Brad Mehldau

[TommyRude]

Starting a thread to post up some of y’all's favorite performances and songs by this great keyboardist.  Here’s the one that got me started.  The subtle pauses/hesitations throughout are cool as s***.  I’m sure there’s a more appropriate musical term other than hesitation for those moments.

 

[CyberGene]

 

[AROIOS]

Both tunes sounded very boring to my crude ears, just like Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert.

I'm genuinely curious what you guys found intriguing in these two pieces.

[CyberGene]

1 hour ago, AROIOS said:

I'm genuinely curious what you guys found intriguing in these two pieces.

I actually like the studio version from his album and I initially posted it in my reply above but edited it later to replace it with a live version that is however a bit boring indeed. Here’s the studio version with sheet music:

 

 

If you still ask me what I love about it. Well, everything 😀 I love that it’s in odd meter, it’s kinda polyphonic, almost baroque-like, I like the (sometimes implied) harmonic progression, the left hand ostinati, his staccato accents. It just melts me and is so much different than anything else. I also experienced a jazz burnout 10 years ago and I couldn’t bear listening to jazz ever since. I occasionally enjoy analyzing chords and stuff but that’s rather an inertia. Jazz and jazz related music doesn’t bring me pleasure anymore. And that Mehldau composition is closer to classical music (classical music is my all time love, it’s the alpha and omega of my music tastes since it’s what hooked me to music as a kid and stronger as ever, as an adult). That’s why it still brings me an enormous musical satisfaction. But it’s OK if you don’t like it, we’re all different 😀 I see that we share almost the same fascination with harmony and music styles. Maybe the difference is I overate too much and seriously burnt out myself in the process😕 

 

1 hour ago, AROIOS said:

very boring to my crude ears, just like Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert.

That’s funny. It was the other day that I argued with some other guy on my forum about how I never liked the Köln Concert since it always sounded to me like a non-jazz pianist trying to imitate jazz 😀 Here it is:

https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/1322-brad-mehldau-interview/40

[jazzpiano88]

This is really great!  (I skipped much of the intro, which is also nice but I really like the tune).

 

 

[jazzpiano88]

4 hours ago, CyberGene said:

5 hours ago, AROIOS said:

very boring to my crude ears, just like Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert.

That’s funny. It was the other day that I argued with some other guy on my forum about how I never liked the Köln Concert since it always sounded to me like a non-jazz pianist trying to imitate jazz

 

That's very interesting!  I'm not a fan of much of that that concert either for an almost reciprocal reason -- it sounds like a jazz pianist trying to improvise bluesy pop.   Something Mehldau has managed to successfully pull of and has really perfected.   

[jazzpiano88]

Speaking of Resignation, this is very cool and has a nice transcript to go along.  

 

 

[JamPro]

6 hours ago, AROIOS said:

I'm genuinely curious what you guys found intriguing in these two pieces.

 

What I find intriguing - actually I find it jaw-dropping, not "intriguing" - is the muscianship.

[TommyRude]

6 hours ago, AROIOS said:

Both tunes sounded very boring to my crude ears, just like Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert.

I'm genuinely curious what you guys found intriguing in these two pieces.

I'm interested in the covers.  Blackbird, for example - I find it mesmerizing, I could put it on a loop and have it play for a hundred years.  There are scores of Blackbird covers, from locals to celebs, this surpasses them all in my view.  Part of it is the attempt to play guitar on the piano, extremely cool the way he has done it, on this and many others.  And it's not a fluke, happenstance, apparently he's been working on this for many many years, slowly but surely evolving, paring down to the bare emotional essentials.

[CyberGene]

18 minutes ago, jazzpiano88 said:

jazz pianist trying to improvise bluesy pop

Now that you mentioned it, I agree it can be put that way too 😀

[CrossRhodes]

TommyRude, very cool that you're getting into Mehldau! He is one of my favorite musicians and the pianist I have listened to the most over the past 30 odd years since first seeing him play in a room of maybe thirty people at the old Cafe Largo here in L.A back in the 90's. I wasn't really into jazz back then but the local indie radio station had his cover of Radiohead's "Exit Music" on rotation and it really grabbed me so when they mentioned some of his gigs around town, I went to check him out.

