Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has recorded and performed extensively since the early 1990s. His most consistent output over the years has taken place in the trio format. Starting in 1996, his group released a series of five records on Warner Bros. entitled The Art of the Trio. Mehldau also has a solo piano recording entitled Elegiac Cycle, and a record called Places that includes both solo piano and trio songs. Elegiac Cycle and Places might be called “concept” albums. They are made up exclusively of original material and have central themes that hover over the compositions. Other Mehldau recordings include Largo, a collaborative effort with the innovative musician and producer Jon Brion, and Anything Goes—a trio outing with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy.
His first record for Nonesuch, Brad Mehldau Live in Tokyo, was released in September 2004. After ten rewarding years with Rossy playing in Mehldau’s regular trio, drummer Jeff Ballard joined the band in 2005. The label released its first album from the Brad Mehldau Trio—Day is Done—on September 27, 2005.
Mehldau’s musical personality forms a dichotomy. He is first and foremost an improviser, and greatly cherishes the surprise and wonder that can occur from a spontaneous musical idea that is expressed directly, in real time. But he also has a deep fascination for the formal architecture of music, and it informs everything he plays. In his most inspired playing, the actual structure of his musical thought serves as an expressive device. As he plays, he listens to how ideas unwind, and the order in which they reveal themselves. Each tune has a strongly felt narrative arch, whether it expresses itself in a beginning, an end, or something left intentionally open-ended. The two sides of Mehldau’s personality—the improviser and the formalist—play off each other, and the effect is often something like controlled chaos.
Mehldau has performed around the world at a steady pace since the mid-1990s, with his trio and as a solo pianist. His performances convey a wide range of expression. There is often an intellectual rigor to the continuous process of abstraction that may take place on a given tune, and a certain density of information. That could be followed by a stripped down, emotionally direct ballad. Mehldau favors juxtaposing extremes. He has attracted a sizeable following over the years, one that has grown to expect a singular, intense experience in his performance.
In addition to his trio and solo projects, Mehldau has worked with a number of great jazz musicians, including a rewarding gig with saxophonist Joshua Redman’s band for two years, recording and concerts with Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, and Lee Konitz, and recording as a sideman with the likes of Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, and Charles Lloyd. For more than a decade, he has collaborated with several musicians and peers whom he respects greatly, including the guitarists Peter Bernstein and Kurt Rosenwinkel and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner.
Mehldau also has played on a number of recordings outside of the jazz idiom, like Willie Nelson’s Teatro and singer-songwriter Joe Henry’s Scar. His music has appeared in several movies, including Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Wim Wender’s Million Dollar Hotel. He also composed an original soundtrack for the French film, Ma Femme Est Une Actrice. Mehldau recently composed two new works commissioned by Carnegie Hall for voice and piano, The Blue Estuaries and The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, which were performed in the spring of 2005 with the acclaimed classical soprano, Renee Fleming. These songs were recorded with Fleming and released in 2006 on the Love Sublime record; simultaneously, Nonesuch released an album of Mehldau’s jazz compositions for trio entitled House on Hill. In March 2007 Mehldau debuted the piano concerto The Brady Bunch Variations for piano and orchestra at Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris with Orchestre national d’Ile-de-France.
Live (2008)
Brad Mehldau - Live - Wonderwall [Oasis]
Brad Mehldau - Live - Black Hole Sun [Soundgarden]
Quartet (2007)
Brad Mehldau - Quartet - A Night Away
House on Hill (2006)
Brad Mehldau - House on Hill - August Ending
Metheny Mehldau (2006)
Brad Mehldau - Metheny Mehldau - Ring of Life
Brad Mehldau - Metheny Mehldau - Make Peace
Day is Done (2005)
Brad Mehldau - Day Is Done - Knives Out [Radiohead]
Brad Mehldau - Day Is Done - Alfie
Brad Mehldau - Day Is Done - Martha My Dear [The Beatles]
Brad Mehldau - Day Is Done - Day Is Done [Nick Drake]
Brad Mehldau - Day Is Done - She's Leaving Home [The Beatles]
Brad Mehldau - Day Is Done - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover [Paul Simon]
Brad Mehldau - Day Is Done - No Moon at All
Anything Goes (2004)
Brad Mehldau - Anything Goes - Still Crazy After All These Years [Paul Simon]
Brad Mehldau - Anything Goes - Everything in Its Right Place [Radiohead]
Live in Tokyo (2004)
Brad Mehldau - Live in Tokyo - Things Behind the Sun [Nick Drake]
Brad Mehldau - Live in Tokyo - Paranoid Android [Radiohead]
Brad Mehldau - Live in Tokyo - River Man [Nick Drake]
Largo (2002)
Brad Mehldau - Largo - When It Rains
Brad Mehldau - Largo - Dusty McNugget
Brad Mehldau - Largo - Paranoid Android [Radiohead]
Brad Mehldau - Largo - Dear Prudence [The Beatles]
Brad Mehldau - Largo - Wave / Mother Nature's Son [The Beatles]
The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression (2001)
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - The More I See You
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Dream's Monk
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - The Folks Who Live on the Hill
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Alone Together
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - It Might as Well Be Spring
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Cry Me a River
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - River Man [Nick Drake]
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Quit
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Secret Love
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Sublation
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Resignation
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - Long Ago And Far Away
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 5: Progression - How Long Has This Been Going On?
Places (2000)
Brad Mehldau - Places - Los Angeles
Brad Mehldau - Places - 29 Palms
Brad Mehldau - Places - Madrid
Brad Mehldau - Places - Amsterdam
Brad Mehldau - Places - Los Angeles, No. 2
Brad Mehldau - Places - West Hartford
Brad Mehldau - Places - Airport Sadness
Brad Mehldau - Places - Perugia
Brad Mehldau - Places - A Walk in the Park
Brad Mehldau - Places - Paris
Brad Mehldau - Places - Schloss Elmau
Brad Mehldau - Places - Am Zauberberg
Elegiac Cycle (1999)
Brad Mehldau - Elegiac Cycle - Memory's Tricks
The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard (1999)
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard - All the Things You Are
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard - Sehnsucht
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard - Nice Pass
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard - Solar
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard - London Blues
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard - I'll Be Seeing You
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard - Exit Music (For a Film) [Radiohead]
The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs (1998)
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - Song-Song
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - Unrequited
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - Exit Music (For a Film) [Radiohead]
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - At a Loss
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - Convalescent
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - For All We Know
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - River Man [Nick Drake]
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - Young at Heart
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs - Sehnsucht
The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 (1997)
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - Blame It on My Youth
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - I Didn't Know What Time It Was
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - Ron's Place
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - Blackbird [The Beatles]
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - Lament for Linus
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - Mignon's Song
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - I Fall in Love Too Easily
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - Lucid
Brad Mehldau - The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 - Nobody Else But Me
Introducing Brad Mehldau (1995)
Brad Mehldau - Introducing Brad Mehldau - It Might as Well Be Spring
