Customer Reviews

Largo

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I am very surprised none of the reviewers below mentioned anything about the song "Alvarado"; it is so well accomplished that I found it equal to the performances of great pianist such as Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Keith Jarret and Danilo Perez. Also, be carefull when judging sounds that our ears are not YET used to hearing. How many CD's have taken a few rounds of listening before getting to love them? If you are a true music lover, who is always seeking for new and different music, I know the answer is"many".Is "Largo" one of those CD's that require several listenings due to its innovations? Listen to "Alvarado" and find your own answer.

When an artist as young, accomplished, and highly regarded as Brad Mehldau strikes out on a new path, he's bound to be criticized. And he's gotten his fair share of dissing on this site and elswhere.

Let's get a few things straight. First, Mehldau has lost none of his pianistic brilliance. If you think so, give a listen his outro solo on "Dropjes." Secondly, he most certainly does know how to inject his unique pianism into Jon Brion's soundscapes. Check out how integrated and wonderful-sounding his piano is on "Paranoid Android," which showcases everything that's great about this record--the seemless integration of jazz and pop elements, the extraordinarily clear piano sound, the discrete use of electronics, the perfect translation of a pop sensibility into an authentic jazz setting. Third, there's noting wrong with Melhdau's vibes playing. It's a little naive and ideosyncratic, but so what?

Mehldau has always been a master of moods. Nothing has changed here; what he's done, in my view, is just brilliantly expand his musical/emotional palette. This, quite naturally, doesn't sit well with everyone. Tough luck.

If you're down with Dave Douglas' Freak In, The Bad Plus, Happy Apple, Chris Destrin, etc., you'll dig it. Otherwise, probably not.

Several months ago, I saw the Brad Mehldau Trio perform at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music. The music was as wonderful as it was familiar. He covered Radiohead's
"Everything in Its Right Place," (how my favorite jazz trio started covering this band I'll never know but will always be thankful for) and he dazzled us with a new composition, "Boomer." I was wowed and I left thinking that Mehldau's jazz trio system would perpetually expand and innovate. I was unprepared for it to halt in its tracks, at least for now.

With "Largo," we now have to be specific about which Brad Mehldau we're talking about. If subsequent albums follow suit, you may now have to qualify whether you like "all of Mehldau" or "back when he played straight jazz." This isn't Herbie Hancock's "Rock It," by any stretch, but it heralds a sea change in the direction of Mehldau's music. Fans may have to tread carefully over the selections here.

The first song, "When it Rains" magically evokes a sorrowful warmness that turns a listener inward. The piano is unmistakably Mehldau, but there's a background buzz and a snare drum you can't place. It introduces a new direction by playing just enough of what you know from Mehldau to follow along. It's hello and goodbye. Following compositions hasten the pace of the transition. So, when you reach "Sabbath," led by a buzzsaw electric guitar reined-in just enough to co-exist with Mehldau's sound, you may decide there's not enough remaining of what you loved about his music to follow down this fork in the road.

It's unfair for me to want to keep Mehldau boxed-in for fear that he'll drift into the fusion/lounge catalog never to return. There's no mistaking that "Largo" is consistent with the quality of work we expect from Brad Mehldau. But the sound is too far gone for me. I hope that there's enough in the jazz trio work he finds sustaining so that he'll come back....

The idea behind Largo sounds good - put jazz pianist Brad Mehldau into pop contexts crafted by Jon Brion, whose production work with Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple was witty and warm, if also a little mannered at times. Jazz desperately needs to expand its appeal to non-initiates. No need to dumb it down (we've got plenty of stupid music to satisfy our baser urges) but no reason to expect audiences to respond to a set of cultural reference-points fifty years old. Widely ranging textures, familiar rock rhythms, and a repertoire that goes beyond the bebop era are all plausible ways of luring younger folk into the fold. And by all means, lure away - as long as the spontaneity, intelligence, and freedom characteristic of jazz remains.

