"Exuberance and wisdom find equal expression in the music of Youssou N'Dour, the Senegalese singer, songwriter and ambassador," writes the New York Times in its recommendation of the Great African Ball, Youssou's all-night musical celebration in New York City. It runs tonight and tomorrow night and, says the Times, "is likely to be one of the year’s great musical events." The Village Voice also recommends this "mbalax marathon" for the ecstatic live set from "the continent's most inventive and internationally renowned musician."

Punch Brothers' US tour took them to the Walton Arts Center in Arkansas on Saturday, leading the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to state: "No matter what music they touched, the Punch Brothers were quite amazing." The review calls The Blind Leaving the Blind, from the band's Nonesuch debut, Punch, "the most impressive piece of the night." An examination of that piece in The Gospel & Culture Project concludes: "[Chris] Thile has made music that shakes fans out of genre-bound identities, challenges attention spans, and undermines pre-conceptions of where great music is to be found. TBLTB can teach listeners new ways to experience music."

Fresh off yesterday's five-star review in The Guardian, Bill Frisell's tour-closing concert at the Barbican earns another five stars, from the Financial Times. For the show, the Frisell Trio performed Bill's "spot-on score" that gave "a zesty sheen" to the films of Buster Keaton, Jim Woodring, and Bill Morrison, with the Trio's musical efforts "equal partner in the audiovisual experience." The paper sums up Bill's works as "a soundscape pregnant with humour, menace and the struggle to survive."

Bill Frisell concluded his Trio tour—playing music to the films of Buster Keaton, Bill Morrison, and Jim Woodring—at the Barbican in London on Saturday as part of the London Jazz Festival. The Guardian gives a perfect five stars to the performance, in which the Trio gave "all the light and shade needed to underpin three very different film-makers' visions ... Best of all were the Buster Keaton movies The High Sign and One Week, integrating music and vision so brilliantly it was impossible to think of the event as pure film or just jazz."

Punch Brothers are on the road again, touring the States, following Chris Thile's duo tour with bassist Edgar Meyer. Last night, the quintet performed at the University of Buffalo Center for the Arts. The Buffalo News says that as "Bach eventually begat Beethoven," so too has Punch Brothers taken "Bill Monroe’s speeded-up version of old-time country music and accelerating it into another century." The review calls Chris "ferociously gifted," Noam Pikelny's banjo playing "revelatory and a perfect counter for Thile’s high flying skills," and their bandmates' playing "masterful."

The Met premiere production of John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic concluded last Thursday; this weekend, the Atlanta Symphony will give a staged production of the piece. Tonight, the composer is at Harvard to lead a performance of The Wound-Dresser, followed by a discussion. The Boston Globe talks with the composer about this "particularly rich time" in his life, as "one of America's busiest and most original composers" and features a review of Adams's memoir, Hallelujah Junction, that concludes: "[T]his is a book that any aspiring artist, in any medium, should read as a kind of how-to guide to achieving artistic success without losing integrity, something that seems to many young artists today nearly impossible. In fact, it is a book for anyone who wants to create something—including a self."

Nonesuch Records is pleased to announce that singer/songwriter/guitarist Dan Auerbach, best known as half of The Black Keys, will release his solo debut, Keep It Hid, on February 10, 2009. Dan will begin a national tour with performances in New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC, with opening acts Those Darlins and Hacienda, the latter also lending support as Auerbach’s backing band.

Rokia Traoré's latest Nonesuch album, Tchamantché is due to hit stores in the US come January. It was released earlier this year in the UK to rave reviews. The Independent calls it her best yet and recommends her set this Wednesday at London's Jazz Café as a "show you shouldn't miss." The album earned a perfect five stars from The Guardian, which called it "an intriguing, sophisticated and often intimate set that is quite unlike any of the other great music Mali has produced." The Times gives the album four stars, exclaiming that with it, "the breadth of her artistic vision has emerged fully formed in her music." The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, and The Evening Standard all give Tchamantché four stars as well, and The Daily Telegraph named it Pop CD of the week upon its release.

Don Byron celebrates his 50th at New York's Jazz Standard with music from his Nonesuch catalog ... Kronos plays Adams's Fellow Traveler ... The Black Keys tour the UK with Liam Finn ... Shawn Colvin plays NY state ... Toumani Diabaté concludes his US fall tour ... Bill Frisell rounds out his European Trio tour of film music at the Barbican ... Emmylou Harris joins Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion ... k.d. lang closes out the latest leg of her Watershed tour ... Brad plays the Greek Theatre's final concert of the season ... the Nicholas Payton Quintet plays the high seas ... Joshua Redman plays Portugal ... Allen Toussaint does two dates in Virginia ... Dawn Upshaw brings Kurtág's Kafka Fragments to Lincoln Center ... and more ...

Toumani Diabaté's US fall tour comes to a close tomorrow night at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music after a show tonight at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. The Seattle Times reports from his "showstopper" performance at the Earshot Jazz Festival last weekend that "Diabaté did not disappoint" with "a sometimes diabolically impossible round of riffs and variations." The Minneapolis City Pages calls Toumani's latest release, The Mandé Variations, a "tour de force" and "a shimmering mix of traditional and startling experimental pieces played with the exquisite touch and resolute soulfulness that are his trademarks." Time Out Chicago calls it "exquisite" as well, and the Chicago Tribune says the new album from this "legend from Mali ... affirms that he's only gotten better and bolder" over the years.

Clarinetist/composer Don Byron celebrates his 50th birthday with a series of four different programs at New York's Jazz Standard, beginning tonight and running through Sunday. Opening the festivities this evening is Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz, in which Byron revisits his groundbreaking 1993 klezmer-rooted Nonesuch album of the same name. Next is music from Byron's classic 1996 release Bug Music, featuring works by Duke Ellington and others. On Saturday, the Don Byron Quartet takes the stage, and closing out the celebration on Sunday, Byron returns to his Nonesuch catalog and his Latin-focused 1995 recording, Music for Six Musicians.

Bill Frisell has been traveling across Europe with Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen playing film music to the films of Buster Keaton, Bill Morrison, and Jim Woodring. The trio will take the show to the Barbican in London this Saturday night as part of the London Jazz Festival. In a feature profile, The Times (UK) calls the mild-mannered guitarist "a one-off ... the Clark Kent of jazz guitar—beneath his mild exterior lurks a supernatural talent," and his latest release, History, Mystery, "delightful."