June 22nd, 2010
Brad Mehldau Makes NPR's Best of 2010 List

The Best New Jazz of 2010 (So Far)

Let’s just go ahead, call 2010 the year robots took over jazz and welcome our new jazz robot overlords. Skynet — er, the jazz-bots — became self-aware in late 2009 with an improvising vibes-bot named Shimon, and now Pat Metheny has an entire robotic army at his command. Are we doomed?

We are not doomed. While Metheny’s Orchestrion is one of the most curious jazz records of 2010 so far, a number of non-robot sides have caught the ears of our regular Take Five contributors from WBGO, Jazz24 and WDUQ.

Read the entire article here

June 7th, 2010
REVIEW Brad Mehldau at Wigmore Hall

Most jazz pianists have their “shtick”, the instantly recognisable fingerprint that allows you to say straight off: “Ah, yes, that’s Bud Powell.” Brad Mehldau isn’t like that. He’s a pianist who has it all, technically speaking, and he also has a fabulously well-stocked brain that can mingle different musical traditions.

Read the article here

From The Financial Times
by Mike Hobart

Brad Mehldau closed the opening season of his two-year curatorship of the Wigmore Hall’s first jazz series with a two-concert flourish. The jazz content of his duet with the formidably voiced Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter was more flavouring than main dish, as a romantic classical first set was balanced by a contemporary second half. But two days later, Mehldau’s solo piano recital delivered trenchant jazz, albeit with a composer’s logic.

Read the article here

June 4th, 2010
Brad Mehldau: Jazz Master is Venue's Latest Star Name

When Howard Assembly Rooms first opened, it promised to bring an eclectic range of musicians to Yorkshire. Eighteen months on, says Tina Jackson, the venue’s been true to its word.

Imagine being Brad Mehldau. You’re an American jazz pianist at the absolute top of your tree. Your 2010 itinerary allows for a trio of venues in the UK. So, where? Wigmore Hall, on London’s South Bank. Tick. Manchester’s prestigious Royal Northern College of Music. Tick. And…Leeds. Howard Assembly Room.

Mehldau’s sold-out appearance there on Saturday night proves that, 18 months after opening, Howard Assembly Room now has the pulling power to attract the very highest calibre artists not just from the classical world, but from an eclectic range of musical art forms. Since its beginnings last year, HAR has consistently delivered some of the most celebrated names working at the cutting edges of contemporary, classical and experimental music and arts, from cabaret noir stars The Tiger Lillies and Mercury-nominated jazz quartet Polar Bear, to Leeds’s own anarcho-popsters Chumbawamba. Writers Tariq Ali and Orlando Figes have appeared, and this winter’s haunting Forty Part Motet sound installation by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller drew more than 5,200 visitors. Tenor Mark Padmore; leading light of the Brit folk scene Vashti Bunyan; pianist Joanna Macgregor and the soaring voices of The Tallis Singers, each one outstanding in their field, have performed. Mehldau fits perfectly in the mix.

To read the article online click here

May 20th, 2010
Mehldau Continues Wigmore Hall Jazz Series in 2011 with Chris Thile, Joe Henry Sets

Mehldau continues his curatorship in 2011, inviting friends from across the musical spectrum to participate in a variety of duo performances. It’s a format in which he’s proven himself adept in his recent duo-concert tour with label mate Joshua Redman. For his 2011 Wigmore Hall concerts, he’s chosen to pair up with fellow Nonesuch artist Chris Thile for one performance and with Joe Henry, a familiar name at Nonesuch for his having produced the recent label debuts of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Allen Toussaint.

Here is the complete schedule of concerts in the 2011 Mehldau-curated Jazz Series at Wigmore Hall:

Friday 6 May
DIANA TORTO vocals
JOHN TAYLOR piano

Thursday 2 June
KLAUS GESING reeds
GWILYM SIMCOCK piano

Friday 16 September
CHRIS THILE mandolin
BRAD MEHLDAU piano

Friday 2 December
JOE HENRY vocals
BRAD MEHLDAU piano

Tickets go on sale starting this Thursday, 20 May, at wigmore-hall.org.uk

May 3rd, 2010
Brad Mehldau on BBC 3

Brad’s segment begins at around 1 hr 23 mins into the program

After a play of ‘Wonderwall’, Brad discusses his “guest request choice” – Tippett.

