Pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan marked the release of his new album, StandArt—his first album of American standards—last Friday and International Jazz Day on the following day with a solo piano performance of Charlie Parker’s “Big Foot,” which you can watch here. He performs the tune on the new album with saxophonist and label mate Joshua Redman. 

Laurie Anderson, a longtime student of Buddhism and meditation, is on the podcast A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to discuss her personal path with Buddhism and approaching art with a beginner’s mind. “It’s what music does,” she says. “It helps you free yourself from meaning into a much more tangible world or state, in which you feel things and understand them, rather than put them into words.” You can hear the conversation here.

Pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan’s StandArt—his first album of American standards—is out now. StandArt includes songs from the 1920s through the 1950s, by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Jerome Kern, David Raksin, and others; it also includes a piece Hamasyan improvised with his bandmates—bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Justin Brown—and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. Other special guests include saxophonists Joshua Redman and Mark Turner. Hamasyan tours Europe in May and the US in June.

"It would be difficult to make an account of all the ways John Adams’s music has influenced me and my work," Nico Muhly writes in his note in the upcoming 40-disc box set John Adams Collected Works, "but in the spirit of writing something personal, I’d like to offer a few perhaps impersonal observations about his work in a more circular, even crabwise, fashion. There are specific places in John’s music where there is a rhyme hidden across decades, relating to an elusive sense of 'meaning' in his music which radiates across his body of work." You can read his complete note from the box set here.

The Black Keys have released “It Ain’t Over,” the second track from their new album, Dropout Boogie, due May 13 on Nonesuch Records. A visualizer for the track can be seen here. “It Ain’t Over” was written by band members Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney with Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright. It follows the album’s first single, “Wild Child,” which has topped both the AAA and Alt charts. The Black Keys will tour North America for the first time in three years starting in July; international tour dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra) stopped by KEXP in Seattle at the start of the month while on tour to perform four songs from their Nonesuch debut album, LIFE ON EARTH: “Pierced Arrows,” “Pointed at the Sun,” “Saga,” and “Rhododendron.” Segarra was joined by Howe Pearson on keys and bass, Matt Peterson on keys and guitar, and Yan Westerlund on drums. You can watch the session, including Segarra’s conversation with host Cheryl Waters, here.

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2022–23 concert season, and featured among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are Rhiannon Giddens, who has been named a Perspectives artist for the season and will lead four concerts, and Kronos Quartet. Also included in the season is an all–Steve Reich program performed by Colin Currie Group and Synergy Vocals.

Nearly sixty years after they first played together, Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, longtime friends and collaborators, reunite with an album of music from two Piedmont blues masters who have inspired them all their lives: GET ON BOARD: THE SONGS OF SONNY TERRY & BROWNIE MCGHEE, out today on Nonesuch Records. With Taj Mahal on vocals, harmonica, guitar, and piano and Cooder on vocals, guitar, mandolin, and banjo—joined by Joachim Cooder on drums and bass—the duo recorded eleven songs drawn from recordings and live performances by Terry and McGhee, who they both first heard as teenagers in California. Also out today is a video them performing the song "Cornbread, Peas, Black Molasses," which you can watch here.

Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has released "Flying Song," a new track from Belladonna, one of two forthcoming Nonesuch label debuts, along with the album Amaryllis, both due May 13. Halvorson describes the two suites as “modular and interlocking." The records were produced and mixed by John Dieterich (Deerhoof). Belladonna is a set of five compositions written for Halvorson on guitar plus the Mivos Quartet, whose parts are through-composed and augmented by Halvorson’s guitar improvisations.

Pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan is the guest on the latest episode of the JAZZIZ Travel podcast. He talks with host by Matt Micucci about StandArt, his first-ever album of American standards, out April 29 on Nonesuch Records. “Hamasyan is one of today’s most revered and distinctive voices in jazz and creative music,” says Micucci. “StandArt finds him applying different techniques and ideas that he has developed over the years to a revered repertoire, breathing new life into well-worn songs and lesser-known gems.” You can hear their conversation here.

Nonesuch releases seven special editions of Wilco’s landmark 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on September 16, available to pre-order now. The now-classic record has been remastered and will be available as part of each set. The Super Deluxe version comprises eleven vinyl LPs and one CD—including demos, drafts, and instrumentals, charting the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—plus a live 2002 concert recording and a September 2001 radio performance and interview. That box set includes 82 previously unreleased music tracks as well as a new book featuring an interview with Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and Jim O’Rourke; an in-depth essay by journalist/author Bob Mehr; and previously unseen photos of the band making the album in their Chicago studio. A version of "Reservations," recorded live in concert at The Pageant in St. Louis in 2002, is out now. You can watch Wilco perform the track “Poor Places” on last night’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert here. The band is currently performing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in its entirety (plus a mix of concert favorites and rarities) in two limited runs at NYC’s United Palace and Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre; the April 23 Chicago show will stream live.

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced the nominees for the 2022 JJA Jazz Awards, including Rhiannon Giddens (for Banjo), Cécile McLorin Salvant (Female Vocalist of the Year), Mary Halvorson (Guitarist, Duo of the Year), and International Anthem (Record Label of the Year).