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Brad Mehldau Trio: Ode
ByWhile Mehldau's trio was his primary focus for the first decade of his career, the past seven years have seen him busier in a multiplicity of contexts, from solo performances like the stellar Live in Marciac (Nonesuch, 2011) and the ambitious Highway Rider (Nonesuch, 2010), with its larger cast of characters, to collaborations with guitarist Pat Metheny on Metheny Mehldau (Nonesuch, 2006) and Quartet (Nonesuch, 2007), and his more recent trifecta with pianist Kevin Hays and composer/arranger Patrick Zimmerli, Modern Music (Nonesuch, 2011). If Mehldau's trio plays fewer gigs and records less often these days, that just means that any release is to be eagerly anticipated, and Ode doesn't disappoint.
Ode represents Mehldau's first set of entirely original compositions for trio since Rossy's swan song, House on Hill (Nonesuch)released in 2005 but largely recorded in 2002. That a decade has passed means considerable growth for Mehldau the writer, who covers a lot of territory, from the vibrant opener dedicated to the late saxophonist Michael Brecker to the loose funk of "Dream Sketch," which reflects the same ongoing interest in song form that's compelled Mehldau to cover artists like Radiohead and Nick Drake on previous recordings. That doesn't mean Mehldau's lost sight of the jazz tradition: the ambling and aptly titled "Bee Blues," with its hint of Thelonious Monk-like idiosyncrasy, features Larry Grenadier, Mehldau's bassist of choice since 1995; while the incendiary "Stan the Man" swings at an almost impossible tempo made effortless by Grenadier and Ballard, with the pianist turning in one his most impressive solos of the set, executing a series of blinding unison passages with both hands.
Mehldau's ability to accomplish seemingly impossible feats for two hands has also given him additional compositional flexibility; driven by Ballard's hand-played percussion, "Twiggy" may sound like two pianists, but anyone who's watched the DVD of Live in Marciac knows this is the work of a single set of two hands.
Few bassists are as instantly responsive as Grenadier, and in more open-ended environs like the rubato "Wyatt's Eulogy for George Hanson"which ultimately dissolves into the freest piece in Mehldau's entire trio repertoireit's the group's inestimable collective empathy that makes it so important and influential. Mehldau may no longer make this trio his primary focus, but with Ode, he makes crystal clear that it remains a vital one, with less frequent releases only serving to more vividly highlight the quantum leaps that Mehldau, Grenadier and Ballard make, both individually and collectively, year after year.
Track Listing
M.B.; Ode; 26; Dream Sketch; Bee Blues; Twiggy; Kurt Vibe; Stan the Man; Wyatt's Eulogy For George Hanson; Aquaman; Days of Dilbert Dilaney.
Personnel
Album information
Title: Ode | Year Released: 2012 | Record Label: Nonesuch Records
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Brad Mehldau Trio
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brad mehldau
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Jorge Rossy
Jeff Ballard
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Larry Grenadier
Ode