Sara Watkins kicked off a months-long tour as special guest of Jackson Browne over the weekend. "Cheerful and charming, Watkins was totally at ease," says the Charleston City Paper of Sunday's show. "Watkins also handled the melodies and harmonies with cool authority, and she dazzled with several fiddle solos that demonstrated her virtuosity." Her new album, Sun Midnight Sun, on which Browne makes a guest appearance, is due out on vinyl next Tuesday, July 24, and is available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.

The Pat Metheny Unity Band—Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass—takes its month-long European tour to Italy this week. That follows Sunday's show at London's Barbican Hall, to which the Guardian gives four stars, calling the Unity Band "a group of blazing virtuosi with musical intelligence to match." Jazzwise says: "Metheny’s solos remain a thing of wonder: melodic at any tempo and packed with fresh ideas." The European tour continues through July 22; the US tour begins at the Caramoor Festival on July 29.

Shawn Colvin kicked off her US summer tour at the Somerville Theatre outside of Boston last week. The concert found Colvin in "sterling voice," reports the Boston Globe, with a strong connection between her and her fans on full display. The concert featured songs from Colvin's new album, All Fall Down, which the Globe calls "superb," all delivered "with perfect pitch and quiet charm." The tour continues along the East Coast this week.

Pat Metheny's new album, Unity Band, featuring Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass, is out now. The Evening Standard and the Guardian give the album four stars. BBC Music calls it "arguably one of Metheny’s best releases in recent times." Guitarist gives it five stars, calling it "a sterling example of why Metheny is so relevant and respected today ... Most impressive." All About Jazz says the new album is "unequivocally one of Metheny's finest—an album that's sure to find its way to 'best of' lists for 2012." Watch the new Pat Metheny podcast, featuring music from the album and commentary from Metheny, here.

John Adams's music has featured prominently in California concert calendars of late, with the recent world premiere of his new oratorio, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, by the LA Philharmonic, and last weekend's Bay Area premiere of his first opera, Nixon in China, by the San Francisco Opera. The Gospel "contains some of the strongest, most impassioned music of Adams’s career," raves The New Yorker. It is "an immensely potent work, one that may prove pivotal in the composer's output." The San Francisco Chronicle says the piece "finds Adams at his most evocative and inventive." Of Nixon in China, the Chronicle says it "has taken its rightful place as one of the great operas of the latter part of the 20th century. And Friday's performance came as a welcome reminder of how audacious and yet assured this work is."

Shawn Colvin's video for the title track to her new album, All Fall Down, has premiered on YouTube; watch it here. Colvin performs from the album and reads from her new memoir, Diamond in the Rough, at Barnes & Noble at The Grove in LA tonight and performs at the El Rey with Buddy Miller and Viktor Krauss on Tuesday. They performed on CBS This Morning on Saturday. Colvin is featured in the New York Times' Texas Report and in the Austin American-Statesman, which calls All Fall Down "superb."

"Jonny Greenwood shows a deft classical touch," says the Los Angeles Times. Greenwood "has something original to say," writes Times music critic Mark Swed. The performance of his Popcorn Superhet Receiver on the recent Nonesuch album is "dramatically gripping," says Swed, and on the film score to Norwegian Wood, "Greenwood's dreamy, haunting score has the brilliant ephemerality not heard on film since the great Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu died two decades ago." The New York Times, reviewing a recent Spoleto Festival concert with Greenwood's 48 Responses to Polymorphia, says the piece "moves from Vaughan Williams-like luxuriousness to a gently dissonant shimmer and, in its final section, an inventively rhythmic workout."

Shawn Colvin marked the release of her new album, All Fall Down, and memoir, Diamond in the Rough, with her first-ever book reading / performance at Barnes & Noble in NYC; she'll do the same in LA on Monday, before Tuesday's concert at the El Rey. Colvin appears on NPR's Diane Rehm Show tomorrow. The New York Daily News says the music on All Fall Down is "delivered with agile vocals and finely woven folk-rock melodies." The Boston Globe says the new book is full of "humor, remorse, and gratitude ... Colvin illuminates the magical blend of craft and happenstance that leads to powerful music."

Amadou & Mariam's new album, Folila, is an Editors' Pick in the Washington Post, which dubs it the "best place to complete a degree in world music." The album track "Baro," featuring French singer Bertrand Cantat, has been named Today's Top Tune at KCRW, which says Amadou & Mariam "remain true to their roots. The husband and wife team prove that melding popular and traditional music only creates a richer tapestry." The duo will tour North America this summer.

The new album pairing works by Krzysztof Penderecki with those they inspired by Jonny Greenwood has been named June's Recording of the Month by Stereophile. It's "a fulfilling, call and response between student and teacher where the younger composer tries to push forward the ideas that the older man began," says Stereophile. The album's sound quality is "superb throughout: detailed, spacious and breathtakingly transparent." Greenwood's work will be performed at the Spoleto Festival this weekend; the album's repertoire can be heard at Poland's Open'er Festival in July.

Shawn Colvin's new album, All Fall Down, is due out next week. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it. The album is streaming in full till then at Performing Songwriter. "Colvin has uncovered, polished and delivered another wellspring of personal and poetic gems for her fans," writes Performing Songwriter. "[E]very song’s foundation is built on Colvin’s trademark rhythm and poetry, and topped off with that fearless honesty that has resonated with her fans for over 20 years." USA Today calls the title track "among her best."

Jeremy Denk marks the release of his new album, Ligeti/Beethoven, with a performance at NYC's (Le) Poisson Rouge tonight. It's a Critics' Pick in Time Out New York and in New York, which calls him "splendid." The New Yorker calls the program "irresistible." WNYC has made it today's Gig Alert. The Washington Post says of Saturday's performance of the program in DC: "Denk has a way of explicating complicated music by playing it so that it seems self-evident and absolutely graspable—a considerable gift." In a new essay for Newsweek, Denk writes of having chosen a career in music over chemistry: "I knew I wouldn’t cure cancer or anything, but I might discover some beautiful way of playing something that no one else had found."