The Black Keys have secured the No. 1 Current Rock Album and No. 1 Current Alternative Album in US sales following the release of their new album, Ohio Players, last week. The album also is the highest debut of the week on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums Chart and Top Alternative Albums Chart, at No. 5 on both charts, and has reached No. 4 on Overall Current Album sales and No. 26 on the Billboard 200. Internationally, Ohio Players is the band’s sixth consecutive top 20 album in the UK, as well as top 20 in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland, among others. 

Ambrose Akinmusire's album Owl Song, Cécile McLorin Salvant's Ghost Song and Mélusine, and Yussef Dayes' Black Classical Music are all topics of conversation on the latest New York Times Popcast episode, "An Elastic and Impressive Moment in Jazz," hosted by Times music critic Jon Caramanica, with guests and Times music writers Marcus J. Moore and Giovanni Russonello. You can hear their conversation about "impressive recent releases" and this moment in jazz here.

Ambrose Akinmusire's Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, has received critical acclaim since its release in December, including being named among the year's best by the New York Times, Jazzwise, and the Irish Times, which says: "Akinmusire is a generational talent ... From the first notes of the opening title track you know you are in a place of great beauty." DownBeat says: "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023 ... This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time." The Wall Street Journal says: "It sounds like a tiny, joyous celebration ... Gorgeous details abound." The Financial Times calls him "the standout trumpeter of his generation" and says: "The one-off ensemble becomes a heavenly match." Record Collector says: "Akinmusire opens a fresh chapter in his career with the quietly magnificent Owl Song, arguably his most accomplished recording yet."

"The Blue Hour, a cycle of songs by Caroline Shaw, Angelica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Rachel Grimes and Shara Nova, who sings and narrates its 40 sections, is unforgettable," writes NPR Classical’s Tom Huizenga in naming the album to his list of the year’s ten best. The album has also made NPR Music's list of The 50 Best Albums of 2022 and year's best lists from the Boston Globe, New Sounds, Sequenza 21, and I Care If You Listen, which calls it "stunning."

Lianne La Havas's new, self-titled album has made the Best Albums of 2020 lists of the New York Times and NPR Music. Its songs are "brimming with poised musicality," writes the Times's Jon Pareles. "Graceful melodies, supple guitar syncopations, sophisticated harmonies and a voice that can sparkle with anticipation or cry out in pain capture all the hope and heartache of her narrative." NPR's Suraya Mohamed says: "The songs on this album, La Havas' third and perhaps best, reveal how her sophisticated artistry is made of not just brilliantly crafted lyrics, but a rich musicality, full with gorgeous harmonic voicings, catchy rhythms and soulful melodies."

Sarah Kirkland Snider "asserts her own musical personality as a composer who knows instinctively how to write for the human voice," says Tom Huizenga in his review of her Mass for the Endangered on NPR's All Things Considered, which you can hear here. "Both the choir [Gallicantus] and the 12-member orchestra, conducted by Gabriel Crouch, respond to Snider's music with richly tailored performances ... Through her smart and resplendent exploration of age-old musical formulas, Snider's eco-inspired Mass for the Endangered is a blast from the past that resonates profoundly in the present."

"What happens when a jazz virtuoso sets his sights on a cinematic sound?" ask All Things Considered host Audie Cornish. "Pat Metheny has done just that on his new album, evoking the plush and soaring landscapes of film scores. Reviewer Tom Moon says it's among the most ambitious projects of Metheny's long career." "He's pushing forward, seeking breathtaking and profoundly new vistas," says Moon. "It's got the epic journeys of the Pat Metheny Group and the fiery improvisational exchanges of his more recent jazz sessions. It's also a stretch beyond those horizons into textures and atmospheres not often heard in jazz." Hear the All Things Considered piece here.

Jeff Parker's new album, Suite for Max Brown, is "a demonstration of how jazz mixes it up with other musics these days," says NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross music critic Kevin Whitehead. "Parker invokes his days as a crate-diving club DJ, a job where you can juxtapose beats from all over as long as they serve or creatively stem the flow." You can hear the review here.
 

NPR Music has published its year in review of the best music to have been released in 2019, and among the artists featured across its lists are Caroline Shaw, Attacca Quartet, Vagabon, Yola, The Black Keys, Brad Mehldau, Gaby Moreno, Van Dyke Parks, and Daniel Wohl.

Rolling Stone has published its list of The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s, including two Nonesuch releases: The Black Keys' Brothers at No. 14, "one of their most emotive and cathartic records ... set to beautifully smudgy R&B, soul, and low-fi funk," and Randy Newman's Dark Matter at No. 36, "a gem, perhaps Newman’s most mordant assessment yet of his fellow man."

The cast album for the critically acclaimed Broadway production of David Byrne’s American Utopia is now available digitally; the two-CD version will be released on November 22 and is available to pre-order; a vinyl edition is due this winter. The show includes songs from his 2018 album, American Utopia, along with music from Talking Heads and Byrne’s solo career. "Dazzling, rapturous and jubilant," exclaims the New York Times of the show. "Astonishing," raves Hollywood Reporter. "A knockout celebration of music, dance and song. Pure bliss." Byrne performs on Jimmy Kimmel Live! from Brooklyn tonight and on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 19.

Yola was named among "the best things we saw" at Farm Aid 2019 by both Rolling Stone, noting "her powerhouse vocals," and Billboard, which reports of the festival's "breakthrough artist": "An imposing presence with a massive, gospel-fired voice, Yola held the midday crowd riveted with songs from her debut album Walk Through Fire." One such festival performance, of the song "It Ain't Easier," can be seen here. It has just been announced that she will perform at Holiday Cheer for FUV at the Beacon Theatre in NYC in December and at Chris Stapleton's benefit concert in Kentucky next April. Fittingly, Yola has been nominated as Live Act of the Year in the UK's Independent Festival Awards.