The New Yorker says that Sérgio and Odair Assad's new album, Jardim Abandonado, includes works by Antônio Carlos Jobim ("exquisite miniatures of ardent desire and ineffable regret"), Milhaud, Debussy, Sérgio Assad, his daughter Clarice, and Adam Guettel, and the album's "pièce de résistance ... a transcription of 'Rhapsody in Blue.'" The Assads' arrangements "give all the pieces, whether popular or classical, an intimate sense of tonal richness and a new range of scintillating colors."

Singer/songwriter Nellie McKay has made a name for herself setting witty, politically savvy lyrics, tongue firmly in cheek, to catchy music reminiscent of Brill Building tunesmiths. (Evidence of this can be found on Audra McDonald's 2006 album Build a Bridge, on which she sings McKay's "I Wanna Get Married.") Nellie tells HARP magazine that she modeled her new album after "proletarian anthems and the fact that I was hoping to become the Ry Cooder of the ukulele."

There's no doubt about what New York Post writer Adam Buckman will be doing on February 25: watching ABC's TV-movie version of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Audra McDonald and her co-stars from the play's 2004 Broadway revival: Sean "Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan. Buckman calls the movie "so rewarding that it figures to be the cultural high point of the current TV season." After attending a private screening of the film, Buckman was "blown away," calling the performances "top-drawer."

The Music Box review of the new Robert Plant / Alison Krauss collaboration, Raising Sand, saves his highest praise for the album's producer, T Bone Burnett. The review expects that fans of Burnett's work on Sam Phillips’s A Boot and a Shoe will appreciate Burnett's efforts on the new record. Included among the tracks is Philips's "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us," which "is delivered as a moody hallucination that comes in the wake of crushing heartache." Her own version of the song will appear on her new album, Don't Do Anything, due early next year on Nonesuch. Burnett's own record is also slated for release next spring.

Just announced: Glenn Kotche will be opening for Andrew Bird, left, at New York's Beacon Theatre on Friday, November 30. Glenn will be performing the world premiere of his Anomaly with Kronos Quartet at the San Francisco Jazz Festival this Thursday, October 25.

Earlier this month, David Byrne joined Young @ Heart Chorus, a group of "gyrating geriatrics" (according to Time and the choir's own website), at their gig in NYC's Paris Bar. Byrne, by far the youngest person on stage (chorus members range in age from 72 to 88), joined in on the Talking Heads's "Heaven" and a new Byrne-penned tune, "One Fine Day." He reports on his blog that "the hipsters at the Paris Bar were completely won over, I think."

In the October 18 episode of NPR's All Songs Considered, host Bob Boilen opens the show by recalling the first time he heard David Byrne's Knee Plays on cassette, back in 1985. He remembers driving around in his car listening to it—"I played it constantly"—until giving it away as a thank-you gift. He's been waiting 20-plus years for the CD release to replace the missing cassette, and, he says, "It's such a thrill to hear it again." Hear the episode here.

The LA Opera production of Brecht/Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which starred Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone and ran through February 2007, will air December 17 as part of the Great Performances series on New York's PBS station Thirteen/WNET. It will be available on DVD the following day. The production was directed by John Doyle, who also helmed the recent Broadway revivals of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (starring LuPone) and Company.

David Byrne will be among 140 artists contributing to The Seed Project, in which participants create works of art starting with a humble bag of grass seeds, in an effort to promote sustainability. The resulting works will be on display in New York City for five weeks, opening Thursday, October 25, at the Winkleman Gallery.

The unbeatable pairing of Broadway heavy hitters Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin—both Tony winners for their roles in the original Broadway production of Evita—is back for one week at Philadelphia's Prince Music Theater, October 23–29, in An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin. The show, choreographed by fellow Broadway legend Ann Reinking, will include songs by Stephen Sondheim and Richard Rodgers among many others.

Lincoln Center has announced the 2008 season of its popular American Songbook series, with tickets on sale to the public Thursday, October 25. Highlights of the season include three nights with k.d. lang, February 26–28, and an evening with Punch Brothers on February 20. Also featured are two shows on January 26 with Broadway star Kelli O'Hara, who earned a Tony nomination for her performance in Adam Guettel's Light in the Piazza .

American Ballet Theatre will give the world premiere of C. to C. (Close to Chuck), created by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, at New York City Center on October 27. The piece was inspired by Philip Glass's A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close, which the composer wrote for pianist Bruce Levingston in 2005. Glass is "the most inventive and innovative composer of my adult life," Close tells the New York Sun. The addition of Elo's choreography reminds him of those earlier collaborative days in the 1960s: "To get a good choreographer and composer and visual artist together," he tells the Sun, "it's like old home week!"