Rokia Traoré's Tchamantché hits stores worldwide tomorrow after its European release late last year led to its inclusion in many critics' year-end best lists. The New York Times picks the album for this week's Critics' Choice, crediting Rokia for "creating her own radically delicate fusions" and calling the album her best, with music that "carries the plucked modal patterns of Malian tradition toward contemplation and intimacy." The Canadian Press calls it "a quiet, subdued album whose genius lies in each song's arrangement, the combination of modern and traditional elements and the intensity of Rokia Traoré's voice ... It's an album you'll want to maintain in a prominent place among your music collection." The Scripps Howard News Service gives it four stars and says the power of her music comes not from belting out but from "her persuasive use of subtlety ... the power of understatement."

New York Times music critic Jon Pareles visits some albums he missed in 2008 amidst the deluge of new releases and recommends Sam Phillips's Don't Do Anything as one that was "worth the wait." Through the songs' Beatles-esque sound and "casual, confiding side" of Sam's vocals, says Pareles, comes "the terse elegance of songs about love gone bad and the lessons and possibilities it leaves behind, songs that only become more telling because they stay so deliberately unadorned."

The Scripps Howard News Service gives four stars to Joshua Redman's new album, Compass. "For most of us, jazz is someone else's music," asserts the reviewer. "Those who want to give jazz an opportunity to be more than that should start with something such as Compass." Noting the atypical, multiple trio formats featured on the album, the review suggests that "aficionados might marvel at Redman's innovative recording technique ... What's more significant is that Compass is a tempting invitation to potential new fans." The LA Times states: "Even outside of the new configuration, Compass finds Redman and his band stretching out with flashes of unpredictability and raw emotion."

Mandy Patinkin began his ten-day residency at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in London's West End last Thursday. The Independent gives the production four stars, saying this "meaty solo show" features "a programme that reveals not only Patinkin's range of emotional colours but also his technical virtuosity. From the baritonal hinterland of his vocal engine to those trademark high notes, the skirmishes between registers simply dissolve and the sound is as pure as breathing. Numbers that demand leaping nimbleness and difficult tonal coloration ... are despatched with seamless liquidity and utter conviction."

The Black Keys close out their summer swing through the Southern Hemisphere with three more dates in Australia ... Bill Frisell's five-night residency at the Blue Note New York with Ron Carter and Paul Motian continues through the weekend ... the Pat Metheny Group plays a Blue Note on the other side of the world, rounding out its tour of Japan ... Mandy Patinkin's ten-night residency at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in London's West End is under way ...

Joshua Redman calls Compass, his forthcoming album, "an expansion on, and an extension of, Back East," his acclaimed 2007 trio session. "And he's not wrong," says the BBC, which calls the album "a dazzling album of considerable artistry ... Compass is the sort of serious-minded album that gives jazz in 2009 a very good name." The Guardian and The Scotsman both give it four stars, with the latter calling it "an exciting and inventive disc" and "the most spontaneous-sounding of Redman's recordings." All About Jazz exclaims that the saxophonist "has produced the most singular album of his career so far," calling it Redman's "first undeniably colossal album."

Toumani Diabaté’s The Mandé Variations has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding World Music Album. Audra McDonald was nominated for two acting awards, for her work on the TV series Private Practice and on the TV movie A Raisin in the Sun. President-elect Barack Obama, the subject of many of the works in the Image Awards' literature categories, chose Kulanjan, Diabaté's 1999 collaboration with Taj Mahal, as the only CD on his Borders Shortlist recommending five things to read, watch, and listen to.

Mandy Patinkin celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first performance at New York's Public Theater last month with a two-week run of concerts at the famed venue. Starting this Thursday, Mandy takes the show to the UK for a ten-day residency at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in London's West End. While the New York performances included three distinct programs—Dress Casual, Celebrating Sondheim, and Mamaloshen—the London shows are simply titled Mandy Patinkin in Concert and will feature works by a range of celebrated songwriters and composers.

"If it's difficult to describe the music that Chris Thile has been making since before he reached puberty, that's just the way he likes it." So says Frank Oteri in his introduction to an interview with Thile for New Music Box. "But even by his standards," Oteri continues, "the projects he's gotten involved with in the past couple of years completely confound expectations." Among those projects are Punch Brothers and its Nonesuch debut, Punch, and his self-titled debut duo record with bassist Edgar Meyer. "Now," Oteri suggests, "everything and anything is possible."

Christina Courtin, the New York City–based singer/songwriter/violinist, is due to make her Nonesuch album debut this year. She starts the year off with a performance in the city this Thursday night at Le Poisson Rouge, with singer/pianist/composer Gabriel Kahane opening. The New York Times says Courtin's voice "feels uniquely otherworldly, as if it couldn’t possibly be entirely human born." Time Out New York lists her among the people to watch in 2009, praising "her commanding, undulating voice" and finding in her songs "an exquisiteness that extends beyond any genre ghetto."

Betty Freeman, an ardent supporter of contemporary composers like John Adams, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, died at her home in Los Angeles this past Sunday, January 4, at the age of 87. Freeman will be remembered for her commitment to new music, commissioning such seminal works as Reich's Different Trains. She was also an accomplished photographer, deftly capturing the composers she supported, as in the cover photo of the Steve Reich's Works: 1965-1995, pictured here, taken during a 1976 rehearsal of Music for 18 Musicians.

John Adams's memoir Hallelujah Junction was featured on 2008's final episode of NPR.org's Book Tour, which broadcast a reading from the book the composer gave in November. The show's host calls Adams "one of America's leading avant-garde composers, and as he proves in this compelling memoir, possibly one of the loveliest human beings you're likely to encounter between the covers of a book." She describes his compositions as "erudite, philosophical, but spun through with the play and polish of popular culture."