As previously reported last fall, Tom Waits, Andrew Bird, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Steve Earle, Dr. John, Pete Seeger, and thirteen more of our favorite artists visited New Orleans, LA recently to record a benefit album for and with the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band. We didn’t have many details at the time, but now the release date is approaching (Feb 16) and the album’s distributor has posted a great teaser site, complete with a few streaming songs, video, pictures, and lots more.

We already knew that Tom Waits had recorded the earliest known recorded Mardi Gras song, “Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing,” but we now have the full track list as well. Check it out below and click here to stream full songs by Jim James, aka Yim Yames, Jason Isbell, Del McCoury, Buddy Miller, and Ani DiFranco. (There are also sound clips from Andrew Bird, Steve Earle, and others in the teaser video.)

Official Preservation Track List:

As previously reported, Tom Waits was in New Orleans, LA recently recording a benefit track for and with the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as well as a song for the next volume of Anti’s sea shanty series. Well, now we have the former track’s name, a stellar list of collaborators for the upcoming album, and a not so surprising release date.

According to PR Newswire, Waits collaborated on the song “Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing”, the earliest known recorded Mardi Gras song (abstract version from MMW and John Scofield here), for Preservation, a benefit album due out on Feb. 16 of next year, aka Fat Tuesday.

That would’ve been enough for a minor news update on the project, but check out some of the other artists contributing to the album:

Andrew Bird launched his fall/winter tour yesterday, which includes performances of his latest Nobel Beast at two U.S. churches, London’s Union Chapel, and a run of shows in Australia, but that’s not all he has in store. In a Q&A with BBC 6 published today, Bird revealed that he’s also scoring a film, building “a travelling museum show,” and contributing to an upcoming Sesame Street/Muppets covers record.

“This is the first legitimate full length film that I did,” Bird said of Norman, a film starring Adam Goldberg (also of the band LANDy) and Six Feet Under’s Richard Jenkins. “I had the monitor of the film in the studio and I’m playing. It’s a lot of work. I don’t know if I ever want to do it again.”

It isn’t uncommon for a stand-up comic to record an album of skits and songs, but when comedienne Margaret Cho set out to make her upcoming “comedy-as-rock” album Guitarded, she got a bit more serious, tapping some of the best musicians in the business, The Daily Times reports.

“I have been doing music in my comedy for a few years now, and so this album is a compilation of things I have done as well as some new original songs I have written with tremendous artists like Andrew Bird, Jon Brion and Patty Griffin,” Cho said.

There is no release date set and that title, Guitarded, is still tentative, but I’m pretty excited for this. Catch a glimpse of Cho’s singing skills from a recent performance of “25 Random Things” at Brion’s favorite haunt Largo here or below:

Yo-Yo Ma and Aretha Franklin are playing at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20th, but on the night before, nearby Washington D.C. club the Black Cat will be having its own inaugural party with Chicago-based acts Andrew Bird, Ted Leo, and Tortoise. The fête is being dubbed The Big Shoulders Ball: Chicago Celebrates Change.

For more info on the concert, visit Pitchfork here.

In other Andrew Bird news, you can stream his entire upcoming album Noble Beast on NPR’s site here.