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

A spectacular selection of blues veterans at their exhilarating best at various venues across the 'Old Continent'. Dr. Burt, Eddie Tigner, Alabama Slim, Pat "Mother Blues" Cohen and Albert White, joined by Pura Fe' for the occasion, perform their own brand of Southern blues, getting warm responses from rapt audiences everywhere. These "Lost and Last Blues Survivors" show no sign of wanting to retire!

In listening to the five years of the Brad Mehldau Trio represented in this box set, one hears the unfolding of a new and significant part of modern jazz history, as the end of the 1990s opened the door on the explosive creative renaissance of the music in the 21st century. Nonesuch has compiled the five releases in the Art of the Trio series, as well as an additional disc of unreleased recordings from the same period (1997-2001), offering a serious reconsideration of what has already been accepted as a "next step" for the jazz piano trio's history. On Vol. 1, Mehldau, bassist Larry Grenadier, and Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy intriguingly and seductively begin uttering the first sounds of their new language via Mehldau's originals, such as "Lament for Linus" and "Ron's Place"…

Three years passed between the release of the Brad Mehldau's Day Is Done and this live outing. What's so significant about this is simply that the former record marked the debut of drummer Jeff Ballard, who had replaced longtime kitman Jorge Rossy. Ballard is a more physical, busier, and more energetic drummer, allowing for Mehldau and bassist Larry Grenadier to up the ante in terms of dynamic and rhythmic options. Day Is Done offered a number of wonderfully contrasting moments where Mehldau, a big pop music fan from all eras, wove a tapestry from Burt Bacharach and John Lennon to Nick Drake and Colin Greenwood, from Paul Simon to Chris Cheek, as well as inserting a few of his own compositions.

Nonesuch Records labelmates mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau, longtime admirers of each other's work, first toured as a duo in 2013. At the end of 2015, they played a two-night stand at New York City's Bowery Ballroom before going into the studio to record Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, a mix of covers and original songs that Nonesuch releases on January 27, 2017, on two CDs / LPs. The vinyl edition includes a bonus performance of Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can." You can watch a live performances of the former above and the latter below.

Nearness finds acclaimed jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman and pianist Brad Mehldau teaming up for a set of loose yet heartfelt duo performances. Collaborators since they first began playing together in Redman's quartet in the early '90s, Mehldau and Redman have forged their own distinct solo careers. While they have continued to work together in various settings, the duo put a spotlight on their creative friendship with their 2011 tour. Nearness features live performances captured during the European leg of that tour, including tapings in Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Norway. These are dazzlingly collaborative performances that reveal Redman and Mehldau to be a highly intuitive and harmonically adroit team.

Brad Mehldau did an exceptional job of keeping his stellar trio together for seven years, as proven by his fine Art of the Trio dates and 2004's Anything Goes. But Jorge Rossy, the group's drummer, began spending more and more time away from music and at his home in Spain. Mehldau, who is almost prolific in his recording process, recruited drummer Jeff Ballard to replace Rossy on Day Is Done.

Composer and pianist Brad Mehldau is admired by jazz aficionados for his work with his eponymous trio, and soprano Renée Fleming is internationally renowned for her operatic performances and recitals of classical art songs. Knowing this, one might think that Love Sublime, Mehldau's and Fleming's 2006 release on Nonesuch, is a crossover album; yet while they are meant to appeal to a broad audience, Mehldau's original settings of poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, Louise Bogan, and Fleurine are serious modern art songs, and not the easy hybrids of jazz and classical they may appear to be.

House on Hill may be a new recording, but the material is not. Virtually everything here was written, according to his liner notes like Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau writes about himself best in a session done in 2004 which yielded 18 songs with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy. The decision was made to split the sets into originals and covers. The covers became 2004's Anything Goes.

Nonesuch releases the Brad Mehldau Trio’s Where Do You Start, a companion disc to this spring’s critically acclaimed Ode, on September 18, 2012. Whereas Ode featured 11 songs composed by Mehldau, Where Do You Start comprises the Trio’s interpretations of ten tunes by other composers, along with one Mehldau original. Ode was widely praised, with London’s Daily Telegraph, in a five-star review, saying that it “shows Mehldau’s inventive powers are as fresh as ever … and the interplay with Ballard and Grenadier is masterly.” The Brad Mehldau Trio is Mehldau on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Jeff Ballard on drums.