The Brad Mehldau Trio has landed in California, kicking off a string of Bay Area shows in Santa Cruz last night, followed by a set in Napa tonight and three shows in San Francisco this weekend for SFJAZZ. The San Jose Mercury News calls last night's show "transfixing ... total exquisiteness." All About Jazz says the Trio's new album, Ode, is "rich, lyrical and full of energy ... a non-stop stream of invention." The Montreal Gazette says: "This may well be [Mehldau's] most interesting, absorbing album to date." The Philadelphia Inquirer calls it "transformative." Blurt says it's "some of the trio's most fiery interplay to date. A most welcome return."

Timothy Andres's I Found It by the Sea was featured in the closing-night concert of the Look and Listen Festival in NYC this week, performed with ACME. The piece "draws on a huge range of styles," says the New York Times. "Mr. Andres is a fine pianist, and he wrote himself a dazzling solo line. His quartet writing is equally rich." Andres performs a solo recital at NYC's (Le) Poisson Rouge later this month and makes his London debut at Wigmore Hall June 8. Earlier this year, he spoke with the new-music blog I Care If You Listen about his debut album, Shy and Mighty, and performed his piece At the River. Watch both here.

Pianist Jeremy Denk's label debut album, Ligeti/Beethoven, pairing Ligeti’s Piano Études, Books One and Two, with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, is out today. "The result is dazzling," raves the Observer. "The Ligeti is crisp, nuanced and technically flawless, the Beethoven beautifully shaped and flexible." The Independent gives the album four stars. The Arts Fuse calls it "revelatory." Denk celebrates the record's release with a performance of music from the album at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City next week. 

The Black Keys take their North American arena tour to the West Coast, starting with two shows in California this weekend, in Oakland and Sacramento, followed by shows in Portland and Seattle, following recent successes in the Rockies and in Tulsa. The band "surpassed the lofty heights they had achieved on their most recent album, El Camino, by unleashing a beat-heavy, surprisingly groovy set that resonated in the concrete under your feet," says the Salt Lake Tribune. Their Denver show proved "a voluminous triumph," Reverb raves. "A Black Keys concert radiates with what every rock show should," says Tulsa World: "very nearly blasphemous, raw, unbridled energy." The Black Keys will appear on an upcoming episode of Comedy Central's Workaholics.

Steve Reich made a rare visit to Australia for a residency at the Sydney Opera House that culminated in an all-Reich concert Sunday night. His Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet was performed "with brilliant edginess" by eighth blackbird, says the Sydney Morning Herald in a four-star review, and with "tight-knit playing and incisive attack," says The Australian. Of Reich's seminal Music for 18 Musicians, the latter paper writes: "Performed by a collective of Australia's finest contemporary music performers, this compelling account captured its exuberance while simultaneously revealing its inventive instrumental colours." On Monday, Reich participated in a conversation and concert at the Melbourne Recital Centre.

The 2012 New Orleans Jazz Fest got under way last weekend. Carolina Chocolate Drops gave "a joyous, emotionally committed show," reports the Times-Picayune, which calls Cheikh Lô's set "as colorful and unique as his signature patchwork tunic," and notes that Dr. John sounded "newly invigorated" as on his new album, Locked Down. He also joined Bruce Springsteen on stage to help close the first weekend in style. This coming weekend sees Dr. John's return and a set from another favorite son of New Orleans, Allen Toussaint.

Billy Bragg has been featured across the BBC airwaves to celebrate the release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, on which Bragg and Wilco set Woody Guthrie's words to music. The Sunday Times and Details both dub it a "must-have." BBC Music says that "nobody has picked up on Woody as effectively—or unexpectedly—as this transatlantic get-together." The Mermaid Avenue project "was always an interesting idea," says a four-star Q review. "That it produced such a wealth of quality material is remarkable." Pitchfork too says: "What's remarkable is the wealth of material available to these artists and the number of gems these sessions produced." Drowned in Sound rates this "wonderful reissue" a nine out of ten. "Even for those who already have both of the previous volumes," says DiS, "Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions is a fascinating look at one of America’s greatest writers."

Punch Brothers have launched the second leg of their North American tour. Having kicked things off with a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor at New York’s Town Hall, the band recorded a show for NPR's Mountain Stage and set out from there for headlining shows in Pittsburgh and Lexington. The Lexington Herald Leader notes the band's "virtuosity and stylistic cunning" and finds them at their "most exciting and inventive" yet. Punch Brothers' upcoming performances include stops in Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC, and a set at MerleFest.

Amadou & Mariam's new album, Folila, released this week in the US, has been named Album of the Week by Stereogum, which says that "at its heart it’s a euphoric psychedelic rock album." For all of its collaborators, like Santigold and TV on the Radio, Folila finds "every musical influence melting seamlessly into the whole," making for "a fun and playful artifact from two crazily gifted pop polyglots at work." The track “Dougou Badia,” featuring Santigold, is in The New Yorker's Listening Booth. Amadou & Mariam performed an unplugged version of the song "Cherie" for Daily Candy. They performed an acoustic duo version of "Wily Kataso" for NPR, which you can watch here.

Amadou & Mariam's new album, Folila, is out now in the US. The album epitomizes the duo's embrace of collaboration, with contributions by Santigold, TV on the Radio, Theophilus London, and others. Folila may be "this duo’s most enjoyable disc yet," says the AP. Newsweek calls them "Magic, indeed." The Philadelphia Inquirer says the duo is "adding new elements to a richly varied approach that has served them well for years." The Christian Science Monitor raves: "From start to finish, Folila can barely contain the joy." Watch an acoustic performance of two album tracks here, via The Fader.

Dr. John was joined by Dan Auerbach and the band from his new album, Locked Down, for the live premiere of Locked Down at BAM last week. "Physical and spiritual, earthly and supernatural, a memento mori and a promise of transcendence—all were aspects of Dr. John’s music for the night," reports the New York Times. Rolling Stone says the "band's potent sound and focused energy pushed the New Orleans legend into new sonic territory." The Times-Picayune calls the new album "timeless." The Morton Report says: "This is prime time light-up-your-eyeballs sound, complete with twisting rhythms, curvalicious horn lines, croaky vocals, and irresistible freedom at the heart of what the players are putting down." The Star Telegram calls it "one of 2012's great albums thus far." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls it "phenomenal."

Carolina Chocolate Drops brought their US tour to California over the weekend for three stops with special guest David Wax Museum: at UCLA's Royce Hall on Friday, Slim’s in San Francisco on Saturday, and the Mystic Theater in Petaluma on Sunday. "These are not only obsessive music-historians but also expert players whose fret-board fingers traveled miles over the course of the night," reports the Los Angeles Times. "The Carolina Chocolate Drops didn’t just manifest this music but proved how much energy remains within these songs." The band heads next to New Mexico and Arizona.