Toumani Diabaté has just announced dates for a tour across the US, with music from his latest release, The Mandé Variations. Paste magazine says that with the new record, "Mali’s reigning musical magician uncorks another genie from his bottle ... Diabaté’s magic hands coax an amazing array of voices from his instrument." The Boston Globe calls Diabaté "the uncontested master of the 21-string lute called kora" who "presents his virtuosity in a whole different light" on the new record and tour.

Emmylou Harris's European tour began this past Tuesday with a concert at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall. The Independent finds her voice in "mint condition," admiring "her stately mastery of her art," and noting that Emmylou's obvious pride in her latest album, All I Intended to Be, "is justified, because many of the show's best moments stem from this record." The Herald calls it "a splendid album" and reports that Emmylou is "sounding, and looking, as good as she has ever done."

Sam Phillips's tour with the music of her latest release, Don't Do Anything, continues at the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern tonight in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland Free Times's Michael David Toth describes Sam's work as "a spectacular body of sophisticated, shadowy pop albums," at once "progressively modern" and reflective of inspirations from the Beatles to Tin Pan Alley. Her 2004 album, A Boot and a Shoe, "stands as one of this decade's most criminally overlooked recorded masterpieces," he asserts. "With any luck, her follow-up, Don't Do Anything, will get the acclaim it deserves."

Emmylou Harris began her monthlong European tour last night at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall and brings the show to Newcastle's City Hall tonight. "The honeyed voice; the high cheekbones; the flowing silver hair: it can only be Emmylou Harris," says Metro UK. "Her recently released 26th album, All I Intended to Be, illustrates just how far Harris has come since her early days working as a waitress to support her New York coffee-house gigs."

Nicholas Payton makes his way down to Brazil this week for the Tudo É Jazz Festival in Ouro Preto, where he'll perform on Saturday night. The event follows last week's five-night residency at New York's Jazz Standard with bassist Christian McBride and guitarist Mark Whitfield. The New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen says the trio members "have a number of things in common: complete rhythmic assurance, for one, and an intrepid approach within the modern jazz mainstream."

The New Yorker has just announced the schedule for the upcoming ninth run of its New Yorker Festival, and among this year's participants is Dawn Upshaw, who will speak with the magazine's classical music critic, Alex Ross, on October 4. The event is one of several high-profile engagements for Dawn this fall, including an all-Bernstein program with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony next week in San Francisco and the following week in New York for Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala.

"It takes a songwriter such as Sam Phillips to depart from the routine expectations set by the last 50-plus years of pop music," says the Chicago Tribune, and at the start of her fall tour this past weekend at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, "she detoured into German cabaret, French chansons and a waltz, as well as lightly tracing elements of American gospel and blues." As the area Sun-Times paper, Southtown Star, reports, she delivered "a masterful performance that was enchanting from beginning to end" for a "superb show."

John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony receives its Scandinavian premiere in Finland ... Laurie Anderson's Homeland plays Sao Paolo, Brazil ... The Black Keys make two stops in Wisconsin ... Bill Frisell continues his two-week Village Vanguard run with Paul Motian, Joe Lovano ... Youssou N'Dour celebrates Toronto Film Fest screening with free concert ... Nicholas Payton joins Christian McBride, Mark Whitfield at NYC's Jazz Standard ... Sam Phillips begins two-week tour with two nights at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music ... Punch Brothers tour the Midwest ... Steve Reich's music featured in Detroit's music marathon Strange New Music II and Klangspuren 08 festival in Schwaz, Austria ... Wilco members take time for solo projects ... and more ...

Nicholas Payton joins bassist Christian McBride and guitarist Mark Whitfield at New York's Jazz Standard for 12 sets over five nights, beginning tonight. JamBase compares the trumpeter to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, but asserts that, on his Nonesuch debut, Into the Blue, "ultimately Payton has a style and mood all his own." Jazz.com sees the album as evidence of "an ample comfort zone with a trumpet continuum spanning Armstrong to Don Cherry, at the service of a conceptual sensibility that embraces the Hot Five and Weather Report in equal measure."

Sam Phillips begins her two-week tour of the US, with songs from her new album, Don't Do Anything, at the end of this week, beginning with two nights in Chicago. To catch a glimpse of Sam on stage, go to nonesuch.com/media for a video of her performing The Magnetic Fields tune "Underwear" at L.A.'s new Largo. The album is now available in the UK, with the Sunday Times, Scottish Daily Express, and Q magazine each giving it four stars, and The Sun giving it four-and-a-half stars, calling Sam "a talent who has stayed true to herself" and her tunes "first class."

Glenn Kotche joins Kronos Quartet at the Ravinia Festival's Martin Theatre in Highland Park Wednesday night for the Chicago premiere of Anomaly, a piece he wrote for the Quartet. Also included on the program from Kronos are a number of Chicago premieres, including that of John Adams's Fellow Traveler. The Chicago Sun-Times recommends the event, calling the Kotche-Kronos pairing "a collaboration waiting to happen," given the group's ever-adventurous search for new works outside the typical string-quartet mold and the drummer's own diverse musical interests.

Bill Frisell joins drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Joe Lovano for a rare two-week stint at New York's Village Vanguard beginning tonight. New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen describes them as "a blue-chip trio that’s shadowy, slippery and as open-ended as a koan," and says, "There’s no better place to see them than at the Village Vanguard." You can listen to Wednesday night's set as it unfolds live, on NPR station WBGO, Jazz88 FM, for the new series Live at the Village Vanguard.