Brad Mehldau - Anything Goes

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• MEHLDAU BRAD ANYTHING GOES

Music reviews of Anything Goes

Music Review: Standards of excellence
Rating: 5 Stars

But they fooled me. They've done something different, something a lot riskier and much more difficult to pull off: They've taken a very careful look at these tunes and uncovered previously unthought of approaches. Each tune is probed for its emotional center, and then, once it is found, is constructed in such a way as to bring that out optimally. For example, with the fairly well known Monk tune, "Skippy," they quite precisely delve into its bop roots, revealing a depth of understanding of this quirky genius as more than merely someone who wrote melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically tricky tunes but someone who was at the very heart of the bop revolution.

Perhaps the most remarkable cut on the disc is their wacky take on the Charlie Chaplin standard, "Smile." Featuring an enticing left hand piano figure, the melody is initially given to Larry Grenadier on bass. When Mehldau finally states the melody about three and a half minutes into the piece, he does so in a rather tentative, herky-jerky, sprung-rhythm way, emphasizing their total understanding of the inherent irony of the piece. Thus, this is no mere deconstruction; rather it is a kind of smart overstatement, designed to highlight an aspect of the tune that too often gets overlooked, or, if touched on, doesn't get handled properly.

Nearly as revelatory is their reading of "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face." Here, there's a kind of off-kilter nostalgia that spookily adds a soupcon of weariness to the usual straightforward understanding of this piece's trajectory, turning it away from one of mere happiness and turning it into one of gratitude and hard-won joy though quiet celebration. Thus, their performance exhibits a profoundly nuanced understanding of the hidden ambiguity lurking just below the surface of this piece, vaulting it out of its usual precincts of felicity into a more realistic and subtle understanding of what lifelong commitment to a partner means.

The overall vibe here might be mistaken for world-weariness, but that's not it. It's something deeper, something hard to put into words, something that resembles resignation, but is more like seeing things through after the glow's worn off. And the mood, though a little on the somber side, also contains more than just a bit of solemn joy

A controversial aspect of this group has been its typical inclusion of contemporary tunes such as, on this disc, "Everything in Its Right Place," by Radiohead. The question arises: Do they include tunes like this merely to broaden their appeal to a younger audience, hook in new listeners, and thus sell a lot more records? To put it crassly: Is this anything other than a marketing ploy?

I don't think marketing has a whole lot to do with it. These are pretty young guys who probably've listened to Radiohead quite a bit over the years, and have come to appreciate them as artists. The fact that including songs by them turns out to be a clever move marketing-wise doesn't mean that was their motivation. And even if it was, so what? Shouldn't jazzers be allowed to grab a piece of that huge pop-music pie? Anyway, they're certainly not the only ones doing it. What about Herbie Hancock's New Standards disc, or The Bad Plus's cover of Aphex Twin or Blondie or Kurt Cobain?

But there's more to than just than that. Part of it is that as artists you really have to like and to have listened to the music. Otherwise, you won't be able to get proper access to it, and it'll come out sounding like parody or cynicism. But not only do you have to like it, you have to see its possibilities for improvisation. And since you're probably going to be connecting with an audience much wider and more diverse than Radiohead fans, you'd better make sure that the tune you cover and how you do it has musical integrity per se.

In any case, this is a thoroughly remarkable, the most mature and accomplished (in my opinion) from this brilliant trio. I too am looking forward to their upcoming disc of new material, but I don't think this one should be downgraded because it is essentially a standards disc. It's what they do with these standards that makes it so entirely engaging.

An outing not to be missed.

Description of Anything Goes

Broadway & Vocalists CDs

• Music > Styles
• Jazz
• Pop