“To try to define Mary Halvorson solely by the term ‘guitarist’ is to do both her and her art a disservice, as she’s unlike any other guitarist currently playing today,” says Matt Byars, co-host of NPR’s Essential Tremors. “Halvorson’s work is vibrant and alive, agile and electric, fluid and inventive, all of which are particularly in evidence on her latest release.” She talks with Byars and his co-host Lee Gardner about songs by Jimi Hendrix, Yusef Lateef, and Robert Wyatt that helped shape who she is. You can hear why on the episode, a collaboration with Big Ears Festival, where Halvorson will perform this spring, here.

Natalie Merchant, whose new album, Keep Your Courage, is due April 14, performs the title track to her 2001 album Motherland in a new Blackberry Sessions video. She was joined by guitarist Erik Della Penna in making the video while at Blackberry Farm in Tennessee in November as part of its annual Americana Music Association weekend. You can watch it here. Merchant will tour the US tour this spring, going into the fall. European dates will be announced shortly.

Congratulations to David Byrne, who has been nominated for an Academy Award, with Ryan Lott (of Son Lux) and Mitski, for Original Song, for "This Is a Life," from the Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert film Everything Everywhere All at Once. You can hear it here. The film has received eleven Academy Award nominations, including Son Lux for Music (Original Score), another track from which features Randy Newman. The 95th Academy Awards will be held in Hollywood, airing live on ABC, on Sunday, March 12.

NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross aired an encore broadcast of Rachael & Vilray's 2020 interview on the show today to mark the release of the duo's new album, I Love a Love Song!. They spoke with producer Sam Briger and performed music from their 2019 self-titled debut album. You can hear the episode here.

To celebrate today's forty-fifth anniversary of the release of Kate Bush's single "Wuthering Heights," Nonesuch releases a Kassa Overall remix of Cécile McLorin Salvant’s interpretation of the classic song, from her 2022 Grammy-nominated album, Ghost Song. The Guardian called the album track "a stunning, ethereal cover," the New York Times called it "blazing," and Vanity Fair called it "addictive." Overall is a Grammy-nominated musician, emcee, singer, producer, and drummer who melds avant-garde experimentation with hip-hop production techniques to tilt the nexus of jazz and rap in unmapped directions. 

On his new album, COOKUP, due February 24, Sam Gendel and his friends and collaborators Gabe Noel and Philippe Melanson interpret R&B and soul hits originally released between 1992 and 2004 by Ginuwine, 112, Aaliyah, All-4-One, Soul 4 Real, Beyoncé, Joe, Erykah Badu, Mario, SWV, and Boyz II Men. Preorders include their take on 112’s "Anywhere," with Meshell Ndegeocello on vocals. "COOKUP marks another chance to convene with my good friends Phil Melanson and Gabe Noel," says Gendel. "For this occasion we hovered over a particular flavor: jams that we grew up with. We sculpted in sound our collective memories of this music. Meshell Ndegeocello took the 112 to another dimension (shoutout wayne12)."

Rachael & Vilray are on New Sounds' Soundcheck to talk with host John Schaefer about their new album, I Love a Love Song!, and perform three songs from it—"Is A Good Man Real?," "Hate Is The Basis (of Love)," and "Join Me in a Dream"—at WNYC Studios in New York City. You can hear the episode and watch the performances here.

Composer John Adams, in a new video from his publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, discusses how great operas throughout history confront deep issues of our human existence, and how contemporary operas—including his own Doctor Atomic, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Nixon in China—explore themes of humanity, intolerance, and power through the lens of recent history. You can watch it here. All of the above and more are included in the forty-disc box set John Adams Collected Works released last year on Nonesuch.  Adams will conduct his opera Girls of the Golden West performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, featuring Julia Bullock among others, at Walt Disney Concert Hall, January 27–29.

Molly Tuttle performs “Castilleja,” from her Grammy-nominated album with Golden Highway, Crooked Tree, in a new video made at Blackberry Farm in Tennessee during its annual Americana Music Association weekend. You can watch it here.

I Love a Love Song!, the second album from Rachael & Vilray, is out now. The album features eleven new songs written by Vilray plus the 1930s classic "Goodnight My Love" written by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel. "This is a beautiful collaboration," says BBC Radio 2's Jamie Cullum. "I totally and utterly love that ... I will be listening to that throughout the year." "I Love a Love Song! is a truly lovely album, front to back," says No Depression. "More than anything, it’s two accomplished solo performers coming together with a mutual respect and love of musical standards with the goal of responding in kind." You can watch a new live performance video of the album track "Hate is the Basis (of Love)" here.

Makaya McCraven, Jeff Parker perform as part of NYC Winter JazzFest. Laurie Anderson is at SFJAZZ. Julia Bullock joins Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Jeremy Denk, Rhiannon Giddens are at Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Gabriel Kahane performs from Magnificent Bird in NYC. Brad Mehldau, Cécile McLorin Salvant join Blue Note at Sea. Mandy Patinkin kicks off tour in Pennsylvania. Joshua Redman is at Tucson Jazz Festival. Chris Thile is solo in Paducah.

Vagabon (aka Lætitia Tamko) releases a new song, “Carpenter,” today. The single, co-produced by Tamko and Rostam, is her first newly created solo music since her 2019 critically acclaimed self-titled album. “‘Carpenter’ is about that humbling feeling when you desperately want to be knowledgeable, you want to be advanced, you want to be mature, forward thinking, and evolved,” Tamko explains. “It’s about being confronted with your limitations. It’s about that a-ha moment, when a lesson from the past finally clicks and you want to run and tell someone who bore witness to the old you, ‘I finally get it now.’” Vagabon will join Weyes Blood on tour this spring.