Pat Metheny, Chris Thile, Brad Mehldau perform at EFG London Jazz Festival … Dan Auerbach joins John Prine in DC and Richmond … Fleet Foxes are in Milan, Hamburg … Rhiannon Giddens joins Cincinnati Pops Orchestra … Richard Goode gives a recital in San Diego … Tigran Hamasyan returns home to Armenia … Lake Street Dive plays St. Paul with Bruce Hornsby … Mariza performs in Boston … Randy Newman is in Charleston … Rostam takes Half-Light to Amsterdam … and more …
The ten-day EFG London Jazz Festival gets under way today and includes performances from three Nonesuch artists—Pat Metheny, Chris Thile, and Brad Mehldau—this weekend.
Pat Metheny and his quartet—drummer Antonio Sánchez, pianist Gwilym Simcock, and bassist Linda Oh—help kick off the festivities with a sold-out set at Barbican Hall tonight. From there, they head to the north of England for a concert at Hull City Hall on Saturday.
Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau, who began a European tour of songs from their self-titled debut duo album in Italy earlier this week, perform their own sold-out set at the Barbican as part of the festival on Sunday. Before then, they have a sold-out show at Paradiso Grote Zaal in Amsterdam on Saturday.
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Dan Auerbach plays as special guest of country legend John Prine this weekend, with shows at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, DC, tonight, and Altria Theater in Richmond on Saturday. Auerbach’s new solo album, Waiting on a Song, is out now on his label Easy Eye Sound (distributed by Nonesuch). Mojo gives the album four stars, saying it “confirms [Auerbach] as a craftsman of rare skill and few equals … Waiting on a Song is a triumph.”
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Fleet Foxes continue their European Crack-Up tour with a concert at Fabrique in Milan tonight and a sold-out show at Docks in Hamburg on Sunday. The Times of London says Crack-Up is “likely to be the most remarkable album you will hear this year … the return of one of the most original bands of this century." Uncut calls the album “astonishing … a recipe for total entertainment forever.”
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Rhiannon Giddens joins the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, along with Pokey LaFarge and Steep Canyon Rangers, for performances at Cincinnati’s Music Hall tonight, Saturday, and Sunday, to be recorded for the second volume in the American Originals series.
Giddens, whom Pitchfork praises as “a peerless and powerful voice in roots music,” embarks on a tour of the UK and Ireland next weekend. She has just been nominated for International Artist of the Year at the 2018 UK Americana Awards.
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Richard Goode gives a recital at Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall in San Diego on Saturday. The pianist performs selections from Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Schoenberg.
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Tigran Hamasyan returns home to Armenia this weekend, bringing music from his new album, An Ancient Observer, to the Gyumri V. Achemyan Town Drama Theatre on Sunday. DownBeat calls the album “simply breathtaking." The Huffington Post calls the pianist "one of jazz's most dynamic artists ... [T]he influences of the music are manifold ... though the Armenian influence, which makes his music so uniquely outstanding, is prominent."
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Lake Street Dive shares a double-bill with Grammy Award winner Bruce Hornsby at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium at St. Paul RiverCentre in Minnesota tonight. Billboard, in review of a concert earlier this year, says “Lake Street Dive electrifies.”
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Portuguese singer Mariza brings her tour of select US cities to Boston this weekend, playing City Winery tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. She concludes this run of dates, performing special acoustic sets of stripped-down traditional Fado, with a sold-out performance at New York City’s City Winery on Monday.
Mariza's album Mundo, which earned her the Songlines Best Artist of the Year award following its international release in 2015, was released in the US on Nonesuch in 2016. Songlines called it "an unalloyed triumph."
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Randy Newman brings music from his new album, Dark Matter, to the Charleston Music Hall in South Carolina tonight. The AP says Newman "is still at the top of his game." He "just gets better," says ABC News. "Dark Matter is the work of a master craftsman ... frankly brilliant."
Newman spoke with the Charleston City Paper ahead of tonight’s show; you can read the interview here.
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Rostam takes his European Half-Light tour to Melkweg in Amsterdam on Saturday. The tour concludes early next week with a sold-out show at Courtyard Theatre in London. The North American tour begins in January.
NPR calls Half-Light "stunning … one of the year's most arresting albums." The New Yorker says it’s "a wondrous album, full of coy dreams and quiet yearning." The Daily Beast calls it "sublime ... one of the more extraordinary records of the year."
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