Largo, unfortunately, doesn't have these characteristics. Brion's pop arrangements and sound manipulations are fine, although nothing spectacular. But Mehldau never finds his place within them. The first problem is the mix. Even when not being obtrusively tweaked by Brion, Mehldau's piano sound lacks body and texture. Brion may be able to juggle dozens of instruments in his studio, but this production doesn't seem to appreciate the jazzer's ability to get many different and rich sonorities out of a single piano (or horn or bass or drumset . . .) The piano sounds distant in the mix, which is odd given that Mehldau headlines the project. You rarely have the sense that Mehldau is driving, inspiring, or even interacting with the rest of the musicians. Nothing kills a good jazz buzz more quickly.

More troubling, Mehldau hasn't figured out how to solo effectively in Brion's environments. The pianist relies almost exclusively on single-note lines. This further erodes the instrument's textural interest, but it also robs Mehldau of the harmonic and rhythmic inventiveness that marks his trio work. Mehldau usually relies on ostinatos and obsessive reworking of motivic ideas to generate tension and release in his playing; these go missing. Worse, the simple harmonic foundations of Largo's songs sabotages the linear, single-note approach. The best known linear players - Bud Powell, and Lenny Tristano, for instance - thrived in the harmonic labyrinths of bebop. They built excitement fighting through the maze. Applied to pop chord progressions, linear playing too often degenerates into noodling. Mehldau throws some outside note choices and tricky turns into his lines, but doesn't develop these into anything memorable. At times, he just taps out a close paraphrase of the melody.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with improvising over harmonically simple music with pop rhythms and textures, but Mehldau's approach doesn't work. More riffs and patterns, more distinctive musical ideas and more sense that Mehldau can feed off of and influence the other musicians might have led to a compelling record. As it is, Largo is an interesting failure. With luck, the next experiment works better.

Brad Mehldau is undoubtedly one of the most original and continuously inventive voices in jazz music. He fuses his improvisational jazz playing with interesting covers (only Brad Mehldau could make Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" sound like a jazz standard), unique arrangements (treated piano, woodwinds), and odd instrumentation (he switches to vibes for a spirited take on the Beatles classic "Mother Nature's Son"). While he's doing all this rule-breaking, he never forgets the fact that he's a truly gifted pianist with a great band, playing and mprovising his heart out.

The original songs are also amazing. The opener, "When it Rains" has a lovely melody and a breathtaking arrangement reminiscent of early Randy Newman. When I first heard the song I had to check the liner notes because it sounded like a standard. The entire album is like that -- beautiful songs and unique arrangements that sould so exquisite, you wonder why nobody else thought of them.

Producer Jon Brion -- better known as a pop producer for artists like Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple -- brings a distinctive sound to this album, one of the years' best and another chapter in the amazing career of Brad Mehldau.

Boy has this CD garnered the full range of views! Amazon customers who read the review pages will see two basic areas of opinion. There are those who love this album and those who hate it. No-one is indifferent.I am in the first category because truly this album is the ONLY one which has actually moved the music forward in the manner that Miles and Duke were able to do so effortlessly when in their long and wonderful primes. The tunes are of the type that stick in your head, indeed apart from the cover of "Dear Prudence" many of the tunes have a Beatles-ish quality. The playing is top notch and the SOUND is fantastic. I have had this CD for months and I still play it frequently. Our 12 year old daughter finds it unsettling so that tells you that Meldhau is on to something. Music can be anything but it should never be safe. This is far from safe.

