Bombino kicks off a 14-city North American tour, featuring music from his new album, Nomad, with a performance at the University of North Carolina in Asheville tonight. The tour includes stops in Nashville, Louisville, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal, Cambridge, Providence, Philadelphia, and DC, culminating with a concert in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in NYC on December 6. Bombino then makes his way to the other end of the planet for a two-week tour of Australia; he returns to the States in the spring to perform at the Savannah Music Festival on a double bill with Fatoumata Diawara.

Ry Cooder's first live record in more than 35 years, Live in San Francisco, is featured in an article from The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson titled "Ry Cooder, Live Again." Wilkinson traces Cooder's career through his studio recordings—"Cooder’s catalogue, reflecting his capacious intelligence, is the broadest and deepest in popular music"—to the new live album. "The solos open like rooms, one into another," writes Wilkinson. "Some of the rooms are still as night, and in others the audience shouts like congregants cheering a preacher."

During a recent visit to the Library of Congress, Randy Newman was given the opportunity to play George Gershwin’s piano. "Outdoors but Not the Red River Valley" was written on commission from pianist Gloria Cheng and is one in a five-part homage to Newman’s uncles, film composers Alfred, Emil & Lionel Newman. "My uncle Alfred wrote the music for a number of John Ford’s films," says Newman. "In every one of them, the great director wanted to use 'Red River Valley.' Al liked the tune, but not in every picture. I wrote this piece for my uncle, who was a really great composer." Watch his performance here.

Although Punch Brothers' three-night New Year's Eve run at NYC's Bowery Ballroom is sold out, the band has now added several tour dates in March, including stops along the East Coast, a few in the Midwest, and a pair of festivals: Savannah Music Festival and Suwannee Springfest. Pre-sale begins tomorrow, November 20; general on-sale begins Friday. Chris Thile will be keeping himself warm before then with solo shows in Australia, the Southwest US, and more, plus duo shows with Mike Marshall and Brad Mehldau.

David Byrne and the original cast of Here Lies Love will perform a one-time only special benefit concert in support of the people of the Philippines in the wake of Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan). The special show will take place at Terminal 5 in NYC on November 25. All proceeds will go to support Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) relief efforts in the Philippines. “The show is about the resiliency of the Philippine people—it couldn’t be more timely,” says Byrne. “Upon hearing about this tragedy the cast contacted me about doing a show to raise money for relief efforts. Most of our cast is Filipino, and all of us feel the same way. It’s personal for all of us."

Jeremy Denk was featured on NPR's All Things Considered this weekend. He spoke with host Arun Rath about J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations and his new recording of it. "The piece is kind of about invention and imagination," says Denk. "In another way, it's like the biggest jazz riff ever written. It's endlessly funny in some ways and endlessly moving in other ways."

Bombino closes out European tour in France ... Sam Amidon is in Germany ... Laurie Anderson talks with Neil Gaiman in NYC ... Devendra Banhart tours Brazil ... Shawn Colvin concludes NYC residency ... Jeremy Denk closes out SF Symphony tour ... Richard Goode plays Schubert in Connecticut ... Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell play epilepsy benefit in Nashville ... Kronos Quartet turns 40 in Seattle ... Audra McDonald sings at education benefits in Missouri ... Brad Mehldau, Mark Guiliana take Mehliana to France ... Natalie Merchant joins Tulsa Symphony ... Joshua Redman plays hometown of Berkeley ... Steve Reich, Alarm Will Sound perform at the Met Museum ... Rokia Traoré kicks off North American tour in NYC ...

Rokia Traoré kicks off a two-week North American tour at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater in New York City tonight, as part of the White Light Festival. The nine-city tour includes stops in Vancouver, Seattle, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Toronto, and Montreal. The New York Times' Ben Ratliff calls her new album, Beautiful Africa, "excellent," noting that it "balances rough and smooth, soft and loud, ngoni and chiming electric guitar, lilt and funk," and describes Traoré as "a self-possessed, intense performer." 

Steve Reich's new ensemble work, Radio Rewrite, which draws inspiration from songs by Radiohead, will receive its New York premiere in a concert by Alarm Will Sound at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday. The all-Reich program also features City Life, New York Counterpoint, and new takes on Six Pianos, Four Genesis Settings from The Cave, and Clapping Music, with the composer joining in. The performance will stream live on Q2Music.

Brad Mehldau kicks off a two-week, 12-city European tour in the new electric duo with drummer Mark Guiliana, Mehliana, in which Mehldau performs on Fender Rhodes and an arsenal of vintage synthesizers while Guiliana accompanies on drums and effects. The Mehliana tour begins with five concerts in France, followed by a set at Barbican Hall in London for the EFG London Jazz Festival and stops in Germany, Italy, Monaco, and Switzerland. You can listen to "Hungry Ghost," off the forthcoming Mehliana album, due in early 2014, here.

The Grammy Award–winning Carolina Chocolate Drops bid farewell to founding member Dom Flemons who is starting a solo career after a special December US tour to commemorate his time with the band. Led by co-founder Rhiannon Giddens, the band will tour throughout 2014 with Hubby Jenkins and two new musicians, cellist Malcolm Parson and mulit-instrumentalist Rowan Corbett, who will join the group in the New Year.

The soundtrack to Inside Llewyn Davis is out now on Nonesuch Records. Written and directed by Academy Award© winners Joel and Ethan Coen and produced by Scott Rudin and Joel and Ethan Coen, the film stars Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, and Justin Timberlake. Produced by T Bone Burnett, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen, with Marcus Mumford as its associate producer, the album features 12 new recordings created especially for the film and soundtrack. Also included is a never-before-released recording of Bob Dylan performing his song “Farewell,” which was originally recorded during the sessions for his album The Times They Are A-Changin' and is available exclusively on this soundtrack.