Punch Brothers perform at the third-annual L.A. Bluegrass Situation curated by Ed Helms at Largo ... Timothy Andres joins NOW Ensemble at BAM ... The Black Keys play two shows in California ... Billy Bragg celebrates Woody Guthrie in Suffolk ... Carolina Chocolate Drops play Madison and Chicago ... Shawn Colvin joins Mary Chapin Carpenter in the Southwest ... New Orleans favorite sons Dr. John and Allen Toussaint play Jazz Fest ... Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach receives UK premiere at the Barbican ... Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica are in Austria ... and more ...
The third-annual L.A. Bluegrass Situation is under way and takes place through the weekend at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles. Sara Watkins helped kick things off with a Watkins Family Hour set last night. Punch Brothers return to the festival for a performance with some very special guests tonight. Also performing this weekend are Ed Helms, the man behind the festival, and Steve Martin. Punch Brothers' set marks the close of the latest leg of their US tour. Next week, the band heads overseas for a show at Scala in London and two more in Tel Aviv for the White City Music Festival before returning to the US for another round of gigs later this month. While in London, the band will perform on BBC Two's Later ... with Jools Holland Tuesday night.
Earlier this week, Punch Brothers were in Austin to tape their Austin City Limits debut for future broadcast on the PBS performance series. The band "killed it with their unique take on acoustic music," the show reports. The Austin Chronicle, reporting from the taping, says "there’s not another ensemble at work today who play as intricately and with as much heart without showing off. A lot of what the Punch Brothers do is bluegrass based, but the Brooklyn quintet brings new textures to the music, an electronic vibe that's otherworldly."
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Timothy Andres joins the NOW Ensemble for a performance at the BAM Café in Brooklyn tonight as part of the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Festival. Andres was recently featured in the Daily Telegraph in advance of his London debut at the Wigmore Hall on June 8. You can read the piece at telegraph.co.uk.
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The Black Keys continue their North American tour with special guests Arctic Monkeys, making two stops in California this weekend: at Oracle Arena in Oakland tonight and at Power Balance Pavilion in Sacramento on Saturday.
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Billy Bragg performs at the John Peel Centre in Suffolk, England, tonight as part of his international tour celebrating the 100th birthday of Woody Guthrie. The concert features songs from the Mermaid Avenue albums, on which he and Wilco set Guthrie’s words to music. Nonesuch Records recently released the three CD-plus-DVD set Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, about which Pitchfork writes: "What's remarkable is the wealth of material available to these artists and the number of gems these sessions produced." Bragg tours throughout Europe this month and will bring the Ain't Nobody That Can Sing Like Me Tour to the States in June.
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Carolina Chocolate Drops continue their North American tour, playing at the Capitol Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, tonight and at Lincoln Hall in Chicago on Saturday.
"The Carolina Chocolate Drops are known for putting on fantastic live shows, channeling the heritage of Depression-era African-American string bands into rousing performances that have the sweaty energy of punk rock shows," says the Wisconsin State Journal's Rob Thomas. The "audience should have plenty of options for dancing given the new Drops album, Leaving Eden.” The Chicago Tribune, in a feature on the band previewing this weekend's show, calls the new album "superb."
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Shawn Colvin continues her US tour with Mary Chapin Carpenter, performing tonight at The Lensic in Santa Fe, New Mexico and at The Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado, for a special eTown radio taping on Sunday.
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Dr. John returns for the second weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (JazzFest) as a special guest of the Warren Haynes Band on Saturday. Last weekend, after playing a set of his own, Dr. John helped headliner Bruce Springsteen close the first week’s festivities by contributing his piano grooves to a funky rendition of “Something You Got.” “It’s all about that groove,” Springsteen said. “He comes down, he sits in that groove, man, and all of the sudden—oh my God, your sexual organs are stimulated! That's exactly what happens.”
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As noted earlier today in the Nonesuch Journal, Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, widely credited as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, opens at the Barbican Theatre in London tonight, marking its UK premiere. It is the first of eight performances at the Barbican and part of a major international tour.
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Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica perform at the Esterházy Palace’s Haydnsaal in Eisenstadt, Austria, tonight and Sunday, following an earlier performance at the venue last last night. The concert, brought through a collaboration between the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) with the Kremerata Baltica and Esterházy Foundation, features a program of Arabic-Baltic contemporary classical music in a unique musical cross-cultural exchange.
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Allen Toussaint plays two sets at the New Orleans Jazz Fest this weekend, hitting the Acura Stage Saturday afternoon and then joining the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on the Gentilly Stage Sunday evening for a celebration of its 50th anniversary, along with Ani DiFranco, Jim James, Steve Earle, Trombone Shorty, and Bonnie Raitt, as well as Wendell Eugene & Lionel Ferbos and Jazz Fest creator George Wein.
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