April 28th, 2010
Mehldau's Highway Rider - Acclaim in UK

You can listen again via the program’s website
Brad’s segment begins at around 18:30 minutes into the program.

The interview is also featured on Jamie’s Podcast

BBC Radio 2 is the UK’s most listened to radio station, and Jamie Cullum’s weekly jazz show is a new addition to the schedule this spring.

Highway Rider has also garnered the following press in the UK:

‘Highway Rider’s contrasts and dramatic entries spring constant surprises, and show how much progress the mesmerising improviser has made as a big-ensemble composer. This is the kind of genre dialogue that gets classical/jazz crossovers a good name.’
Guardian

‘Mehldau is once again breaking new ground.’
Jazzwise

‘An inspired set.’
The Times

‘Brilliant!’
Mojo

‘Mehldau has come up with a widescreen version of modern jazz.’
BBC Music Magazine – Jazz Choice (April 2010)

‘Impressive and touching.’
Daily Telegraph

‘An extraordinary album that will further enhance Mehldau’s reputation.’
Record Collector

‘A concept album with an odyssey-like subtext.’
BBC Music

‘Heartbreaking, tense, rapturous.’
Observer

‘His most interesting album yet.’
Uncut

‘Succeeds in going beyond the formulaic limitations of the jazz-with-strings format to achieve an imaginative synthesis of its diverse
improvised and composed elements.’
Scotsman

April 26th, 2010
INTERVIEW Mehldau on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer

On his latest album, pianist Brad Mehldau takes listeners on a journey where each track is like a stop on a road trip. A mix of jazz, classical and pop, the double-disc release, “Highway Rider,” was a collaboration with producer Jon Brion and is Mehldau’s first album compiled entirely of his own compositions.

Listen to the interview in it’s entirety on PBS Online

April 11th, 2010
REVIEW Bradh Mehldau Trio in Kingston, ON (All About Jazz)

By John Kelman

Brad Mehldau Trio
Grand Theatre
Kingston, Canada
April 11, 2010

When a trio has been together as long as pianist Brad Mehldau’s—the current incarnation, with original bassist Larry Grenadier and relative newcomer (but no stranger to either of his band mates), drummer Jeff Ballard, has been together for over five years, first heard on Day is Done (Nonesuch, 2005)—it’s hard to imagine any gig being a bad gig. But time and place can still sometimes coalesce to create a context where a group can transcend even its greatest creative consistencies, and Mehldau’s performance at the Grand Theatre in Kingston, Canada on April 11, 2010 was one such occasion.

Read the entire review at AAJ

April 10th, 2010
REVIEW Mehldau's Highway Rider (JazzTimes)

By Josef Woodard

For much of his adventure in music to date, the main thrust of Brad Mehldau’s work has been involved with fostering a bold new sound in the jazz piano-trio format. His new double-disc opus, Highway Rider, the most costly Mehldau production yet, heads in a different set of directions, but with the trio—including longtime allies Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums—sometimes at the core. As in most of Mehldau’s work, which also includes solo piano and art-song projects with classical vocalists Anne Sofie von Otter and Renee Fleming, this latest effort finds Mehldau deftly mixing virtuosity, compositional fluidity and his trademark romanticism-with-an-edge.

Read the entire review at JazzTimes Online

March 31st, 2010
REVIEW Mehldau at LARGO (The LA Times)

“Here’s another one from my KROQ listening on the way from the airport,” Brad Mehldau said with a smirk from the stage Tuesday night at Largo at the Coronet. “Good tune, though,” he added before launching into an almost obscenely grand and beautiful cover of Stone Temple Pilots’ “Interstate Love Song.”

While Mehldau’s way with reinventing rock songs has been well documented, such an introduction wasn’t entirely expected at a warm-up show prior to a tour in support of “Highway Rider,” a lush double album of intricate compositions that floats among the worlds of jazz, classical and pop for one of the most striking jazz releases of the year.

Read the entire review at The LA Times Online

March 26th, 2010
Mehldau's "Highway Rider" Rates an A- from Boston Herald, Pick of the Week from WNYC's "Soundcheck"

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The Boston Herald gives Highway Rider an A-. Reviewer Kevin R. Convey suggests that on the new album, “Mehldau’s aim seems to be nothing less than the integration of chamber music and jazz, a goal he pretty much achieves …, while delivering some of the most tender and least-flashy piano playing of his career.”

