Brad Mehldau After Bach II & Après Fauré

It was on a Sunday, on September 19, 1993 to be exact, that Charlie Haden heard Brad Mehldau for the first time. Charlie and I were walking through the halls of the Hidden Valley Resort located in the Laurel Mountains in southwest Pennsylvania. The resort was sponsoring a jazz festival and Charlie had just finished an interview after which we needed to get back to the hotel room in order to prepare for Charlie’s sound-check and concert that night. As we hurried through the hall, one could hear, from behind the closed doors of the auditorium we passed, the sounds of a concert in progress.

Fresh Sound New Talent series features emerging artists mainly from New York or Barcelona. The label produced the debut recordings of Brad Mehldau, a key figure on today’s world stage. Having formerly released the Mehldau-Rossy Trio “When I Fall in Love”. In these two CDs the trio joined the Spanish altoist Perico Sambeat. The quartet confidently stretches out in a variety of tempos and feels, captured live at the Jamboree Club in Barcelona in 1993.

Nonesuch Records released pianist and composer Brad Mehldau’s Ride into the Sun—a songbook record of music by the late singer, songwriter, and guitarist Elliott Smith—on August 29, 2025. Featured musicians include singer/guitarist Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear); singer/mandolinist Chris Thile (Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek); bassists Felix Moseholm (Brad Mehldau Trio, Samara Joy) and John Davis (who also engineered and mixed the album); drummer Matt Chamberlain (Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, Randy Newman); and a chamber orchestra led by Dan Coleman, who also conducted on Mehldau’s 2010 album Highway Rider.

Largo was recorded in 2001 and is the first record of Mehldau’s that departs from either the piano trio or solo format. It can be seen as the culmination of musical experiences that he gathered while living in Los Angeles, most notably the music he heard at Largo, a club in Hollywood he went to regularly and pays tribute to in the title of the record.

Brad Mehldau Trio - The Art Of The Trio (2011) [7CD BoxSet] {Nonesuch}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.42 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.03 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 591 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2011 Nonesuch Records | 7569-79839-5
Jazz / Post Bop / Progressive Jazz / Piano

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.

Virtuoso pianist Brad Mehldau continues his Art of the Trio series with a two-CD set titled Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression. Recorded live at the Village Vanguard in New York City, this volume is his most satisfying triad outing yet. The trio opens disc one with a swinging up-tempo rendition of "The More I See You" and, for over ten minutes, Mehldau improvises his swinging instincts with his well-organized rhythmic partners, drummer Jorge Rossy and acoustic bassist Larry Grenadier. His original "Dream's Monk" features an extended variation on his profoundly introspective bebop. This composition is the centerpiece of disc one, which otherwise features covers of such standards as "Alone Together," "It Might as Well Be Spring," and "The Folks Who Live on the Hill."

Brad Mehldau is becoming a more interesting, more thought-provoking, more individualistic musician with each release – breaking away from the same old models, finding new ones to integrate into his own personality. The 11 compositions on this CD were conceived on the road, and only midway through did Mehldau realize that they developed similar ideas.

Anything Goes was recorded on a two day session in September of 2002. Two records came out of the date, one of all originals, the other of standards and covers. ‘Anything Goes’ is the latter. Mehldau returned to the studio with his longstanding trio with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jorge Rossy on drums. The trio teams up with two other old colleagues as well here: Matt Pierson, who initially signed Mehldau to Warner Brothers and produced several of the earlier trio records, and James Farber, the renowned recording engineer who also recorded several of the trio records.