Customer Reviews

Live

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The influences of the great trio of Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette cast a large shadow on almost every young brilliant jazz trio striving for creativity nowadays. Yet among all, it is Brad Mehldau's trio with Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard that has been the most daring and startlingly stylish group.

Since my moving to New York City in 2004, I have been blessed to be able to see this trio's performance every winter at the jazz vintage of Village Vanguard. And of course, I was in the audience of the live serie which this new release, Live, was recorded. So much I appreciate that I can hear this wonderful live again on CD, I also have to admire how refreshing this music still is even after two years of the performance. This is not just because of the trio's expansive repertoire with tunes like "Wonderwall" from Oasis, "Black Hole Sun" from Soundgarden, and Radiohead and Nick Drake in their other releases; several Mehldau's own composition were also included, in addition to their re-inventive takes on classic standards of John Coltrane's and Ray Noble's.

This trio has been playing steadily with each other (sometimes with guitarist Pat Metheny as a quartet) since 2005. Beyond Ballard's vigorous and dynamic rhythms and Grenadier's astutely contrived bass line, it is still hard not to be overwhelmed by Brad Mehldau's prodigious keyboard skills and motivic imaginations. His right and left hands fill the music with rich contrapuntal singings while making seamless rhythmic and melodic transformation and integration. Together, the trio exhibits more than any of their previous live recordings, their originality and progressive ideas in richly rhythmic and contrasting textures.

This might sound crazy, but I have little trouble distinguishing my own cheering at the end of those songs played in the sets I went to. And I cannot wait to cheer again for them this June during the JVC Jazz Festival at the Carnegie Hall. The title of that concert, "A Taste of Genius", sums up just well for this recording too.

Just received this today and am now on my second listen. First, let me say I am a big Brad Mehldau fan. I have enjoyed the music he has created throughout his career, and I am fairly familiar with most of what he has done, with the exception of his solo work.

A few thoughts about his new album, Live. First off, this is a tremendous value. It's two very full CDs for the same cost as many single albums. The trio's playing on this album is fantastic. I, for one, have been very pleased with the addition of Jeff Ballard as the trio's drummer. Nothing against Jorge Rossy, but I just find Ballard to be more consistently interesting and slightly less distracting than Rossy. His solos on this album are creative and unique - especially on Black Hole Sun. Mehldau has chosen a nice set of tunes, his usual mix of originals, classics, and creative choices for covers. Falling into this last category is a very long version of Black Hole Sun. This track really covers the gamut and takes the trio into some exciting places it has never gone before. Also interesting is another version of Countdown - it's fun to hear how Mehldau has developed since his previous versions of this tune.

All in all, I'm very happy with this album. It's a lot of very good music. My quick reaction is that I enjoy this live album slightly more than their early release, Day is Done. I'll have to do further listening to decide where it ranks among Mehldau's other albums.

I'm a huge Mehldau fan. I own all of his recordings as a leader and many of him as a sideman and have seen him live a few times. This is the trio's sixth live album (though the "Art of the Trio" title seems to have died with Mehldau's switch from Warner Bros. to Nonesuch). One of the real defining features of Mehldau's trio albums is that his playing consistently excellent (remarkably so!) througout. He seems to fall away from that a bit here as he tries a few new things. He does a lot of playing on the lowest notes of the piano in a few songs. To me these moments seem less spirited and a bit harder on the ear than most of Mehldau's earlier playing. Mehldau also plays a lot more ruminatively in some songs than he typically does. His playing sounds tentative in these moments, almost as if he is thinking too hard about what notes to play before he plays them. Finally, there are spots in a few songs where the band simply seems to lose its direction. There is a particularly long section of this in Mehldau's cover of "Black Hole Sun," but it occurs in other tunes as well. In a few of these moments, Mehldau seems to want to play back and forth with bassist Larry Grenadier, but the music ends up sounding more disconnected than it should. If anything, Grenadier keeps up his end of these exchanges better than Mehldau does (and his bass is mixed pretty loudly, which I enjoy). Despite those occasional negatives, there is a lot to like here. Mehldau's tune "Secret Beach" is among the best he has recorded with his trio, and the compositions written by Mehldau himself tend to be the best on the album ("Fit Cat" and "B-Flat Waltz" are also quite good). It simply seems he is a bit too concerned with testing the limits of the form in his playing of standards (if recent pop songs like "Wonderwall" and "Black Hole Sun" can be considered standards). Overall, I would recommend this to fans of Mehldau. If you are new to the trio, I would recommend buying The Art of the Trio Vol. 2 or Vol 5 (also a double cd) first.

