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Brad Mehldau Trio
Progression: Art of the Trio, Volume 5
Warner Bros. 2A48005-B
July 2001
Brad Mehldau interrupted his ongoing Art of the Trio series with last year’s
anomalous Places. Now the series resumes with Progression, a
live double-disc package containing 136 minutes of music. Like Mehldau’s
previous live records, this one features a great deal of stretching out.
Loosely speaking, disc one focuses on standards, including uptempo versions
of "The More I See You" and "Alone Together." The latter, played in seven (with
a stunning solo piano intro), segues directly into a brief "It Might As Well Be
Spring," also played in seven, as it was on Mehldau’s very first record. Disc
two is evenly split between standards and originals. Of particular interest
is "Secret Love," done as a ballad, and "Resignation," which Mehldau first
performed solo on 1999’s Elegaic Cycle.
All of Mehldau’s telltale signatures are here: altered root motion and meter on
standard tunes; extended, ethereal vamps; flowing, virtuosic intros and
cadenzas; blindingly fast tempos juxtaposed with ballads so slow that they seem
to hover. With the reliable help of Larry Grenadier and Jorge Rossy, Mehldau
brings his art to ever more musical places. Without a doubt, his trio remains
one of the most identifiable groups in jazz, and Progression is one of
its most substantial documents to date. ~David R. Adler
Disc One 1. The More I See You 2. Dream’s Monk 3. The Folks Who Live on the
Hill 4. Alone Together 5. It Might As Well Be Spring 6. Cry Me a River 7. River
Man
Disc Two 1. Quit 2. Secret Love 3. Sublation 4. Resignation 5. Long Ago and Far
Away 6. How Long Has This Been Going On?
Brad Mehldau, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Jorge Rossy, drums
Brad Mehldau, Elegiac Cycle and Art of the Trio 4: Back at
the Vanguard (CD, 56:47 and 75:51); Warner Bros. 47357-2 and
47463-2, 1999
Warner Bros. Records
75 Rockefeller Plaza, 20th Floor
New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-275-4500
Cyberhome: www.wbjazz.com
Some jazz musicians warn against excessive talk and analysis,
insisting that the music be allowed to speak for itself. Brad Mehldau
does not belong to this school of thought. Reading his self-authored,
exhaustive (exhausting?) liner notes to both these albums, a critic
might be tempted to throw up his hands and conclude that nothing more
can possibly be said. These mini-essays constitute some of the
heaviest music criticism you're likely to read anywhere. But count on
Mehldau to put his money where his mouth is, for the music on these
discs is also some of the heaviest you'll ever hear. Elegiac
Cycle is all solo piano, while Back at the Vanguard is a
live trio recording-volume four of Mehldau's celebrated Art of the
Trio series.
On Elegiac Cycle, one can readily imagine how the trio
would sound backing him on the knotty 7/8 "Resignation" or the
thundering "Memory's Tricks." Conversely, on "Lament for Linus"-the
only previously recorded composition-we get to hear the tune laid
bare, without the band accompaniment familiar from volume one of the
trio series. It's like examining Mehldau's compositional prowess
under a microscope. The beautiful "Bard" opens and closes the record
in picture-frame fashion, and "Goodbye Storyteller" steals the show,
its grandeur greatly enhanced by Mehldau's explication in the liner
notes.
The new trio release is every bit the aesthetic onslaught
we've come to expect from Mehldau and his cohorts Larry Grenadier on
bass and Jorge Rossy on drums. They play "All the Things You Are" in
a quick seven, and somehow the done-to-death standard is reborn.
"Sehnsucht," which closed Mehldau's previous trio recording, here is
given a relatively laid-back treatment. And Radiohead's "Exit Music
(For a Film)," which also appeared on the previous CD, is stretched
to twice the original length and brought to a much more intense boil.
Four consecutive tracks, "Nice Pass," "Solar," "London
Blues," and "I'll Be Seeing You," display Mehldau's fertile, varied
approach to straightahead jazz forms. "Nice Pass" is rhythm changes
stretched to epic proportions, interspersed with tightly arranged
cues and feel changes. "London Blues," a tune from Mehldau's first
album, is accelerated and given a blistering rundown. It's a
visionary take on the blues and probably the best track on the
record. "I'll Be Seeing You" could not be simpler, and in that sense
it's the flip side of "Nice Pass," with its hall-of-mirrors
construction. With this no-frills rendition of a beautiful old
standard, Mehldau puts in a word for transparent melodicism,
establishing its validity alongside the staggering complexity found
elsewhere. Mehldau made a similar gesture by including "Moon River"
on his previous live record.
Miles Davis's "Solar" is taken at a burning tempo and
stretched to its harmonic limits. Oddly enough, however, the out
melody is played completely straight and the track ends on a stark,
plain-and-simple downbeat. Mehldau often ends his songs and even his
solos in this way: abruptly and with a simplicity that seems
humorously at odds with the tumultuous waters he stirred up only
moments before. Perhaps this is part of what Mehldau has in mind when
he writes: "So much of Western art has self-consciously striven to
appear artless; jazz has the unique distinction of artlessly becoming
artful."
~David R. Adler
Lee Konitz/Brad Mehldau/Charlie Haden, Another Shade of Blue
(CD, 67:51); Blue Note 98222
Blue Note Records
304 Park Avenue South, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10010
Phone: 212-253-3000
E-mail: dlmedia@earthlink.net
Cyberhome: www.bluenote.com
Put these three highly individualized players in a room together and
the music will take to glorious flight. It's that simple. This
drumless trio thrilled us back in 1997 with Alone Together,
and they're back to thrill us again. No surprises in the format
department: once again, the saxophonist, pianist, and bassist
ruminate at length on a set of often-played standards. In lesser
hands the conventional repertoire and subdued vibe could induce
yawns. But combine Konitz's alto hues with Mehldau's harmonic
thickets and Haden's unerring pocket, and you're on the edge of your
seat through seventeen-plus minutes of "Body and Soul."
Konitz and Mehldau vary the sonic palette by playing
"Everything Happens to Me" as a sax/piano duo, with Haden laying out.
Konitz solos and "That Old Black Magic" floats by for a second,
evaporating as soon as it appears. Mehldau begins his dissection of
"What's New" with a detour into "Young and Foolish," and Haden sticks
to him like glue. Consistently, the young pianist provides Konitz
with chordal roadmaps that verge on telepathic. Haden solos tenderly
on "Body and Soul," on the slow-blues opener "Another Shade of Blue,"
and on "All of Us," an apt closer based on "All of Me" changes.
This trio represents three generations, and each player in
his own way has made bold strokes without abandoning the tradition.
Konitz, elder statesman and traditionalist, fit right in with
not-so-traditional trumpeter/composer Kenny Wheeler on his 1997 ECM
release, Angel Song. (That album, incidentally, also featured
a drumless ensemble.) Haden helped birth the avant-garde with Ornette
Coleman and yet can play the hell out of the mainstream with pianist
Kenny Barron. And Mehldau, with his own extraordinary trio, has made
a mark by stretching conventional forms to their breaking point, with
increasingly explosive results. Another Shade of Blue, like
its predecessor, is an important historical document, showing how
three musicians spanning the latter half of jazz's century have
chosen to interpret their inheritance, never once losing sight of
what really matters: making beautiful music.
~David R. Adler
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