BRAD MEHLDAU — Ode (review)

Album · 2012 · Post Bop

4.5/5 · 2013-11-10
js

Given jazz’s lengthy history of innovators, its hard to come up with a voice that is truly new and original. With so many universities now specializing in jazz studies and turning out virtuosos that can play anything from classical to McCoy Tyner, mere technical skills are not enough to stand out anymore. During the early part of his career, Brad Mehldau seemed to be like many other young talented contemporary acoustic pianists who combined Bill Evans and Keith Jarret with a modern art-pop sensibility, but over the years, Mehldau has eventually pulled ahead of today’s talented pool of pianists with a style of improvisation that has become increasingly difficult for others to assimilate or imitate. Mehldau may not be the obvious trailblazing firebrand of the Charlie Parker/Cecil Taylor variety, but he is the freshest thing to happen to jazz in a long time. Blessed with a remarkable ability to separate his two hands and sound like more than one pianist, Mehldau’s sense of rhythm and phrasing is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope where presented ideas quickly become mirages in a steady stream of unexpected changeups. Much credit should also go to Brad’s brilliant rhythm section of Jeff Ballard on drums and Larry Grenadier on bass. Their ability to not only follow Mehldau’s’s constantly changing rhythms, but to sometimes also lead, displays a supreme telepathic communication between the three.

For years I was aware of who Mehldau was and also knew he had a growing number of enthusiastic supporters, but I had not yet caught what was truly different about him. One night, an internet jazz station was playing in the background and I was barely paying attention while it played a wash of pleasant but unremarkable modern post bop when all of a sudden there was this piano solo insistently tugging at my attention. The pianist sounded like a precocious child petulantly playing melodies with the notes his fingers happened to have landed on. I hadn’t heard this sort of pure expression sense the heyday of Monk and Sun Ra and looking at the screen I saw it was Mehldau and I’ve been enthusiastically checking out his music since.

All of these tunes are great, some of the best ( “26”, “Twiggy”, "Days of Dilbert Delaney") happen when Ballard lays down a polyrhythmic Elvin Jones/Dejohnette free swing while Brad goes off against drone like two or three chord vamps. Much of the music on here mixes modern jazz with dreamy art pop in ways that make it difficult to separate the two. “Stan the Man”, on the other hand, is pure jazz with its high speed bop tempo and free atonal two handed solo from Mehldau. The one cut that stands out though is “Eulogy for George Hanson”, which opens with somber chords that slowly lead into an odd section where Brad and Larry freely improvise with Mehldaus’ fast scattering right hand contrasting with insistent simple melodies in the left. The effect is bizarre and hallucinogenic as they sound like way more than just three performers.

This is one of the better jazz records to come out in a while, truly original music played with inspired brilliance and sheer talent that others will not be able to imitate.