Brad Mehldau is frequently cited as one of the most gifted jazz pianists of his generation, with good reason.

To every performance, he brings an uncanny ability to mine his prodigious genius and training while leaping off into the improvisational unknown with the intense collaboration of Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard, the two major talents who make up the trio. It is always a real thrill to see these three musicians live; I've heard them play "She's Leaving Home" a half dozen times, and each rendition was completely different. They take you on a ride -- you just have to shut up and go there!

"Live," their latest recording, is about as close as you can get to being crammed into a dinky little table at the musty old Village Vanguard and sharing the moment as their incredible magic unfolds. Every set is like a high-wire act. They take a lot of risks, but Brad, Larry and Jeff never falter, whether they're giving you Brad's sexy "Secret Beach" and "Fit Cat" or the existential 20-minute-plus mega-version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun." This exciting new release is a well-priced 2-CD set and I can't get enough of it.

I must say that this is a spectacular selection of live tracks of Brad's trio with Ballard on drums (I used to prefer Rossy, but these songs really got me in tune with Ballard's world), but there is one thing that I did not know about when I purchased this album:

The Nonesuch Records Website offers the "Complete Friday Night Sets" which consists of 3 sets, 15 songs totaling over three hours of music, for only 20 dollars. It has quite a few other tracks, such as some Monk, Paul Simon and Radiohead tunes. The catch is it's only available in mp3, and I love owning actual albums...so it is going to be hard for me to shell out another 20 bucks to get some mp3s

Anyways, it is something to consider if you aren't a collector junkie, or just want a tangible 2-disc album.

Mehldau, Grenadier, Ballard during a week at the Vanguard when everything was working. The trio is driving in these live recordings. Jeff Ballard may have taken a season to integrate with longtime collaborators Mehldau and Grenadier. Their style is more direct/forward. When the improvisation moves toward the free/dissonant, Mehldau's playing evolves into compelling/catchy original passages. Complicated but direct; cerebral but grounded. I'm not likely to dance to it, but it demands a physical reaction.

Sensational on every level-- Rhythms, melodies, sounds

This music is great, and I plan to go see the Trio at the Village Vanguard soon. Since others have commented on the music already, I just wanted to share a VERY minor detail which may concern other buyers of this double CD set:

Disk #2, Track #1 _Buddha Realm_ is a 12 min song. However, on the 11:33 time mark, for about a second, the volume drops to a mute. My immediate reaction was to put in a request to Amazon for an exchange. Although too late (since Amazon confirmed that they are sending me a replacement), a good friend who has the same CD confirmed that the same glitch is also on his copy. I should be able to confirm this when my replacement copy arrives in few days, however, I am afraid this error on the CD may be on the CD master.

*Update* Thanks to Amazon's great customer service, I received another copy of this same CD. And this copy also contains the same glitch.

Brad Mehldau continues to evolve and refine his unique harmonic vocabulary. I am reminded of how obscure Coltrane sounded to me when I first began listening to him. He didn't fit into my preconceived ideas about jazz. He lacked the slickness of bird and sounded raw and naked in comparison. Brad departs into his own intellectual realm and it is up to the listener to follow. If there is another voice in jazz as singular, I haven't heard him. This CD may take a few listens to appreciate, but it is worth the effort.

I am excited about this artist after hearing this CD. He is one of the piano greats today.

Mehldau on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Jeff Ballard on drums bring their amazing jazz touch to rock songs such as "Wonderwall" and "Black Hole Sun," making them sound like jazz standards. But that is only part of the charm of this recording, which captures the trio in fine form at the Village Vanguard. With two CDs containing more than 70 minutes each, this release is abundant both in quality and quantity, much like good food in New Orleans - but you don't have to watch your calories, just keep going up for more helpings!