this month, John Adams's 2005 opera Doctor Atomic was described as the composer's "most complex and masterly music" by the New York Times and "hauntingly powerful, deeply humane and eloquent" by the Boston Globe. This Saturday's matinee will be broadcast live in movie theaters around the world through The Met: Live in HD, which reaches close to 800 screens. Met General Manager Peter Gelb tells the Boston Herald: "I was determined to bring [Adams] to the company. Taking advantage of that with new media just adds to the experience."

Following her performance in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall this past Sunday, Dawn Upshaw is preparing for two nights at Lincoln Center's Gerald Lynch Theater, in a production of Kurtág's Kafka Fragments. She first brought the piece to Zankel Hall in 2005, under the direction of Peter Sellars and with violinist Geoff Nuttall, who also return for the current iteration. The New York Times talks to the soprano about the piece and her other current projects; she says: "I feel I’m doing the world—or my audience—the most good by bringing things to them that I either feel have an important message or bring perspective or beauty to their lives, and do it as honestly as I can."

The current run of k.d. lang's Watershed tour brought her to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area last night for a performance at Bass Performance Hall that the Star-Telegram called a "superb 90-minute set ... A wondrous, multilayered instrument seemingly assembled from smoke, cinders and a husky yearning, the voice ranged over a multitude of moods." Next up is a show at the Paramount Theatre in Austin tonight.