Long Ago and Far Away captures pianist Brad Mehldau and bassist Charlie Haden in a live duo performance recorded during the 2007 Enjoy Jazz Festival in Mannheim, Germany. One can hardly think of a more compatible pairing, with both Mehldau and Haden embodying an introverted, harmonically rich, and endlessly inventive jazz paradigm.
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.