When Brad Mehldau appeared on the international scene with his trio in the early 90s, comparisons rained down on this pianistic phenomenon. Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and, of course, Fred Hersch, his legendary teacher. Today, he has become a legend in his own right, with a discography unrivalled in its aesthetic plurality. 

On the occasion of the release of his latest album Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles, on Nonesuch, a tribute to the Beatles, let's take up our pilgrim's staff and explore what makes Brad Mehldau one of today's most fascinating contemporary musicians. 

An inimitable style
One evening in July 2021, I had the pleasure of listening to him play solo at the Théâtre Antique during the famous Jazz à Vienne festival. For more than an hour, Mehldau displayed his incredible science of counterpoint, the envy of jazz and classical musicians alike.
Several melodies flowed independently of each other, in distinctly different rhythms at times, all the while coming together, of course, to our delight. Just as Keith Jarrett 's solo concerts have become, Mehldau's musical moments are sacralized masses. We wait for the quotations, hear the musician's gimmicks and, of course, the rock- or progressive-rock-inspired encores he's so fond of. At the very end of the concert, by way of farewell, the melody and opening chords of David Bowie's Life On Mars? appear in a more than faithful harmonic and melodic treatment, frankly post-romantic and disarmingly sentimental. That, in a few minutes, is the Mehldau trademark. 

A master of the piano nourished by the classics
Although Brad Mehldau discovered jazz at the age of 13 and listened extensively to Oscar Peterson, captivated by his immense technique and magnificent clarity of elocution, his piano and musical studies began long before the discovery of jazz, as he took piano lessons from an early age and studied with a classical music teacher who also introduced him to improvisation using songs from pop music. Throughout his life, he would keep this particular attraction to pop music to fuel his improvisations. After an unsuccessful performance of Chopin's First Ballad, Op. 23 , at a piano competition, he turned away from classical music and threw himself wholeheartedly into jazz, which offered him greater freedom. He returned to classical music at the age of 20, playing Bach, Beethoven (the 32 Sonatas) and Brahms. His album After Bach (2018) bears witness to his aesthetic attraction to the German composer's contrapuntal language. He mixes Bach's original pieces with his own, austere and elaborate ones such as the Inventions and Sinfonias. This album brings him closer to Keith Jarrett, also a fine Bach interpreter. But pianistically, he should be more closely associated with Johannes Brahms, with whom he shares more than he thinks, and more than one might imagine. Just listen to his interpretation of theIntermezzo in B flat major Op. 76 No. 4 to be troubled by the musical similarity between these two musicians: a lyrical musical idiom, thick in pianistic texture, with an immediate directness, a polyphonic clarity both inherited from Bach and a typically German way of harmonizing melody (full of disinence and delay). To paraphrase Cioran, "If there's anyone who owes everything to Brahms, it's Brad Mehldau". Youtube, a breeding ground for rare or neglected videos, offers us a moment where the musician analyzes Brahms' music, plays it and talks about his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in B minor, Op. 115, a work that has meant so much to him. 

A true contemporary
Ever since his youth, Brad Mehldau has been as interested in pop music as he is in jazz and classical music. On one of his birthdays, he remembers begging his mother to give him a Pink Floyd record(The Wall) after receiving his first vinyl turntable, on which he discovered the great names of jazz, rock and, of course, the Beatles. His love for this band is nothing new.
" Their music crosses cultural and generational boundaries, as new listeners continue to discover it. There's an immediacy and integrity to their songs that appeals to everyone. Their music, and its influence on other artists, continues to inspire me. If we consider the Beatles and the multitude of artists who have been influenced by one or other facet of their work, this paradoxical recipe for longevity is one way of looking at their permanent imprint. For there's a healthy dose of strangeness in much of their music, particularly in the series of game-changing albums from Rubber Soul through to their latest release, Let It Be."

From the Beatles to Bach, Radiohead and Nirvana, not forgetting Romantics like Brahms, his musical eclecticism is certainly one of the most extensive in the contemporary sphere. For before being a jazzman, Brad Mehldau is a contemporary musician open to the aesthetics of his time like few of his colleagues. To be a true contemporary musician is not simply to live in a certain temporality: it's also to get to know others who live and create at the same time as you do; to be curious about new things (sometimes disconcerting) or to play with today's tools in his creations.
Brad Mehldau is certainly first and foremost a pianist, but he knows how to break out of this ancestral role by taking up the microphone, playing drums, synths or the Fender Rhodes to explore and cross musical boundaries. The album most emblematic of this fertile versatility remains his enthralling - and 2020 Grammy Award-winning - Finding Gabriel (2019), based on his intensive readings of the Bible.

With more than thirty albums to his credit, as soloist, trio player or sideman, the discography of this American born in Florida in 1970 has won the admiration of the music world, and has certainly put him at the top of the list of the greatest jazz pianists of this century. Drawing as much inspiration from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier as from a Nick Drake or Joni Mitchell hit, Brad Mehldau seems to have a constant need to renew himself with each album. Although well known and celebrated as a trio, he is constantly looking for something new, even if it means confusing his audience, as with Finding Gabriel on which he played all the instruments, sang and created surprising sounds, and which was rather criticized on its release before becoming iconic and one of his best albums of recent years. 

In the cinema
The cinema has taken an interest in his music, giving him the kind of notoriety that only he can sometimes offer musicians. In Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick used his version of Blame It on My Mouth from his The Art Of The Trio, Vol. 1 (1997), where the influence of Bill Evans is obvious.
For The Million Dollar Hotel, Wim Wenders commissioned Brian Eno, Bono, Jon Hassell, Bill Frisell, Chris Spedding and Brad Mehldau to compose a bespoke soundtrack for one of the most touching scenes in cinema history.
A special mention goes to the soundtrack for Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys (2000), which contributed to the film's success. We should also mention the fruitful collaboration with French director Yvan Attal on several original scores, including the recent successful soundtrack for Mon chien Stupide (2019).

Brad Mehldau is definitely a musician who is extremely curious about the music of his time, but also about that of the past, and this is reflected in his musical creations - and this latest Beatles tribute album is further proof of this. 

François Mardirossian

Photo © David Bazemore