Wilco, fresh off last night's rocking sold-out set at Coney Island's Keyspan Park, is set to perform on Late Show with David Letterman tonight. The group will play "You and I," the Wilco (the album) duet with Leslie Feist, who will join the band for the show, as she did on Coney Island last night. Following last week's concert at Wolf Trap, outside DC, the Washington Post says the band offered "something for everyone ... all delivered in the tightest possible package." France's Télérama gives the album a perfect "four keys." The Daily Telegraph gives four stars to the new album, "a collection of unflaggingly high-quality, Beatles-y tunes ... with a yearning, uplifting summery spirit." The Scotland Herald says, "The whole album is beautifully produced and suffused with a kind of mature smarts ... It's great to have them back, America's best band."

Shawn Colvin's Live album was released late last month on Nonesuch, and, says MusicOMH in its four-star review, "a live album is long overdue ... [T]his career-spanning selection of songs could easily be a wish list for any fan," he states, "but also serves as fine introduction to a singer-songwriter who is frequently mentioned in the same breath as James Taylor, Lucinda Williams and Joni Mitchell." Shawn is set to begin a run of solo dates this week, opening for Jackson Browne on Thursday. She spoke with Popdose, which calls her "one of the leading lights of 'Americana' music and perhaps the most important singer/songwriter—male or female—of the last 20 years."

Ry Cooder's three-week tour through Europe with Nick Lowe came to a close in Liverpool on Saturday with "an understated concert of music that captured an air of simplicity, honesty and restrained virtuosity," says the Liverpool Daily Post. "Ry, it’s great to see you back playing live where you belong." The Guardian gives four stars to last week's concert in Gateshead, asserting, "Cooder belongs to the elite group of guitarists, Eric Clapton and BB King among them, whose style can be identified by a single note." The Scotsman gives a perfect five stars to Thursday night's set in Edinburgh: "Cooder showed why he's considered the best slide player in the world." The Herald gives rates it five stars as well, saying the set "confirmed Cooder's status as the king of slide guitar."

Malian songstress Oumou Sangare’s Sunday performance at the Central Park SummerStage concert series in New York City is the subject of a review in Tuesday’s New York Times, in which critic Ben Ratliff writes that “the ancient lived with the new” in her set, which “started at a run and yanked you in.”

Joshua Redman wraps up a three-day engagement at the Montreal International Jazz Festival tonight at the Théâtre Maisonneuve, featuring the band from his recent Nonesuch release, Compass. In anticipation of the performance, Redman was profiled in the Montreal Gazette, which describes Compass as "a refined experience," featuring "sound sculptures straddling the line between freedom and formalism."

Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris conclude the Three Girls and Their Buddy tour ("a delight," Seattle Times) ... Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe play London's Drury Lane ... Bill Frisell's Quartet is in Iowa City for free Jazz Fest ... Gidon Kremer closes Sigulda Festival with Gala Concert ... Kronos Quartet play pieces from Floodplain at the Traumzeit (Dreamtime) Festival ... The Low Anthem opens for M. Ward in Utrecht, plays in London's Hyde Park ... Brad Mehldau solos in Italy ... Joshua Redman has a hatrick at the Montreal Jazz Fest ... Oumou Sangare joins Béla Fleck at Caramoor and SummerStage ... Allen Toussaint plays Joe's Pub ... Wilco's at Red Rocks with Okkervil River ... and more ...

Oumou Sangare begins a two-week tour of North America tonight in Chicago's Millennium Park, performing songs from her latest album, Seya. She heads next to the Caramoor Festival to meet up with Béla Fleck and his Africa Project for the first of several performances together. "Of all Mr. Fleck’s endeavors, his Africa Project may be the most ambitious," says the New York Times. "Among the most fruitful of his interactions has been one with the Malian diva Oumou Sangare." The two perform at New York's SummerStage on Sunday. Says the Village Voice, "Her music is surging and propulsive, a shimmying pitter-patter of guitar, violin, percussion, and vocal chorus." Time Out calls her "Africa's answer to Aretha Franklin—silky smooth one moment, and capable of soaring power the next. Her current album, Seya, translates as 'joy,' a perfect summation of her music."

Steve Reich's latest creation, 2x5, premieres tonight on a double bill with pioneering electronic music group Kraftwerk, in a sold-out concert to open the Manchester International Festival. Bang On A Can performs the piece with the composer in the sound booth. The piece builds on the framework of Reich's 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning work, Double Sextet. The Star-Ledger writes of a recent performance of Double Sextet that "both the piece itself and the sense of lifetime achievement came through in full glory." The Guardian, in a feature on the composer, writes, "Reich has been composing for more than 40 years. In that time, he has seen the music he is most closely associated with ... seemingly emerge from nowhere to become one of the dominant musical forms of the age."

Wilco (the album) is out now, and, while the band is on tour, the celebration is on in the group's hometown of Chicago. Reviews continue to come in from the UK: The Observer says it's "undeniably lovely." The Sunday Express gives it a perfect five stars calling it "an album of delicate, compact pop so perfect that the moment it ends you’ll want to play it again." The Times gives it four stars, calling it "a definitive work" for the band, with "several of the most emotionally generous songs of [Tweedy's] life." The Contra Costa Times calls Saturday's show at Berkeley's Greek Theatre a "magic night," the band "at its musical peak," and its performance "flawless."

Allen Toussaint performs at Joe's Pub in NYC ... David Byrne closes out US tour at Berkeley's Greek Theatre with Devotchka ... Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe take the tour to Italy and Switzerland ... Christina Courtin plays first of two shows in Philly ... Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin celebrate Kate Wolf at memorial music fest ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica open Latvia's Sigulda Festival ... The Low Anthem plays Glastonbury and Hyde Park ... Brad Mehldau performs in Portugal ... Pat Metheny, Gary Burton Quartet are up for a flurry of festivals ... Punch Brothers play Largo in LA ... Wilco, Okkervil River head to Northern California and Tahoe ... and more ...

The Low Anthem's recent Nonesuch release, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, has made Paste magazine's list of the Best Music of 2009 (so far), assembled by Associate Editor Kate Kiefer. She dubs it her "favorite discovery this year." Drowned in Sound rates it an 8 of 10. "Part of what makes this album so compelling is purity, and purity, when done well, is hard to knock," reads the review, which hears an apt comparison to Tom Waits. "Just as Waits has the power to infuse you with familiarity with the return of a chord, so do the songs of Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, like an embroidered pillow on an old porch that says 'home sweet home.'"

Earlier this month, Amadou & Mariam enjoyed a smashing headlining tour of the Eastern US and Canada behind their new release, Welcome to Mali, and are getting ready to hit the American roads again, opening for Coldplay in July. Amadou spoke with The Onion's A.V. Club about the new album and its collaborations with Damon Albarn and K'naan. "No longer content with being classified as world music," says the A.V. Club, Amadou & Mariam "are going global ... [and] have taken advantage of their newfound celebrity to promote African unity, as well as a vision of their home continent free from outdated stereotypes and centuries-old conflicts."