Randy Newman's Harps and Angles, is Stereophile magazine's Recording of the Month, earning five stars for performance and four stars for sound, calling it "another collection of uniquely chiseled miniatures that vividly bring back memories of what a master he is of songcraft and how expressive his voicings can be ... In short, Randy Newman has done it again."

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."

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."

"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."

"Adams's searingly introspective autobiography reveals the workings of a brilliant musical mind responsible for some of contemporary America's most inventive and original music." So says Publishers Weekly in its recommendation of John Adams's forthcoming memoir, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life. The Philadelphia Inquirer asserts that Adams's newest opera, The Flowering Tree, due out on Nonesuch this month, "commands attention musically and dramatically as handily as Verdi," part of minimalism's having "found a range of expression undreamed-of 30 years ago."

Randy Newman's Harps and Angels has already garnered acclaim from critics across North America and Europe, and new praise now comes from The Australian, which calls him "the crown prince" of his musical form, the new album "testimony to his craft," and its songs "so vibrant, musically and lyrically, ... that his catalogue would seem incomplete without them." All About Jazz says the new album shows that Randy "just keeps on getting better," and Paste calls him "one of America’s most important songwriters," while Slate credits the "uproarious" song "Korean Parents" with offering "a more enjoyable way forward" in the highly charged discussion of satire and race.

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."

Randy Newman recently spoke with Rolling Stone for a feature article in the September 4 issue, in which Harps and Angels, Randy's first album in nine years, is described as "a welcome return to form for Newman, one of the greatest songwriters of the rock era—though his songs rarely rock and often have more in common with Tin Pan Alley and show tunes."

Wilco and The Black Keys were among the highlights of the Outside Lands Festival this past weekend, with tens of thousands of music fans flooding San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. SPIN captured two songs from The Black Keys' opening-night performance on video. The San Jose Mercury News writes of Wilco's set: "Guitarist Nels Cline is a monster, and this lineup brilliantly balances the gentle, reassuring music Jeff Tweedy could make with his eyes closed and the challenging, difficult elements that have endeared Wilco to critics and urban hipsters."

Randy Newman helped open this week's Democratic National Convention in Denver yesterday, performing for delegates at a pre-Convention kick-off event. The New York Times says of Randy: "He prefers to wield a lyrical scalpel rather than a hammer, and he blends humor and politics in ways few songwriters would dare." The Knoxville News Sentinel calls him "one of modern music's true treasures" and credits him with having written "some of the most viciously hilarious and biting songs of the past 100 years."

Orchestra Baobab's most recent release, Made in Dakar, writes Paste magazine, is a "luminous new album that finds the group interpreting—with undiminished vitality—a mix of repertoire items and new tunes." The songs' "sound is effortlessly groovy and deliciously mature," says Paste, "the kind performed, as Baobab’s members do, with perfect vocal harmonies and coat-and-tie stage dignity," with the band's return to regular performances in Dakar  giving the new album "an in-the-moment energy."