Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau

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Pat Metheny & Brad Mehldau: Summer Day

by Geno Thackara
August 28, 2025

"Summer" is a frequent shorthand for “loud and bright," but the span of the day can include a whole lot of tones more subtle and colorful. This is the scene Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau paint on this highlight of their mostly-duo debut recording (Nonesuch Records, 2006), weaving a broad palette of tones like a sky changing colors at sunset. ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Metheny Mehldau

by John Kelman
September 12, 2006

Guitarist Pat Metheny may not be old, but he's been around long enough to be considered an influential artist who can start giving something back to younger players. Pianist Brad Mehldau, still in his mid-thirties, has already established himself as one of his generation's most significant artists. Metheny has always been selective about his musical associations, but an encounter between these two musicians somehow seemed inevitable. Metheny Mehldau is Metheny's first significant collaboration with a pianist other than his long-time ...