He has a huge catalog of recordings and I tend to prefer his trio or ensemble recordings. I've seen a lot of live music over the years but anytime I can catch Mehldau with his trio it is always a highlight for me. My post would get annoyingly long if I tried to list all of the recordings of his I like but here's a few from albums I seem to always come back to. 
 

 

 

[TommyRude]

Here's another one - I could put this on a loop and listen to it all day, all year.  Someone has listed the songs, easy to jump around.  Bittersweet and Nirvana to start, amazing.

 

[jazzpiano88]

5 minutes ago, TommyRude said:

I'm interested in the covers.  Blackbird, for example - I find it mesmerizing, I could put it on a loop and have it play for a hundred years.  There are scores of Blackbird covers, from locals to celebs, this surpasses them all in my view.  Part of it is the attempt to play guitar on the piano, extremely cool the way he has done it, on this and many others.  And it's not a fluke, happenstance, apparently he's been working on this for many many years, slowly but surely evolving, paring down to the bare emotional essentials.

 

You might enjoy this one.  I sure did.  Wow!

 

 

[AROIOS]

11 hours ago, CyberGene said:

I actually like the studio version from his album and I initially posted it in my reply above but edited it later to replace it with a live version that is however a bit boring indeed. Here’s the studio version with sheet music:

 

 

If you still ask me what I love about it. Well, everything 😀 I love that it’s in odd meter, it’s kinda polyphonic, almost baroque-like, I like the (sometimes implied) harmonic progression, the left hand ostinati, his staccato accents. It just melts me and is so much different than anything else. I also experienced a jazz burnout 10 years ago and I couldn’t bear listening to jazz ever since. I occasionally enjoy analyzing chords and stuff but that’s rather an inertia. Jazz and jazz related music doesn’t bring me pleasure anymore. And that Mehldau composition is closer to classical music (classical music is my all time love, it’s the alpha and omega of my music tastes since it’s what hooked me to music as a kid and stronger as ever, as an adult). That’s why it still brings me an enormous musical satisfaction. But it’s OK if you don’t like it, we’re all different 😀 I see that we share almost the same fascination with harmony and music styles. Maybe the difference is I overate too much and seriously burnt out myself in the process😕 

 

That’s funny. It was the other day that I argued with some other guy on my forum about how I never liked the Köln Concert since it always sounded to me like a non-jazz pianist trying to imitate jazz 😀 Here it is:

https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/1322-brad-mehldau-interview/40

Thanks for the thorough reply, brother.

I too, preferred the studio version you shared. The first minute and half is quite enjoyable. Afterwards it became too "mechanical" for my rustic ears, as do most Baroque pieces.

[AROIOS]

8 hours ago, jazzpiano88 said:

This is really great!  (I skipped much of the intro, which is also nice but I really like the tune).

 

 

I had the pleasure of hearing the backing track of Tony Bennett and Faith Hill's version of "The Way You Look Tonight" on a wedding a long while ago.
 

I was lucky. Both of Tony and Faith are great singers for sure, but in the original recording, their voices were a total distraction from Jorge Calandrelli's beautiful arrangement. It was traditional, effective and elegant.
 

Here's a snippet of a decent transcription of Jorge's work:
https://www.karaoke-version.com/karaoke/tony-bennett/the-way-you-look-tonight-duet.html

[Floyd Tatum]

I don't hear very much of what I call "jazz language".

[ElmerJFudd]

45 minutes ago, Floyd Tatum said:

I don't hear very much of what I call "jazz language".

Thank goodness.  Sometimes one plays to the tune.  

[jazzpiano88]

1 hour ago, Floyd Tatum said:

I don't hear very much of what I call "jazz language".

 

Sometimes they don't inform everyone.   New Jazz regulations come out every year and it's very difficult to keep up.

 

Older musicians are often deliberately left out of the loop, and before they know it......  it's too late.   They're not playing "Jazz" anymore and they only find out about it in the press.  That's why "labels" matter, and the key to being a recognized Jazz Musician is to make sure you have your jazz license updated and check in with a certified Jazz parole control officer weekly throughout the year.

