Brad Mehldau - Live in Tokyo
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Artist: Brad MehldauEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2004-09-14
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
- Things Behind The Sun - Drake
- Intro - Mehldau
- Soemone to Watch Over Me - Gershwin/Gershwin
- From This Moment On - Porter
- Monk's Dream - Monk
- Paranoid Android -Yorke/O'Brien/Greenwood/Greenwood/Selway
- How Long Has This Been Going On? - Gershwin/Gershwin
- River Man - Drake
Music reviews of Live in Tokyo
Music Review: variety show
Rating: 4 Stars
The funniest moment in this exciting live recording comes during "Monk's Dream," when Mehldau abruptly quotes Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" and begins playing around with that famous and delightful motif, eventually metamorphosing it back into Monk's classic tune. The pairing of these two jazz composers really works for me, as there is a fresh, child-like quality that pervades the work of both. Mehldau's development, though, is extremely thick and complex. Arguably, this material might have been better served by a more spare approach (which is not to say simplistic, as Monk is anything but). Then again, this resembles the maximalist way Coltrane tended to approach Monk's music.
Gershwin's "Someone to Watch over Me" has long served as a vehicle for solo piano improvisations. It was a particular favorite of Art Tatum, who threw down the gauntlet to posterity with his virtuoso wizardy. Oscar Peterson recorded a superb version in 1968, and it has been tackled more recently by such luminaries as McCoy Tyner (1988), Chick Corea (1993), Keith Jarrett (1999), and Benny Green (2001). Despite all this competition and historical baggage, Mehldau's version is both original and convincingly fresh. His only new composition here is a beautiful "Intro" to this song, setting the stage for a lyrical approach rather than the more typical Tatum-esque workout. The song builds expansively to a long passage that shows, as did certain parts of _Elegiac Cycle_, Mehldau's occasional stylistic affinities with minimalism.
Mehldau then deconstructs Cole Porter's "From This Moment On." Interesting and impressive, but I'm ready to put Ella on now.
A sprawling twenty-minute version of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" is the centerpiece of the album. Personally, this has less charm and appeal for me than did the earlier and far more compact studio recordings of Radiohead songs: "Exit Music (for a Film)" and "Everything in Its Right Place."
Then, in another unlikely juxtaposition, it's back to Gershwin--this time, "How Long Has This Been Going On?" Well, quite a while at this point. My (perhaps somewhat old-fashioned) ear is now ready for a good, familiar tune, and Mehldau delivers, with a slinky, funky, slow-drag performance (weaving in some "Ol' Man River" for good measure). Beautifully done.
In addition to the Radiohead epic, the program opens and closes with haunting songs by Nick Drake. Mehldau has certainly piqued my interest in this cult figure, for he was clearly a songwriter of unusual gifts. I really applaud Mehldau's willingness to use such material as vehicles for jazz improvisation (and his overall eclecticism), because the so-called standards of yesteryear were fresh as daisies when jazzmen like Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Lester Young, Benny Goodman, etc. first began recording them in the early thirties.
This isn't my favorite Mehldau recording, but it's an important and welcome addition to his growing catalog and further evidence in support of the claim that he's the most exciting and titanically creative jazz pianist to have emerged since Keith Jarrett.
Description of Live in Tokyo
On Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch debut, he interprets in a live solo performance material from such varied composers as the Gershwins, Theolonius Monk, Nick Drake and Radiohead. Longtime fans of Mehldau's recordings with his celebrated trio are accustomed to such wide-ranging taste.Brad Mehldau has followed his musical inclinations into some surprise territories. First gaining attention as a member of Joshua Redman's quartet in the early 1990s, he could have easily been expected to unfold a new traditionalist's approach to jazz. Instead he's taken that formidable grounding and attached it to a wide range of compositional explorations. The solo piano Live in Tokyo is framed by a pair of Nick Drake compositions, and in between are pieces by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Thelonious Monk, and Radiohead, along with one original. The material is all linked by Mehldau's focus on melodic identity and harmonic invention. He succeeds in finding the stately heart of each number, with Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" sounding perfectly natural alongside Gershwin's "How Long Has This Been Going On?" --David Greenberger
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