Jazz Articles about Larry Grenadier

Highway Rider

by John Kelman
March 9, 2010

For a pianist who not only demonstrated remarkable promise, but actually began delivering on it at a very early stage in his career with what would ultimately become his five-part Art of the Trio (Warner Bros.) series, Brad Mehldau's side projects have--with the exception of the solo Live in Tokyo (Nonesuch, 2004)--met with mixed reactions. Perhaps it's because of his emergence as one of modern jazz's most distinctive and popular interpreters of both contemporary song and standard material in a ...

Joshua Redman: Compass

by Jeff Stockton
October 6, 2009

No jazz musician with Joshua Redman's pedigree, chops and talent wants to be tagged as “cautious" or “cerebral," but that was Redman's reputation, perhaps right up until Back East was released in 2007. That CD, a return to straight-ahead acoustic playing after a brief digression, found the saxophonist fronting a few different rhythm sections (and standing next to a couple of guests) and generated natural comparisons to Sonny Rollins' classic Way Out West. Compass simultaneously extends the ...

Joshua Redman: Compass

by Doug Collette
March 2, 2009

Joshua Redman has made some fine albums in the past, including Timeless Tales (For Changing Times) (Warner Bros., 1998), Passage of Time (Warner Bros., 2001) and Spirit of the Moment Live (Warner Bros., 1995), but he's never recorded one with such clarity of purpose as the self-produced Compass. In keeping with the dual meaning of the title word (alternately a verb to accomplish as well as the noun as a tool of direction) the saxophonist leads two different trios into ...

Joshua Redman: Compass

by Chris May
January 5, 2009

Like its predecessor Back East (Nonesuch, 2007), saxophonist Joshua Redman's Compass invites comparisons with Sonny Rollins' totemic acoustic trio outing Way Out West (Riverside, 1957), whose instrumentation it reflects and whose influence Redman has acknowledged.

Another Rollins album which springs to mind, though more for its title than its structure, is Saxophone Colossus (Riverside, 1956); for with Compass, Redman, like Rollins 53 years earlier, has produced the most singular album of his career so far. Redman's previous acoustic ...

Brad Mehldau Trio: Live

by Andrew Velez
June 7, 2008

Returning to New York's Village Vanguard for another live recording, pianist Brad Mehldau's trio has Larry Grenadier (bass) returning and Jeff Ballard (drums) taking over for Jorge Rossy. Music seems to just pour out of Mehldau, as is buoyantly evident here. And often, as with Chico Buarque's “O Que Sera" or Chris Cornell's “Black Hole Sun," it flows at a dizzying pace. Much of this set's made up of Mehldau's own compositions such as “B-Flat Waltz"; the ...

Brad Mehldau Trio: Live

by John Kelman
March 20, 2008

It's been three years since Jeff Ballard replaced original drummer Jorge Rossy in pianist Brad Mehldau's trio with bassist Larry Grenadier. While the trio has been busy on its own and with guitar icon Pat Metheny in support of Metheny Mehldau (Nonesuch, 2006) and Quartet (Nonesuch, 2007), it's also been three years since Day is Done (Nonesuch, 2005)-- its only release to date. Rossy's departure left a significant gap to fill, but Ballard's greater energy and dynamism has ushered Mehldau's ...

Brad Mehldau: Progression: Art of the Trio, Volume 5

by David Adler
August 1, 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 up-tempo 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 ...