Jazz Articles about Brad Mehldau

Brad Mehldau: Excitement and Energy

by Nenad Georgievski
February 13, 2007

It's not easy to be a musician these days. There may well be more critics than musicians, but looking at any genre's past there's an enormous amount of music created by thousands of musicians. Still, very few of them can be considered groundbreaking artists who have expanded, informed and enlivened the genre they work in. Ironically, some of the things that have made pianist Brad Mehldau popular inside and outside the jazz tradition are his non-jazz instincts and musical tastes.

Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Metheny Mehldau

by Stephen Wood
February 1, 2007

For anyone who forgot how the intimacy of a guitar and piano duo could emblazon musical ideas, just look to Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau's first collaboration, Metheny Mehldau. In many ways this record continues the conversation between guitar and piano begun by Jim Hall and Bill Evans nearly fifty years before.

But that is not to say that Metheny and Mehldau have fallen into predictable patterns. Both have managed to preserve unique voices that propitiously bolster the ...

Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Metheny Mehldau

by CJ Shearn
October 24, 2006

This collaboration between Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau reveals them to be a perfect match for each other. Although they have contrasting, profoundly personal approaches, they share a certain admiration for each other's music. Metheny was transfixed upon hearing the pianist's playing on the minor-key piece “Chill, from Joshua Redman's Moodswing (Warner Bros, 1994), while “Are You Going With Me? from the Pat Metheny Group's essential Travels (ECM, 1983) was the tune that converted Mehldau to a lifelong appreciation. This ...

Wordy Gurdy Man

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
October 16, 2006

It has been said that if Bill Evans were alive today, he'd be clawing desperately at the inside of his coffin. If you were of a mind to, you could delve deeper into that statement and see it as a validation of the current state of Our Music, that the legendary pianist would be keen on seeing some of the great talents of the present. Or, you could see it as an indictment of jazz's status quo, that Evans would ...

Brad Mehldau: House On Hill & Metheny Mehldau

by Russ Musto
October 8, 2006

Brad Mehldau House On Hill Nonesuch 2006 Pat Metheny Brad Mehldau Metheny Mehldau Nonesuch 2006

Although Brad Mehldau's mastery of the standard jazz repertoire is a significant source of his popularity, it is but one facet of his talent. Mehldau's importance as a composer has been overlooked, perhaps because his distinctiveness ...

Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Metheny Mehldau

by Steve Holtje
October 8, 2006

A pianist and a guitarist, both known for beautiful ballad playing, get together for an album of mostly duos. Snooze city, right? That's what I thought after the first track. Boy, was I wrong. This thing is intense! Not that the opening number, written by Mehldau (everything's original; he wrote three, Metheny seven) is sleepytime; I'd just made the mistake of trying to listen to it in the background while I did something else. When Metheny's “Ahmid-6 followed, it grabbed ...

Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Metheny Mehldau

by David Miller
September 21, 2006

What happens when two of the most distinct and polarizing musical voices of a generation meet to collaborate on a recording? One might assume there would be a litany of dissonance with patches of too-infrequent beauty, leaving the listener mulling over the potential of such a landmark collaboration. But with Metheny Mehldau, the aptly titled release by guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Brad Mehldau, the opposite is in evidence. While showing unique styles on their respective instruments, it is quite ...