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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
variety show, January 15, 2005
The funniest moment in this exciting live recording comes during "Monk's Dream," when Mehldau abruptly quotes Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" and begins playing around with that famous and delightful motif, eventually metamorphosing it back into Monk's classic tune. The pairing of these two jazz composers really works for me, as there is a fresh, child-like quality that pervades the work of both. Mehldau's development, though, is extremely thick and complex. Arguably, this material might have been better served by a more spare approach (which is not to say simplistic, as Monk is anything but). Then again, this resembles the maximalist way Coltrane tended to approach Monk's music.
Gershwin's "Someone to Watch over Me" has long served as a vehicle for solo piano improvisations. It was a particular favorite of Art Tatum, who threw down the gauntlet to posterity with his virtuoso wizardy. Oscar Peterson recorded a superb version in 1968, and it has been tackled more recently by such luminaries as McCoy Tyner (1988), Chick Corea (1993), Keith Jarrett (1999), and Benny Green (2001). Despite all this competition and historical baggage, Mehldau's version is both original and convincingly fresh. His only new composition here is a beautiful "Intro" to this song, setting the stage for a lyrical approach rather than the more typical Tatum-esque workout. The song builds expansively to a long passage that shows, as did certain parts of _Elegiac Cycle_, Mehldau's occasional stylistic affinities with minimalism.
Mehldau then deconstructs Cole Porter's "From This Moment On." Interesting and impressive, but I'm ready to put Ella on now.
A sprawling twenty-minute version of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" is the centerpiece of the album. Personally, this has less charm and appeal for me than did the earlier and far more compact studio recordings of Radiohead songs: "Exit Music (for a Film)" and "Everything in Its Right Place."
Then, in another unlikely juxtaposition, it's back to Gershwin--this time, "How Long Has This Been Going On?" Well, quite a while at this point. My (perhaps somewhat old-fashioned) ear is now ready for a good, familiar tune, and Mehldau delivers, with a slinky, funky, slow-drag performance (weaving in some "Ol' Man River" for good measure). Beautifully done.
In addition to the Radiohead epic, the program opens and closes with haunting songs by Nick Drake. Mehldau has certainly piqued my interest in this cult figure, for he was clearly a songwriter of unusual gifts. I really applaud Mehldau's willingness to use such material as vehicles for jazz improvisation (and his overall eclecticism), because the so-called standards of yesteryear were fresh as daisies when jazzmen like Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Lester Young, Benny Goodman, etc. first began recording them in the early thirties.
This isn't my favorite Mehldau recording, but it's an important and welcome addition to his growing catalog and further evidence in support of the claim that he's the most exciting and titanically creative jazz pianist to have emerged since Keith Jarrett.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tight-rope walker extraordinaire..., September 24, 2004
This live concert performance is genius of a high order. For those familiar with the improvised solo piano concerts of Keith Jarrett, this is perhaps the "next step". While treating existing tunes during this concert, it must be stressed that each tune is merely a "jumping off point" for something truly spontaneous. I consider it as wholly improvised as the Jarrett concerts where there is no "tune" treatment at all. What is astounding, even to those already familiar with Mehldau's brilliance, is the risk-taking at every turn. This music is courageous, original, organic, and exquisitely beautiful...Mehldau is a "spontaneous composer" who makes full use of the dynamic/touch qualities of the piano as a compositional device. The piano is an orchestra, and man does he ever orchestrate! He's walking the tightrope, and there's no safety net - miraculously, he never needs one.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
pianoroid android, December 5, 2004
Brad Mehldau's first live solo album (I believe it is his second piano solo album after Elegiac Cycle) is quite impressive. The selection of the tunes is eclectic and non-conformist. He opens and ends with a Nick Drake tune (which I don't know) and he plays a Radiohead song as well. His exploring different tunes is not new. On his art of trio, vol.1, he was alreading goign away from standards by playing the beatles's blackbird. But lennon/mccartney songs are not that differently structured from a rodgers/hammerstein.
Anyhow, I quite enjoyed the texture of Paranoid Android, even though it runs 20mn. The song I like the most is monk's dream. I heard it on the radio, and it got me to buy this cd. It starts as monk's dream the jazz tune, but then it gets out of hand into Liszt-like virtuosity, way over there, before landing smoothly. Cole Porter and Gershwin's songs complete the album, and their familiarity is comforting, especially since the structure of the album alternates the stuff that pushes the envelope with the more traditional stuff.
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by Brad Mehldau 
