Brad Mehldau Trio concludes European tour in France and Switzerland … Laurie Anderson is at Moogfest as Heart of a Dog opens in UK … The Bad Plus Joshua Redman plays Brazil … Jeremy Denk performs with Detroit Symphony Orchestra … Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell play Nashville benefit … Kronos Quartet concludes UK tour … Pat Metheny takes up residency at Blue Note Tokyo … Youssou N’Dour returns to Brooklyn … Conor Oberst performs in his hometown of Omaha … Rokia Traoré is in Morocco … and more …
The Brad Mehldau Trio concludes its European tour, just ahead of the forthcoming release of its new album, Blues and Ballads, on June 3. The tour comes to a close this weekend with two shows in France, at Salle Jean Cocteau in Clermont-Ferrand tonight and Salle Lino Ventura in Athis-Mons on Saturday, followed by a culminating set at the Musikaal Stadtcasino in Basel, Switzerland, on Sunday. Meldau goes on to play two solo shows in Canada next week, before beginning a tour with a trio of a different sort: drummer Mark Guiliana (with whom he recorded the 2014 album Mehliana: Taming the Dragon), and guitarist John Scofield.
The first of Mehldau’s shows in Canada next week, at Koerner Hall in Toronto on Thursday, will stream live via the Royal Conservatory of Music’s website, rcmusic.ca/livestream. It’s part of the third-annual 21C Music Festival, which will also include a performance from Kronos Quartet streaming live on Wednesday.
Mehldau will be given a special prize at the Echo Jazz 2016 Awards, taking place in Hamburg next week, for his box set 10 Years Solo Live, released last year on Nonesuch.
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Laurie Anderson makes two appearances at Moogfest, the annual tribute to electronic music pioneer Dr. Robert Moog, synthesizing music, art and technology, in Durham, North Carolina, this weekend. In celebrating what the festival refers to as “future sound” and “future thought,” Anderson fittingly performs her Language of the Future project tomorrow, before sitting down for a discussion of her work and relationship to technology with Jana Hunter of Lower Dens on Sunday afternoon.
Anderson’s new film, Heart of a Dog, opens at cinemas across the UK and Ireland today. The film, a personal essay on joy and heartbreak and remembering and forgetting, was released to critical acclaim in the US last year, with New York magazine calling it "one of the most moving and provocative films you’ll see this year." The complete soundtrack is available on Nonesuch Records. To find out where Heart of a Dog is showing in the UK and Ireland, visit dogwoof.com.
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The Bad Plus Joshua Redman continues a string of South American shows with two performances at the Bourbon Festival Paratay in Brazil, tomorrow and Sunday. The Kansas City Star called the group’s recent US tour stop in that city “astonishing,” describing its last selection as “a convincing manifesto on the infinite possibilities of jazz.”
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman plays one more show in Brazil next week, before Redman begins a US tour of the Joshua Redman Quartet with Aaron Goldberg, Reuben Rogers, and Gregory Hutchinson next month. Tickets are available at nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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Jeremy Denk joins the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor,” for a three-day engagement at the Orchestra Hall beginning this morning, and continuing into Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
Denk comes to Detroit after performing the “Emperor” in Maryland with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Adams, last weekend. The Baltimore Sun’s review highlighted the pianist’s “refreshingly understated bravura” and praised his “sensitive, spontaneous phrasing and the pearly quality of his tone.”
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Emmylou Harris concludes her four-night engagement this month at City Winery in Nashville, to benefit her dog rescue, Bonaparte’s Retreat, tonight and Saturday. Tonight’s sold-out show features special guests Pam Rose & Mary Ann Kennedy, and the final installment finds Harris performing with duo partner Rodney Crowell, on Saturday.
Harris and Crowell were recently nominated for Duo/Group of the Year for the Americana Honors & Awards for their 2015 album, The Traveling Kind. They won the award for their first duo album, Old Yellow Moon, in 2014.
Harris plays two nights at the Ryman in Nashville early next week as part of Dylan Fest, celebrating the music of Bob Dylan and his 75th birthday.
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Kronos Quartet concludes its UK tour at The Anvil in Basingstoke tonight. The program pairs new works commissioned as part of Kronos’s Fifty for the Future project with Steve Reich’s Different Trains, Laurie Anderson’s "Flow," and Terry Riley’s One Earth, One People, One Love—the title piece to the 2015 box set of Riley’s music performed by Kronos.
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Pat Metheny, joined by Antonio Sanchez, Gwylim Simcock, and Linda Oh, began a tour of Japan earlier this week, and launches a six-night, multi-set residency at the Blue Note Tokyo in Japan tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. Metheny and company remain at the Blue Note until Wednesday, when they hit the road again with three more dates in Asia before heading to Israel, Europe, and the UK.
Metheny released two albums on Nonesuch earlier this month—The Unity Sessions, taken from a filmed performance of the Pat Matheny Unity Group, and Cuong Vuo Trio Meets Pat Metheny, a seven-song collaboration with a trio led by Pat Metheny Group trumpeter Cuong Vu.
The Guardian calls The Unity Sessions “polished and sophisticated” and “just plain elegant … everything flows beautifully.” All About Jazz gives Cuong Vuo Trio Meets Pat Metheny four stars, calling it “a beautiful marriage of musical exactitude and punk attitude that knows few equals … These four make for a great combination throughout, but they sound best when they're in their collective element, slowly triggering the rising tides of (r)evolution.”
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Youssou N’Dour makes a rare visit to the US with two shows at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn, accompanied by his band Le Super Etoile, tonight and Saturday. N’Dour pays tribute to legendary Senegalese drummer Doudou N’Diaye Rose.
N’Dour last visited BAM in September 2014 as part of Nonesuch Records’ 50th anniversary celebration at BAM. In reviewing that show, the New York Times wrote, “Mr. N’Dour’s incessantly danceable music rides hurtling four-against-six grooves … Ushers at the Brooklyn Academy of Music fought a brief, losing battle against concertgoers surging into the aisle to dance.”
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Conor Oberst plays a show close to home at the Waiting Room in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday, as a member of the mysterious country cover band Dolores Diaz & The Standby Club. Oberst also plays a string of solo shows in June with the Felice Brothers, culminating at McCarren Park in Brooklyn as a co-headliner of Northside Festival with Kacey Musgraves.
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Rokia Traoré brings her Né So tour to the Festival Mawazine in Rabat, Morocco, tonight.
She was recently a guest on NPR’s World Cafe, discussing and performing three songs from her new album, Né So: "Obiké," "Ilé," and "Strange Fruit." Find out what Traoré has to say and hear the performances here.
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