[CrossRhodes]

20 hours ago, Floyd Tatum said:

I don't hear very much of what I call "jazz language".

 

 Occasionally Mehldau will throw the jazz police a bone just so they don’t revoke his license. 

 

 

[yannis D]

13 minutes ago, CrossRhodes said:

 

 Occasionally Mehldau will throw the jazz police a bone just so they don’t’ revoke his license. 

 

 

Some years ago a brave guy posted the full transcription of a Charlie Parker solo by Brad and his trio. He was playing somewhere in a hotel, many years ago, and the story said that he attacked the piece right after having breakfast 🥞😄😄😄😂 In each of the many choruses, a different jazz piano era pases by his solo, all with perfect accuracy, crazy speed and taste. The guy simply knew since his early 20s the full jazz piano literature in and out but he also commands newer music hipsters like AND classical idioms. His sense of polyphony and voice leading comes straight from Bach. I can't think of a better Keith Jarrett successor in our era 

[AROIOS]

10 hours ago, CrossRhodes said:

 

 Occasionally Mehldau will throw the jazz police a bone just so they don’t revoke his license. 

 

 

I recognize that room.
 

 

[TommyRude]

Maybe I'm Amazed

 

[CrossRhodes]

@TommyRude not sure if you caught these videos from nonesuch records. If not, I think you might enjoy them.

 

 

 

 

[AnotherScott]

On 2/29/2024 at 11:46 AM, jazzpiano88 said:

You might enjoy this one.  I sure did.  Wow!

 

That version of Still Crazy reminds me of a Charlie Brown special...

[Floyd Tatum]

I think maybe I'm starting to get Brad Mehldau....   makes a lot of sense

[TommyRude]

5 hours ago, CrossRhodes said:

@TommyRude not sure if you caught these videos from nonesuch records. If not, I think you might enjoy them.

I did, thank you!  I'm slowly making my way through, it's a journey 😁👍

[CrossRhodes]

2 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

 

That version of Still Crazy reminds me of a Charlie Brown special...

 

It's well documented that Mehldau is a huge Charlie Brown fan. It's even been reported that on the rare occasion he will rip off his shirt mid concert, exposing his Schroeder at the piano back tattoo and spend the rest of the evening feverishly improvising through rare B-Sides that only real CB special fans will know.

[TommyRude]

 

[AnotherScott]

My first impression of that version of "Old Man," once it passed the intro, was that it's terrible. It eliminates all the pathos of the original, and if I'd written the song, I'd say he ruined it, because the emotional intent is all wrong. Kind of like taking a song written in a minor key and doing it in a major key. But I wonder, if someone had never heard the original, had no familiarity with the words or original tone of the song, would this be a perfectly good piece on its own merits? I don't know the answer to that, because I can't "unhear" my knowledge of the original, and so my gut reaction to this remains that it is the musical equivalent of a fine meal that had been unfortunately regurgitated.

[TommyRude]

3 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

My first impression of that version of "Old Man," once it passed the intro, was that it's terrible. It eliminates all the pathos of the original, and if I'd written the song, I'd say he ruined it, because the emotional intent is all wrong. Kind of like taking a song written in a minor key and doing it in a major key. But I wonder, if someone had never heard the original, had no familiarity with the words or original tone of the song, would this be a perfectly good piece on its own merits? I don't know the answer to that, because I can't "unhear" my knowledge of the original, and so my gut reaction to this remains that it is the musical equivalent of a fine meal that had been unfortunately regurgitated.

I’m on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I think it’s incredible, other worldly.  And this is coming from a guy that grew up playing “California Rock”, Neil, CSNY, Eagles, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Loggins & Messina, more.  I consider Old Man a priceless treasure, to be exalted and revered for generations to come.  With all that, when I heard BM’s version, I was pleasantly shocked and hypnotized, a similar reaction to many of the other covers he’s doing.  I heard some years back, a cover is best when it meets or exceeds the original.  I think this meets that criteria, musically and emotionally, and pays profound respect to the original.