Wilco's set at the Troxy in London last night was the first of three sold-out shows with Blitzen Trapper in Britain and Ireland this week (and marked Jeff Tweedy's 42nd birthday). The Evening Standard gives the show four stars, praising "the quality of the tunes" from throughout the group's seven-album repertoire, Tweedy's "bittersweet vocal and the band’s brilliant musicianship."

Wilco has been in Europe all month stopping at the major summer festivals. After Sunday's Green Man Festival in Wales, The Independent praised the band's "masterful performing" in a set that "proved why they are one of the best live acts around." Wilco closes out its European tour this week with three sold-out shows, tonight's at The Troxy in London and two later this week at Vicar Street in Dublin.

"If you asked a room full of music critics to list the greatest American rock bands performing today, chances are a large majority of them would mention Wilco," says CBS Sunday Morning in its profile of the band. Rolling Stone's Austin Scaggs tells CBS that Wilco's "got it all ... great lyrics, great melody, great emotion," placing Jeff Tweedy among the "true songwriters," like Bob Dylan.

Allen Toussaint brought his inimitable style to both coasts of North America over the past few days, including sets in Boston, New York, and Vancouver. At Thursday's shows at Scullers in Boston, "the 71-year-old New Orleans icon used," says the Boston Herald, "the power of music to smother us Yankees in Big Easy love," including a "jaw-dropping" medley of tunes. "The audience ate it up."

Bill Frisell's Disfarmer features music inspired by the work of the late photographer Michael Disfarmer. Chuck Helm, the Director of the Performing Arts at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, first introduced the guitarist to Disfarmer’s work hoping for such a result. Frisell tells the Columbus Dispatch, in an article about the local connection, "Your imagination can really go far with any of them ... There are so many stories."

Wilco is on the road in Europe, but US fans are getting some close-up time as well: a feature profile of the group is slated to air on CBS Sunday Morning this weekend. With the Europe tour closing next week in Dublin, Jeff Tweedy spoke with the Irish Times about the joys of making music, concluding: "Music is part of your life, and it enriches your perspective and appreciation for being alive."

Shawn Colvin joins Nanci Griffith at a concert to benefit The Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago ... Carolina Chocolate Drops begin their tour in Baltimore and DC ...  Bill Frisell Trio's in Michigan for the Hoxeyville Music Fest ... Allen Toussaint plays free Lincoln Center Out of Doors set in NYC ... Sara Watkins solos at Wisconsin's Lake Superior Big Top ... Wilco concludes European festival tour ... and more ...

After taking Europe by storm earlier this summer, Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe have announced a month-long tour through Japan, Australia, and New Zealand for late this year, beginning November 4 in Nagoya, Japan, and winding up in Perth, Western Australia, December 1. As he did on the European tour, Ry's son Joachim Cooder will join the tour on drums, and singer Juliette Commagere will return as special guest vocalist.

"Disfarmer Theme," the opening track to Bill Frisell's Disfarmer, has been selected as Song of the Day by Jazz.com, rating a 96/100. "This opening track sets the stage for 25 more songs on a CD that is destined to be one of the defining moments in Frisell's career," says the site. "[He] may have found a sound palette from the past which also serves as a fresh beginning—an achievement all the more striking given this artist's own expansive personal legacy."

John Adams, the artist-in-residence for this year's Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center, followed the highly successful three-night run conducting his opera A Flowering Tree—"one of the festival’s hottest tickets," according to the New York Times—by leading the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in what the Times calls "vigorous, richly detailed performances" of three of his works at Alice Tully Hall Monday night.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops, after a few months at home to welcome into the world "the newest Droplet," Rhiannon Giddens's daughter Aoife Armentha Laffan, and prepare the group's Nonesuch debut, are set to hit the road once again for a 29-date US tour, beginning this Friday at Rams Head Live in Baltimore and running through November. And now, you can help spread the word by joining the band's new street team.

Jim Dickinson, the famed pianist, producer, and a central figure in the Memphis music world, died last Saturday, August 15, at the age of 67. Over the years, Dickinson contributed to a number of seminal albums, including Aretha Franklin's Spirit in the Dark, the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers, Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, and, not least, nearly a dozen records with Ry Cooder, including Nonesuch's Hurricane Katrina benefit album, Our New Orleans.