Olivia Chaney kicks off a three-week North American tour featuring music from her debut album, The Longest River, at Roulette in Brooklyn on Wednesday, culminating in a return to NYC for a show at Joe's Pub on June 25. "With an earthiness to her expressive soprano, Chaney is bringing the grand tradition of British folk music into the 21st century," says the New Yorker. "Baez, Collins, Mitchell, Marling," exclaims PopMatters; "the debut folk album by Olivia Chaney shows that she belongs in this company. It's pretty much perfect."

Rhiannon Giddens joins Branford Marsalis and Friends for a special North Carolina Symphony benefit concert in Raleigh tonight. On the program, she performs the title track to her new album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, as well as other classic tunes including "La vie en rose." While preparing for the concert, she recorded an intimate guitar-and-vocal version of the song made famous by Edith Piaf on a video you can watch here. Giddens' tour continues next week at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, one of several festival sets to come, including Bonnaroo and Telluride Bluegrass. She begins a tour of the UK and Europe at the end of the month.

Devendra Banhart and his band toured South America in 2014 with music from his Nonesuch Records debut album, Mala. Artist and filmmaker Adam Tullie was there to capture the trip and has created a short film, set to a selection of Banhart's home demos and one of his poems. "The overall landscape is beyond beautiful, strewn with lush color and tropical flora," says Tullie, with whom Banhart is releasing an art book. "The people reflect this; lively, bright, and full of love." Watch it here.

Sam Amidon made his Mountain Stage debut on NPR last week, now available online at npr.org. Amidon performed two songs from his latest album, Lily-O—"Walkin' Boss" and "Blue Mountains"—and two from his 2013 Nonesuch debut album, Bright Sunny South—"Short Life" and "As I Roved Out." "A gifted multi-instrumentalist, Amidon made a name for himself in his teens as a fiddler," says NPR. "In the years since then, he has stretched comfortably from old-time music into styles ranging from free jazz to alt-folk." Amidon resumes his North American tour in Boston on June 14.

Conor Oberst kicks off a spring tour of the United States at 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia, on Wednesday, followed by stops in Wilmington and Boston, all with support from Larkin Poe. The tour continues with a set at The Governors Ball in NYC and late-night show in Williamsburg on Saturday, followed by a late-night Governors Ball After Dark show in Williamsburg; sold-out concerts in Maquoketa, Iowa, his hometown of Omaha, and Lincoln, Nebraska, all with support from The Felice Brothers; and a culminating set at Rock the Garden at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, the debut album from the eponymous quartet, is out now in North America (June 8 for the rest of the world). "The album is a knockout," exclaims the New York Times. "It is impressive how much vital presence [Redman] brings to the Bad Plus without altering the band’s dynamic." It's "a roaring and beautiful summit meeting," says NPR. "The ideas are impressive by themselves, but become more powerful as Redman and the rhythm section go about developing them ... [T]he real triumph of The Bad Plus Joshua Redman: It exhibits genuinely fresh thinking." The Bad Plus Joshua Redman begins a world tour in NYC June 10.

As part of its tenth-anniversary commemoration of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity (NOAHH) has begun a ten-day, ten-home building blitz called Rebuilding America Street, in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity International's AmeriCorps Build-A-Thon. Nonesuch and Warner Bros. Records staff members are proud to join the Build-A-Thon from Memorial Day through its culmination on Saturday, May 30. In 2005, Nonesuch released the benefit album Our New Orleans, proceeds from which supported NOAHH's building of homes for Musicians' Village in New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward.

This Memorial Day weekend, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell take their Traveling Kind tour to Texas and South Carolina ... Sam Amidon is on NPR's Mountain Stage ... Laurie Anderson performs in Germany ... Devendra Banhart tours Spain ... Jeremy Denk plays Czech in London ... Rhiannon Giddens is in Augusta, Georgia ... Brad Mehldau, Mark Guiliana join forces as Mehliana in the Netherlands ... Robert Plant kicks off tour in Pacific Northwest ... and more ...

Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters kick off their spring and summer tour, featuring music from the album lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar, at the Sasquatch! Festival in George, WA, this Sunday. The North American dates include a return to Bonnaroo and finish off at the Mann Center in Philadelphia on June 17. The Pixies will open five of the shows, and JD McPherson five. The UK and European leg of the tour begins July 10 and runs into August.

The Black Keys resume their Turn Blue world tour with a performance at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Spain, next Thursday, May 28. The tour continues into August with festival sets in Greece, United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, and United States, including Governors Ball, Isle of Wight, Outside Lands, and many more. 

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, whose self-titled debut album is due out next week in North America and June 8 elsewhere, performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival in 2014, when Redman was Artist in Residence there. NPR's Jazz Night in America was there to capture the new quartet, fresh out of the studio. Watch the performance and an interview with the band here. The new album is streaming in full till May 25 as an NPR First Listen. The quartet kicks off a tour at the Blue Note Jazz Festival on June 10.

As David Letterman prepares his final episode as host of the Late Show tonight, the Nonesuch Journal takes a look back at some of the many memorable performances Nonesuch artists are fortunate to have played on his stage in the Ed Sullivan Theatre (and in one case, the fire escape outside it) over the years, from The Black Keys, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Punch Brothers, Wilco, Rhiannon Giddens, Conor Oberst, Lianne La Havas, Laurie Anderson, Randy Newman, and others. Thanks for the music, Dave.