Guns N’Roses

MUSIC
MUSIC
He also improvises with intense
focus. On “Cheryl,” he keeps
relating his solo line back to the
melody, one way or another:
Covert paraphrase, a similar
melodic contour, some tattered
remnant of the original. He plays
that melody in octaves, with two
hands, you might assume—until
he starts tossing off held chords
on the side.
He’s also good at nosing out
jazz potential in contemporary
pop. “Little Person” is a bittersweet
Jon Brion movie ballad
(from Synecdoche, New York)
with the composer’s characteristically
graceful jazz-adjacent
Brad Mehldau Trio
Blues and Ballads
harmony, a catchy hook, and
BNonesuch, LP or CD
bassist Larry Grenadier tolling like
stately Percy Heath with the Modern
Jazz Quartet. When Mehldau
plays a song you know the words
rad Mehldau’s new trio album
to, you can tell he knows them
might have been called A Blues
too. His phrasing reflects a vocal
line even after he wanders off
and Ballads—Charlie Parker’s
“Cheryl” is the only blues of
the melody. At four minutes, that
the seven tunes—or perhaps
one’s the airplay pick. I daresay
Blues in Ballads, since the pianist
his right hand sings “My Valentine”
better than Sir Paul did. The
works bluesy figurations into
“These Foolish Things” and Paul
tune is McCartney in romantic
McCartney’s “My Valentine.”
Michel Legrand big-ballad mode.
Creative mix-and-match
Mehldau anchors it to a Bill
remains Mehldau’s modus. He
Evans-like two-chord vamp, ever
minds tiny details that make all the
mutating. There’s a marvelous
difference—a barely grazed grace note, a sublime
(tiny) moment a minute or so in,
clinker buried in a chord, two lone notes harmonized
before the first time into bridge,
(in very different ways) in a long lean run—as well as
when amidst the gossamer melodizing
the pianist quietly slips in
big, candelabra gestures. He’ll blurt out a smushedup
graceless cluster into an elegant line and make
an uncouth high note, quickly redeemed
when it’s revealed to be
it right. His precise touch lets him foreground and
background select notes in a complex run, and
the start of a passing phrase one
he has a keen sense of texture: Knows the
octave up. It’s a little window into
value of open space, and of letting notes ring.
the games he plays. (continued)
130 TONE AUDIO NO.78
©Photo by Michael Wilson
AUGUST 2016 131