Metheny / Mehldau

Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 12, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000GQLAZW
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,378 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This is a dream pairing: Pat Metheny, the Baby Boomer guitar god whose musical palette embraces everything from Ornette Coleman to contemporary jazz, teams with pianist Brad Mehldau, the brooding Gen X prince of the piano on the verge of becoming himself. After admiring each other for years, they're now on the same label, and this dynamic duel extends their mutual admiration into a very personal and simpatico release that recalls the intimacy of that 1960s Jim Hall/Bill Evans masterpiece, Undercurrent. Save for Mehldau's bandmates drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Larry Grenadier forming a quartet on the bop-mazed "Ring of Life" and the Afro-Caribbean cadences of "Say the Brother's Name," it's two for the road on the rest of the recording. When you hear selections like "Unrequited," "Ahmid-6," and "Make Peace," you know that this CD is only the start of something big from these two artists. --Eugene Holley, Jr.

Product Description

For Brad Mehldau, this collaboration started at that "life-changing moment" when, as a 13-year-old, a friend played him "Are You Going With Me" from the Pat Methany Group's 1982 live double-album, Travels. Years later, Pat Methany heard "Chill" from saxophonist Joshua Redman's 1994 album Moodswing that featured Brad Mehldau on piano. Since, the two artists have forged an artistic partnership based on shared inspiration, not just mutual admiration. This album features music by both Methany and Mehldau, and was recorded at Right Track Studio (NYC) in December of 2005.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good in theory, end result puzzling, January 17, 2007

By 

CharlieGreene "CharlieG" (Satelite Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metheny / Mehldau (Audio CD)

When I first heard that Pat and Brad were making an album together it was like WOW, I can't wait. I guess my expectations were way too high, (given the incredible tallent of both). So when I first listened to it, it was strange, I felt something missing. Then I heard it again, and again. It started to warm, but never caught fire.
So I had to break it apart. On Mehldau side, very good. On Metheny side, very good but as stand alone, it missses in retrospect (comparing this project to other collaborations, like say the Jim Hall album, Question and Answer and Rejoicing).
But in no way is this an inferior album, the playing and writting is superb.
I would recommend it, but Pat and Brad have better.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good stuff, February 16, 2007

By 

Baz (Manchester, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metheny / Mehldau (Audio CD)

I wonder if the folks who give this album less than five stars are listening to the same ablum as I have for the past week commuting to work and back... Obviously not. I've lost count of the number of times I've listened to this and there's still plenty to discover and get the juices flowing. One thing seems clear; both guys bring their own superb musicianship and individuality to the album and the whole is without doubt greater than the sum of the parts - and minus any gratuitous noodling or empty virtuosity (perish the thought). Just great jazz from two of the best. One of my albums for the desert island. Very highly recommended. More, please...

49 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As much as I like this disc . . ., September 13, 2006

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Metheny / Mehldau (Audio CD)

. . . and I must say, I like it a WHOLE LOT, what really blows me away are the two quartet numbers which add Larry Grenadier (bass) and Jeff Ballard (drums), maybe the smartest rhythm team on the planet (unless it's Ben Allison and Ballard). Is this the new PMG group for the new century, or what? These four guys mesh magically, even more so than the group on which I first encountered PMG, their great disc Off Ramp.

For one thing, they're all peers in a way that, great as they are, Lyle Mays, and whoever's on bass and drums will never be Metheny's peers. In the liner notes to this disc, Mehldau tells about how at 17 he first heard Metheny, and it forever changed him. Well, the acolyte is now the equal: If anything, Mehldau has surpassed his idol.

For me, Jeff Ballard defines smart, 21st century drumming. Whatever session he's on, he lifts it to the next level, be it his longtime Medicine Wheel gig, his work on the Elastic Band, his duo with Frank Kimbrough, The Willow, or his trio gig with Grenadier and Mark Turner, Fly.

Larry Grenadier, of course, has played with both Metheny and Mehldau before, but never in the same group. And he and Ballard were part of Mehldau's Day Is Done trio. So these guys need no introduction. That they nearly telepathically interact should come as no surprise. What IS a surprise, however, is how entirely natural they sound together, as if they'd all been playing as a unit for a couple decades.

But, that said, this disc is primarily a duo outing. How does it succeed on that level? Quite magnificently, thank you. Mehldau and Metheny seem to have their own kind of telepathy, perhaps even more magical, in its own way, than the quartet. For one thing, it strikes me that it's much more difficult to create enough harmonic and especially rhythmic dynamism in a guitar-piano duo than it is in a guitar-piano-bass-drums quartet. That Mehldau/Metheny consistently find the key to creative interaction says a lot about their individual genius, somehow conjoined spectacularly in this mainly duo setting.

If the duo selections impress more by their technical mastery than by their sheer delightful musicality, that is only to expected; this setting, almost by its very nature, if it works at all, yields a kind of luxuriant albeit happy synchronicity rather than ravishing melodicism, rhythmic complexity, and harmonic expansiveness (although, it must be admitted, the more I listen to the duo tracks the more they give up unexpected treasures).

So this disc, for me, at least, is a kind of unexpected treasure-trove: a ridiculously rewarding piano/guitar excursion casually trumped by the quartet tracks.

But how about it, Pat? Can't our hopes for his greatest PMG ever be realized on at least one disc featuring Metheny, Mehldau, Grenadier, and Ballard? Now THERE'S a group for the ages.