BroadwayWorld.com and Broadway Beat have released the first of three episodes exploring the journey of Sweeney Todd from Broadway sensation by Stephen Sondheim to Tim Burton–directed big-screen blockbuster starring Johnny Depp. Hosted by Richie Ridge, Broadway Beat is a half-hour show, now in its 16th year, covering the best in New York theater. 

Just in time for the holidays, famed jazz photographer Jimmy Katz has published Jazz Katz: Jazz in NY, a collection of black-and-white photos that All About Jazz calls "a feast for the eyes." The book featuring jazz luminaries, including Brad Mehldau and Bill Frisell, on stage and behind the scenes.

The Berlin International Film Festival has announced that There Will Be Blood will be making its international premiere as one of the first eight films to be selected for the festival's prestigious Competition program. The festival, the 58th running of which will be held February 7–17, 2008, awarded Anderson's Magnolia its top prize in 2000. 

With the Sweeney Todd soundtrack out in just over a week, it's no wonder the Chicago Tribune is saying that "the highly anticipated holiday movie season brings with it not just some of the best movies of the year but some of the most distinctive score soundtracks as well." Writes Richard Knight Jr.: "This is a great finale to what has been a signature year for soundtrack lovers," not least "an intimate, seductive Sweeney Todd."

Wilco's band loft is situated on Chicago's North Side, and that's where writer Bret Gladstone begins his thorough and thoughtful "trip through Jeff Tweedy's world" for the Associated Press. "On the surface, he is—should be—a simple American guy ... who grew up in a blue-collar town made of breweries, foundries, and strip mines," Gladstone writes. "But he‘s also complicated and quite possibly a near-genius. If you can grasp that dichotomy, you've essentially grasped Wilco's music."

Three weeks before There Will Be Blood first hits select screens in the US, the Paul Thomas Anderson film is already one of the most talked-about films of the year, not least for its haunting score by Jonny Greenwood. Today the Nonesuch Journal brings you an exclusive interview with the composer, in which he discusses everything from his musical influences—from Penderecki to the Pixies—to his use of the ondes martenot, an early electronic instrument found in such seminal 20th-century works as Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. Nonesuch will release the complete There Will Be Blood soundtrack December 18.

"In many ways, a collaboration between [David] Byrne and [Robert] Wilson was perfect," says Pitchfork's review of The Knee Plays. Bringing the material to CD for the first time, with previously unreleased bonus tracks, the Nonesuch reissue includes "a dense recollection of the pair's mind-meld by Byrne himself." And yet, even "extracted from its theatrical roots, Byrne's score holds up remarkably well."

World Music/CRASHarts presents Youssou N'Dour and the Super Étoile band this Monday, December 10, at the Somerville Theatre. Today's Boston Globe previews the next phase of the organization's winter and spring schedule, which includes a broad range of artists from around the world, from Toumani Diabaté's pan-African Symmetric Orchestra, also at the Somerville, on February 2, to Laurie Anderson, who will bring her new piece, Homeland, to the Boston Opera House on March 29.

Among the many roles Youssou N'Dour has come to play, he has come to be known "as one of the planet's true superstars and a beacon of African pride," says the Chicago Tribune. At Wednesday's Chicago House of Blues show, N'Dour's singing was "as strong and rich as it's ever been," and his band, Super Étoile de Dakar proved itself "the rare band entirely deserving of the 'super,' perfectly composed to push ahead but constantly poised for stop-on-a-dime shifts."

Kronos Quartet's Jeffrey Zeigler is featured in a documentary that will be shown as part of a centennial celebration of the Elationsists—an early 20th-century art movement from San Francisco that found hope in art after the devastation caused by the city's 1906 earthquake. San Francisco's Foundation for the Preservation of Fantastic Possibilities presents a weeklong exhibition beginning tonight that honors the movement's contribution through art, film, photography, poetry, music, and even a signature chocolate drink.

Earlier this week, we brought you news that the Metheny Music Foundation would be holding a concert with the Pat Metheny Trio and Pat's brother, Mike, to raise funds for the Foundation's scholarship program. The Kansas City Star has more of the details on the organization's backstory and its dual goals of supporting music education in the Methenys hometown of Lee's Summit, Missouri, and honoring the family's dedication to that town.

Stephin Merritt will be DJing at the George & Dragon pub in London on December 10. He's been a regular at NYC’s Beauty Bar night "The Phantastic Invisible Tentacle" and a co-host of the Nowhere Bar’s "Runt" party. This marks his return to the London venue, where he'll be spinning his eclectic mix of late '60s and early '70s bubblegum and psychedelic pop songs. Distortion, the forthcoming The Magnetic Fields album, was featured on BBC 6 Music's Roundtable and scored high on the show's rating scale.