Brad Mehldau Live In Marciac (2011) [2cd+dvd] { Nonesuch} [re Up]

This Special Edition three-CD set features the three 1972 concert recordings from which the classic Made in Japan album was selected, remixed, and remastered. It's almost complete - a few encores and two songs from Made in Japan had to be left off, as the remaining tracks clock in at over 230 minutes. Deep Purple played almost exactly the same set each night, so there's a lot of duplication here, but they're in fantastic form throughout most of the performances. The second show, over half of which did make it onto Made in Japan, burns brilliantly and white hot from start to finish, and there are other new highlights as well, including the wailing encore "Black Night." Only you can decide if you need three 20-minute versions of "Space Truckin'," but for fans this is a valuable set - not only for comparative listening (Jon Lord never plays the intro to "Child in Time" the same way twice)…

Live in London is a live album from Deep Purple. It was recorded on 22 May 1974 at Gaumont State in Kilburn by the BBC for radio broadcast, but was unreleased on vinyl until 1982. It features the Mk 3 lineup of Blackmore/Coverdale/Hughes/Lord/Paice during the tour for their album Burn.

During her long career, every once in awhile Ella Fitzgerald would attempt to "get with it" and record contemporary pop tunes. In 1968 for a live concert with a big band and the Tommy Flanagan Trio, the First Lady of the American Song did what she could with such unsuitable material as "Hey Jude," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Watch What Happens" and "A House Is Not a Home." The results (despite her sincerity) sometime borders on the embarassing; there is no way anyone can swing "Hey Jude." A few of the other numbers (particularly "Give Me the Simple Life," "Old Devil Moon" and "Love You Madly") are of a higher quality but when Ella tries to turn "Alright, Okay, You Win" into funk, it is time to switch records.

Brad Mehldau’s Variations on a Melancholy Theme will be released June 11, 2021, on Nonesuch Records. The recording features the pianist/composer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which commissioned this orchestral version of the work, which comprises a theme and eleven variations plus a cadenza and postlude; the album also includes an encore, “Variations ‘X’ and ‘Y.’” You can watch a video with excerpts from the piece below. (Mehldau originally composed Variations on a Melancholy Theme for pianist Kirill Gerstein.) Mehldau and Orpheus toured Europe, Russia, and the US with the piece, including a 2013 performance at Carnegie Hall. Speaking to the combination of classical form with jazz harmonies in the work’s musical language, Mehldau wrote, “I imagine it as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues.”

The members of the legendary original 1990s Joshua Redman Quartet—Joshua Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)—reunited after twenty-six years after their 1994 debut album, MoodSwing, for 2020’s RoundAgain; they return now with LongGone, out now. The new album features original Redman compositions from the RoundAgain recording sessions, plus a live performance of the MoodSwing track “Rejoice,” captured by SFJAZZ at the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

While sheltering at home with his family in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic, Brad Mehldau wrote 12 new songs about what he was experiencing; he was able to record them safely in an Amsterdam studio, along with tunes by Neil Young, Billy Joel, and Jerome Kern, for the album 'Suite: April 2020.

Pianist Brad Mehldau's debut as a leader features his straight-ahead style in trios with either Larry Grenadier or Christian McBride on bass and Jorge Rossy or Brian Blade on drums. The well-rounded set is highlighted by tasteful and swinging versions of five standards (including John Coltrane's "Countdown," "It Might As Well Be Spring," and "From This Moment On") and four of the pianist's originals. This CD serves as a fine start to what should be a productive career.

Trust Gianna Nannini to come up with a provocative album cover. Her big break came 30 years previously with California and its infamous portrait of the Statue of Liberty holding a vibrator in place of a torch, and on 2011's Io e Te she proudly displays her belly pregnant with her first child, at the tender age of 56 – news that sparkled a debate in Italy about a woman's proper age to conceive…