Because this is not exactly typical of what I have in my collection from Mehldau. But, being a huge fan of Keith Jarrett and a fan of John Zorn's Masada Group, Dave Douglas, and Medeski, Martin & Wood, I don't mind my music being "out there" a bit on occasion. This is not Dave Brubeck playing traditional standards. This is also not MM&W completely improvising. It is somewhere in the middle, which is a difficult territory to inhabit: Mehldau has run the risk of alienating his more traditional fans but not going far enough to please more hardcore electronic potential fans who want him to play more outside the box. . . .
My advice, whatever that's worth, is that, if you are already a devoted fan, you need to listen to this disc and test your loyalties. If you are just a fan of the style he has played previously, then you need to be careful. If you've never heard of him (which is highly unlikely), then you want to take a listen to cuts from several of his other CDs to get a more complete picture of Brad Mehldau. I might listen to INTRODUCING. . . or ELEGIAC CYCLE or TRIO, VOLUMES ONE and/or FIVE more often, but this one will stay in the rotation, for when I'm feeling a bit more adventuresome. . . .

The first time I heard Brad Mehldau, I was listening to a Joshua Redman Cd titled "Timeless Tales". I can still recall listening to the CD in my car one rush hour afternoon and saying "Damn, that pianist just out-played Redman!". Mehldau's music became a focus for me that weekend resulting in 3 new CD's scattered around the floor by the stereo. Those were trio CD's. I was intrigued from the get go. His trio work was fluid and dynamic...similar to Keith Jarret but in a very endless array of both melodies and rhythms. His trio bounced those standards around like a basketball on a court; to and fro,leaping and faking moves. This new CD LARGO...is not his trio work, not in the least.

The arrangement of strings seems poorly thought out. Intead of adding emphasis or prelude to the songs, they make you wait impatiently. The use of drum machines & samples comes on more cut and paste than meticulously worked into the piano rhythms. The song I liked the least of all, was "Wave". A horribly unoriginal and boring version of one of my favorite Jobim songs. The psuedo-catchy drumline sounds like something I played in high school at the yearly talent show. Overall, the overlaid "contemporary" add-on stuff all comes off fluffy. It's something 10 years from now will sound outdated. I didn't like *that* aspect of the CD.

On the other hand, there are compositions in this CD that are telltale Mehldau. Let's face it folks, he LIKES Radiohead and the Beatles. I don't get the feeling he was shooting for a "jazz" CD here, but instead wanted a CD that showed us what HE likes. He made this CD because it was different and something fun to play. At the same time Mehldau made it HIS OWN. The "one note" riffs that I have read in previous reviews are still Mehldau and I love his playing. I've heard him play Christmas songs that made me smile. I still like the majority of this CD for the same reasons.

Take the CD with a grain of salt. Don't look for a trio album here, he made a bunch already. Here is a fun musical album that experiments with pop. It's not a new idea. Miles had similar masterpieces and failures in the 70's and 80's. Mehldau is just playing music the way he wants to hear it on his own terms. If you are a Mehldau fan, as I am, you will enjoy every note he plays regardless of the rest of the music.

As a long time fan of Mr. Mehldau's I must say that my admiration for him has grown steadily over the years and has continued to grow with this release. His music is mesmerizing, articulate and incredibly impassioned. I applaud him for breaking from the Art of the Trio series (although I sincerely love those releases as well) and breaking new ground on Largo. From the first notes on the first sone "When It Rains," it's quite apparent that the listener is in for something special. After reviewing early notes about this release, I was afraid that the varied instrumentation would distract from the piano. On the contrary, as planned, it serves to accentuate Brad's virtuousity. A must-have for any Mehldau fan and a great way to introduce yourself to one of this world's great artistic talents.

This guy never ceases to amaze me. He's a brilliant pianist in every aspect of music. His amazing technical facility, his ability to convey emotion, and his intricate brain dancing all send me into violent orjazzms. He has a very clear identity, a great foundation, and an artistic brain always looking to create...and all of this shows on the new one. He has broken ground with previous albums, but nothing really is as daring as Largo. I think it's a remarkable effort, and has a remarkable sound; however, Brad may lose some fans, as well as gaining new ones from this album.
As well as Brad, I particularly enjoyed drummer Matt Chamberlain on this CD. It's a five star album as far as I am concerned.