Brad Meldahu

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.

The members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)—reunite with the July 10, 2020 release of RoundAgain, the group’s first recording since 1994’s MoodSwing. The album features seven newly composed songs: three from Redman, two from Mehldau, and one each from McBride and Blade.

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.

Pianist Brad Mehldau blew up in the mid-’90s playing intense renditions of Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and the like, but he’s also famously covered rock and pop fare including Radiohead, Alice in Chains, Neil Young, Rush, and indeed The Beatles. But here is Mehldau going all in, at peak expressive form and technical command, alone with a phenomenal instrument in a superb-sounding hall (Philharmonie de Paris), offering an emotionally invested all-Beatles programme (save for one David Bowie anthem at the end). The song order flows beautifully. Mehldau opens up the forms, cannily orchestrates the melodies, departs in fascinating ways from the harmonies, in the end keeping it all about the song. The emphasis is generally later Beatles (“I Am the Walrus,” “She Said, She Said,” and “Golden Slumbers” are inspired picks), but Mehldau’s boogie-woogie treatment of “I Saw Her Standing There” takes it back—it’s him convincingly flexing pre-bebop stylistic muscles while finding openings for his own creative language to come through.

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.

Brad Mehldau’s Finding Gabriel includes nine thematically related songs by Mehldau and features performances by him on piano, synthesizers, percussion, and Fender Rhodes, as well as vocals. Guest musicians include Ambrose Akinmusire, Sara Caswell, Kurt Elling, Joel Frahm, Mark Guiliana, Gabriel Kahane, and Becca Stevens, among others.