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The Ottawa Citizen gives the album four stars. Reviewer Peter Hum says “there are so many crests, detours and rewards that an open-minded, attentive listener may want to hit Mehldau’s musical road again immediately.”

Hum recognizes Mehldau’s latest creation as a departure from much of what listeners may have come to expect from the pianist-composer, “except that it too is riveting.”

In fact, not only does the new album stand apart from the Mehldau catalog, it may stand alone even in a broader context. “There’s probably not another jazz recording that sounds quite like it,” Hum writes, “although Mehldau, an eclectic devotee of everything from Brahms to the Beatles to bebop to Nirvana, might find the genre classification of Highway Rider beside the point.”

The reviewer suggests that listeners “allow themselves to be spellbound by the new and unknown — not such a difficult task, really — it’s a better journey that way.”

March 18th, 2010
REVIEW Brad Mehldau "Highway Rider" (Los Angeles Times)

Let it never be said that Brad Mehldau lacks ambition. The gifted pianist and composer’s latest is a reunion with über-producer Jon Brion and percussion gadfly Matt Chamberlain, who joined Mehldau’s trio on 2002’s eclectic “Largo.” But instead of re-creating that record’s arresting, electronics-flecked sound, Mehldau has upped the ante by teaming with saxophonist Joshua Redman and a full orchestra for a sprawling, two-disc travelogue of sorts that might be his most fully realized work yet…

Read the entire review at Los Angeles Times

March 17th, 2010
Brad Mehldau on NPR Music/All Things Considered

by Jeff Lunden

Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau likes crossing borders. He’s improvised to Beatles songs and Joni Mitchell tunes, he’s written art songs for operatic soprano Renee Fleming, and now, with his new double album Highway Rider, he’s created a large-scale work for chamber orchestra and jazz ensemble…

Listen to the entire segment on NPR Music

March 16th, 2010
REVIEW Highway Rider (BBC Music)

by Kevin Le Gendre

Such is the cult of the soloist in contemporary jazz that other elements of the creative equation are often overlooked. One is the sideman; the other is the producer. In the case of Highway Rider, the input of Jon Brion, in the latter role, is crucial insofar as he has made this latest release by Mehladu, the pianist greatly lauded by the critical establishment in the last 15 years, a work that stretches the artist’s conceptual scope without stifling his essence.

Read the entire review on BBC Music Online

If you’ve missed any of the recent UK reviews, below are some links to highlighted reviews:

Financial Times feature

Guardian album review

Metro album review

The Times album review

March 13th, 2010
Mehldau's "Highway Rider" - Feature Article in the New York Times

BROWS furrowed, Brad Mehldau and Jon Brion wore the same look of concentration here one evening last spring, perched on Aeron chairs in a mixing room at Ocean Way Recording studios. Mr. Mehldau, the acclaimed jazz pianist, was listening to a piece he had recently recorded in the adjacent room. Mr. Brion, the independent-minded pop producer and composer, had his hands on a console, tweaking and toggling, adjusting and readjusting the sound.

Mr. Mehldau, concerned about the bright ambience of a vintage analog synthesizer, wondered aloud whether it should fade in more gradually. “Why don’t you ride it in playback?” Mr. Brion suggested. Then, to no one in particular: “We make these little nods to being tasteful now and then.”

They were working on the title track of Mr. Mehldau’s impressive album “Highway Rider,” due out on Nonesuch on Tuesday. The tune — a melding of somber classical harmony with taut improvisation, atop a skittering rock beat — seemed to get at the heart of their kinship, an allegiance unique in the worlds of jazz and pop, and squarely belonging to neither.

This isn’t their first go-round together. Eight years ago Mr. Mehldau released “Largo” (Warner Brothers), produced by Mr. Brion with the same dry atmospherics and organic texture he had brought to the literate rock of Fiona Apple and Aimee Mann and later would bring to the horizonless hip-hop of Kanye West. An encyclopedia of popular music and a maestro of winsome melancholy, Mr. Brion was determined to upend the standard practice behind an instrumental jazz record.

Read the entire piece at the New York Times Online