Robert Plant launches month-long tour of Europe and the UK … Devendra Banhart is at the Guadalupe Valley Festival in Mexico … Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass perform Dracula in Romania … Brad Mehldau plays Love Supreme, Montreux Jazz Festivals with Mark Guiliana, John Scofield … Pat Metheny is in London, Copenhagen … Joshua Redman Quartet concludes Blue Note residency in NYC … and more …
While Canada and the United States celebrate their respective national holidays this weekend, Robert Plant launches a month-long tour of Europe and the UK with a series of festival sets: at The Barn at Rock Werchter in Belgium tonight; and two in France, at Château de Beauregard, as part of Festival Beauregard, in Hérouville-Saint-Clair, on Saturday; and Pavillon de Grignan, as part of Les Nuits d'Istres on Sunday. Plant’s tour will also make stops in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Austria, Croatia, Germany, and Switzerland, before culminating in a set at Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire in the UK.
Robert Plant released his Nonesuch debut album, lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar, in 2014. Q calls it "his best solo album yet … a beautifully moving, soul-stirring, bravely genre-blurring album."
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Devendra Banhart is at the Guadalupe Valley Festival in Ensenada, Mexico, giving a DJ set at Decantos Vinícola tonight, and a solo acoustic set at Finca Altozano on Saturday.
As announced last week, Nonesuch releases the singer/songwriter/guitarist's new album, Ape in Pink Marble, on September 23. Banhart wrote, produced, arranged, and recorded the album in Los Angeles with his longtime collaborators Noah Georgeson and Josiah Steinbrick, both of whom also worked on his 2013 album, Mala. Ape in Pink Marble is available to pre-order now with an instant download of the album's opening track, "Middle Names."
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Kronos Quartet and Philip Glass perform the composer’s 1999 score to Tod Browning’s classic 1931 film Dracula at the Summer Theater at Herastrau Park in Bucharest, Romania, on Monday. The piece will be scored live, led by conductor Michael Riesman, as the film is projected onto the big screen at the theater. While the performance is sold-out, tickets remain for an additional show on Tuesday.
Nonesuch released Kronos Quartet’s recording of Glass’s Dracula in 1999. Filmmaker David Lynch, no stranger to horror himself, reviewed the album then for the Austin Chronicle, saying “Glass's score, and equally Kronos's reading, is like Bela Lugosi's onscreen realization of Nosferatu: understated, bold, and effective.”
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Brad Mehldau, drummer Mark Guiliana (with whom he paired up for the Grammy-nominated album Mehliana: Taming the Dragon), and guitarist John Scofield launch a month-long tour of the UK and Europe with sets at the Love Supreme Jazz Festival in Brighton on Saturday and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on Sunday. The New York Times, reviewing Scofield Mehldau Guiliana’s week-long residency at the Blue Note in New York City last month, calls the group a “new-groove super trio” which “plants its flag at the convergence of ruggedness and finesse.”
Also performing at Love Supreme on Saturday: Lianne La Havas and St Germain.
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Pat Metheny and his new quartet—drummer Antonio Sanchez, pianist Gwilym Simcock, and bassist Linda Oh—play two sets each night at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London tonight and Saturday. The quartet plays DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen on Monday. The Guardian gives four stars to the band's first concert at the venue earlier this week, describing it as a "tour de force from an improv king." Reviewer John Fordham notes: "The rapport within this newly minted band was unmistakable."
Metheny begins a run of nine European dates with legendary bassist Ron Carter next week.
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Joshua Redman and his Quartet—pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson—conclude their six-night residency at the Blue Note in New York City, to close out the Blue Note Jazz Festival, with early and late sets tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. The New York Times writes: “Joshua Redman is one of the most visible jazz musicians of the last 15 years, which says something not just about his natural flow as an improviser and his command as a bandleader, but also about his willingness to use words…to represent jazz to the outside world.”
Redman’s first duo album with longtime friend and collaborator Brad Mehldau, Nearness, recorded live on tour in Europe, will be released September 9. The album is available to pre-order now with an instant download of the opening track, “Ornithology.”
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