Bill Frisell joined trumpeter Ron Miles's quartet last week for a three-night residency at the Jazz Standard in New York City that New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen says "confirmed the strength of their rapport," showcasing a partnership that goes "beyond sensitivity or even shared intuition." The pair's recording history includes Bill's latest Nonesuch release, History, Mystery. Bill performs again in the City in early September for a two-week residency at the Village Vanguard with Paul Motian and Joe Lovano. 

Wilco continues its US summer tour through the end of this week, playing its final Stateside gig of the tour at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on Sunday. This past Monday, Wilco performed at the Red Butte Garden, which the Salt Lake Tribune calls "one of the best—if not the best—show of the summer." The band has also announced a string of dates this December supporting rocker Neil Young in Canada and the US.

Last week, Chris Thile joined Edgar Meyer for the bassist's annual Aspen Music Festival recital. The Aspen Times describes Meyer's playing as the sort that leads his fellow bass players to "just blink in wonder" and Thile as "a mandolin player with similarly amazing chops." The concert, which included several songs from the duo's debut album, out on Nonesuch next month, featured "several incandescent moments," reads the review, "when the two musicians’ technical skill and musical inventiveness combined to produce something unique."

Sam Phillips's latest album, Don't Do Anything, was welcomed with critical praise upon its release earlier this summer. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle adds to the kudos, calling her "a monument to artistic vision" in the mold of Tom Waits. The San Antonio Current also praises the new record, saying Sam's writing style "works beautifully, especially with the uncanny title track, one of the most remarkable love songs ever penned."

Ry Cooder talks to Rolling Stone about I, Flathead, the third in his "California trilogy." The magazine calls the album "light on flash, heavy on feeling." Ry also gives some insight into the forthcoming release of the live album Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall for the tenth anniversary of the group's performance at the Hall. "That was an amazing show," he says. "It has tremendous energy and verve but no aggression at all."

It was a remarkable week for Wilco shows, with two stand-outs coming from nearly three-hour sets each at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, and Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool the following night. The Boston Globe says the crowd at Tanglewood witnessed "a pitch-perfect tangle of earthy comforts and perilous adventure, during a stellar set from the planet's most radical roots band ... a phenomenally dynamic machine." The New York Press says the Brooklyn set showed that the band's evolution from alt.country pioneers "has brought us one of the best rock bands alive today."

Randy Newman is the subject of a feature article from Newsweek that describes Randy's new album, Harps and Angels, as "an immensely gratifying CD, one that recalls his early work without mimicking it." ABC News calls it "a remarkably strong record" and compares Randy, "a great storyteller," to the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits: "an ace writer who goes by his own set of rules."

Congratulations to Randy Newman, whose new release, Harps and Angels, debuted at #30 on Billboard's Top 200, a career high. Randy is SPIN magazine's Artist of the Day for the "brilliantly written pop standards" on Harps and Angels, a "musically, as well as lyrically, intricate and intriguing" album from "one of the most respected songwriters this century." The Cleveland Free Times concludes that "Harps and Angels is both a great Randy Newman album—which is an impressive feat on its own—and a brilliant and important album in the wider context of popular music."

Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer will preview their forthcoming, self-titled debut duo album tonight in a special concert at the Aspen Music Festival. On the record, due out September 23 and available now for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store, are 12 original songs by the two musicians. There's also a deluxe version that includes a 50-minute DVD with performances, rehearsals, and behind-the-scenes footage with Edgar and Chris. The Aspen Times says Chris's first Nonesuch record, Punch, with the Punch Brothers, takes "acoustic music to an appreciably higher level."

It's been a week since the release of Randy Newman's Harps and Angels, and the Toronto Star, in its four-star review, calls the new album "prime Newman, a work of astonishing bravery, anger, humility and humanity ... with complex arrangements and orchestrations that elevate simple instrumentation, music-hall melodies, and vintage folk forms ... to proportions Weill and Brecht might have imagined." The Detroit Free Press deems it "a masterpiece, with brilliantly written songs that run from the satirical to the achingly sincere."

After performing at the Virgin Mobile Fest in Baltimore this weekend, Wilco gears up for its performance at Tanglewood in Western Massachusetts tomorrow night. The Daily Gazette out of Schnectady, New York, more than an hour away, says "Wilco is worth the trip." Next to a sold-out show at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool. With all the travel, Wilco is also making an effort to reduce its environmental impact with a new ride-sharing initiative. Also, label mate David Byrne has his own ideas for reducing congestion, promoting bike use.

The Black Keys spent the weekend at two of the summer's biggest festivals: the inaugural New American Music Union festival in Pittsburgh on Friday and the Virgin Mobile Fest in Baltimore on Sunday, with a stop at The NorVa in Norfolk, Virginia, in between. The Western Pennsylvania press coverage of Friday's event calls attention to the "pulverizing, purifying guitar blast blues riff from the Black Keys." Brooklyn Vegan also has dozens of great pics from the preceding night's show at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool.