Brad Mehldau - p
Larry Grenadier - b
Jorge Rossy - d
The concert took place in a grand old theatre with huge marble pillars and high domed ceilings covered in frescoes. I was sitting up in the nose-bleed third balcony and when the lights dimmed, a beautiful sight was revealed: the cones of light the projectors that the spotlights left on the dust particles hanging in the air coming through golden arches. I could also look down upon the pretty Flemish girls and that one woman in a sparkly dress.
The trio came out and set off on Thelonious Monk's "Off Minor." It recieved much applause, but I found the performance rather poor: it was the tamest Monk rendition I'd ever heard. There was no sense of adventure or risk-taking and, crucially, little rhythm to Mehldau's playing. I've always thought that playing Monk was primarily about rhythm (take Roswell Rudd, Ben Riley and even Fred Hersch with Nasheet Waits on the former's recent live album, just to point out a random few), so when it's not there... When Larry Grenadier took a brief solo, the song breathed again - everything he plays seems to have such life to it.
Then came Cole Porter's "I Concentrate on You," with a light Latin beat. Here, Mehldau was far more in his element as he sang out the melody and improvised just as melodically. The concert was gathering steam. After the song he launched into a fairly long talk. Nothing remarkable about that, except that he did it all in Dutch. Not flawless Dutch and not always comprehensible (my Dutch is roughly as good as his, and we speak it for the same reason: women. His (and singer Fleurine's) kid is real cute, too.).
Radiohead is a Mehldau fixture, and this time "Knives Out" was played. Later on, he played Nick Drake's "River Man," which was transfixingly beautiful. For me, Mehldau really has a great feel for conveying Drake's and Thom Yorke's weird voices through the piano. Not just the notes, but the emotions contained within them. On "Knives Out" the first 2/3rds of his solo were fully contrapuntal and extraordinary, as he managed to land on the theme's familiar chords from completely unexpected places.
The Radiohead was followed by "All the Things You Are," a staple in Mehldau's repertoire. The intro to this piece was the highest point of the concert and nearly made me cry. Mehldau played densely polyrhythmic and, again, contrapuntal lines that seemed to rework the composition 3 or 4 times in the space of a few minutes. I know some people find his left hand exertions irritating, but I love them and those were a few minutes of overwhelming beauty and technique.
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
I'd guess that the Beatles song he covered was either "Dear Prudence" or "Mother Nature's Son," both of which are available on my favorite album of his, Largo. I've listened to it a number of times now, but Anything Goes leaves me cold for the most part - Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place" is the only real highlight I've found so far, unfortunately. Of the six of his albums that I have, this one just doesn't appeal to me much.
2 - mwanji
I don't think it was "Mother Nature's Son" (have you heard the version of that he does with Joel Frahm? Fantastic!). I'm far from a Beatles-ophile, though.
"Anything Goes" isn't viscerally exciting. I find that it's more about the band perfecting its craft, but I still like it. The Radiohead cover is the weakest of the series to date, IMO.
The most stunning Radiohead cover is a piano solo version of "Paranoid Android" I found on slsk. Mind-blowing. While you're on slsk, try to find live in stockholm 2001. There are a couple great performances on there.
3 - BJ
FYI - He's playing at Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco this weekend (double bill with Wayne Shorter!), as part of SF Jazz.
Friday was Jason Moran w/ Sam Rivers and Reggie Workman (double bill w/ Andrew Hill Quartet) and Tues/Wed it's The Bad Plus at Yoshis.
Just call it hot-young-pianists-week in SF.
4 - splitred
Of the Meldau stuff I've heard (not that much - I'm pretty out of it lately), I've mostly enjoyed his solo stuff. What I think really makes him unique among jazz pianists is his ability to improvise counterpoint, which I think comes both from his extraordinary ambidexterity and from his deep knowledge of the classical repertoire and theory. Sometimes I wish his touch were a little jazzier, but that's really nitpicking (a specialty of mine).
Anyway, it's tempting to characterize all the praise and publicy that's been heaped on him as hype, but I really think that he may so good as to be almost beyond hyperbole.
I think I've finally settled upon a blog name that I like.
5 - mwanji
I saw Jason Moran's trio back in November, it was awesome! Review here, if anyone's interested.
"What I think really makes him unique among jazz pianists is his ability to improvise counterpoint"
Definitely. It seems to me that he's stretching that ability too. In the 2001 bootleg I mentioned before, he does a long, awesome contrapuntal intro, but it's harmonically not that daring. The intro to "All the things you are" at the concert described above was more adventurous, almost "out" at times. But I'd have to go back and check the other albums to see if this is really a progression or simply a matter of his mood at the time.