Brad Mehldau has written an essay regarding his song "The Prophet Is a Fool," from his new album, Finding Gabriel, and the video for it featuring animation by Dima Drjuchin, to "explain a bit of the personal emotions and politics that went into it." You can read it here.

Kronos Quartet hosts its fifth hometown festival at SFJAZZ; Sam Amidon performs … John Adams conducts LA Phil New Music Group … Jeremy Denk performs with Toronto Symphony … Emmylou Harris joins Brandi Carlilie at The Gorge … Brad Mehldau Trio is in Tokyo … Gaby Moreno tours Northeast with David Gray … Mountain Man is in New York State … Joshua Redman tours Europe with Reis Demuth Wiltgen Trio … Chris Thile hosts Live From Here from Wolf Trap … Yola concludes UK tour … and more ...

Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Records debut album, Live in Tokyo, first released on September 14, 2004, will make its vinyl debut fifteen years later, on September 13, 2019. The vinyl edition, made with Run Out Groove, comprises the original album's eight tracks plus seven tracks previously available only on the Japanese edition. This triple-LP set, pressed on 180-gram vinyl, is available to pre-order now. "Few pianists can match Brad Mehldau when it comes to cross-fertilizing jazz, classical, and rock," said JazzTimes. "The same applies for technique, taste and intellectual curiosity. All of those qualities are on display [here]."

Daughter of Swords, aka Mountain Man's Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, has shared a video for "Shining Woman," from her upcoming album, Dawnbreaker. "The vision of this powerful person alone on a bike trip not asking permission from anyone appeared out of nowhere, and took up residence in my mind," she says of the video. "Like my subconscious staging an intervention and reminding me that I haven't died, there are no rules, and that I have the power to make different choices for myself." You can watch it here.

Robert Plant will launch a new podcast series, Digging Deep, on June 3. Hosted by music journalist Matt Everitt, it uncovers the moments, people, and places that have inspired some of his most treasured music. The series goes on a path that starts in the Midlands, leads to Led Zeppelin, and takes the listener around the world, discussing people and places that have inspired some of his music. "I am going to be picking out some songs from here and there along the way mixing constant shifts in sound and intention from across this long old time," says Plant. 

Lake Street Dive's own Rachael Price was on public radio's Live From Here from St. Louis. She joined host Chris Thile and the band, which included Gabriel Kahane and Punch Brothers' Chris Eldridge, on several songs, including "Lullaby of Broadway," in tribute to Doris Day, and Tom Waits's "Take It With Me." Kahane also performed his song "October 1, 1939 / Port of Hamburg" with St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. You can watch all three here.

Devendra Banhart has announced a 23-city North American tour for autumn 2019, beginning October 15 in Ventura, CA, and continuing through December 8 in Philadelphia, with stops in Chicago, Austin, Brooklyn, Washington, DC, and more. Banhart has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from every US ticket sold (excluding Austin) will go to World Central Kitchen, an organization founded by José Andrés to fight hunger around the world. With every ticket bought in Canada, $1 will go to support Rainbow Railroad to help LGBTI people around the world escape persecution and violence.

Congratulations to Brad Mehldau, who has won the Edison Award for Best International Jazz for his 2018 solo album, After Bach. The album pairs Mehldau's recordings of four preludes and one fugue from J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier with an After Bach piece written by Mehldau and inspired by its WTC mate. "Mehldau's interpretations of Bach's compositions are in themselves a tribute to an underexposed quality of Bach," says the citation, "namely that of a great improviser." The annual Dutch music prize will be presented in a ceremony and concert at LantarenVenster in Rotterdam on July 7.

This Memorial Day weekend, Chris Thile hosts Live From Here from St. Louis with guests Gabriel Kahane, Rachael Price … Rhiannon Giddens continues Boston Pops residency performances … Brad Mehldau Trio plays South Korea … Gaby Moreno tours Texas with David Gray … Yola takes Walk Through Fire tour to Milan, Nottingham …

Congratulations to Jonny Greenwood, whose score to Paul Thomas Anderson's film Phantom Thread won the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Film Score in a ceremony held in London earlier today. The soundtrack includes eighteen compositions by Greenwood and was recorded in London with a sixty-piece string orchestra. IndieWire calls it "a masterpiece," naming it one of the century's best.

"Though the exact day is not known, it was fifteen years ago that Lake Street Dive became a band," says Rachael Price. "McDuck wrote our name on the chalkboard of a practice room and it was done. We didn’t know each other that well. We had zero idea of what kind of music we would play. We certainly didn’t know that fateful day marked the beginning of the longest platonic double date of my life. We have been through so much together ... Happy Fifteenth Bandiversary, y'all!"

Rhiannon Giddens, who begins her four-night residency with the Boston Pops titled Redefining American Music tonight, stopped by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to perform a few tunes in the museum's Musical Instruments Gallery. She takes a look at the MFA's historical banjo collection and plays one of the banjos and sings, with Carolina Chocolate Drops' Hubby Jenkins on bones and Jason Sypher on bass. You can watch it here.