Brad Mehldau
A pianist whose left and right hands sing different songs while building a single story.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people alongside him ⏳🌊
- TeacherJimmy Cobb
The drummer on "Kind of Blue," he put the student Mehldau in his own band and taught him the fundamentals of the club stage.
- TeacherFred Hersch
A lyrical pianist who taught piano during the New School years, he left his mark on Mehldau's approach to ballads.
- ColleagueJoshua Redman
In the early 1990s he brought Mehldau into his quartet and made his name known, and years later the two worked together again on Highway Rider.
- ColleagueLarry Grenadier
From the mid-1990s on he held the trio's bass chair, a companion through most of his musical life.
- SupportJon Brion
Producing Largo and Highway Rider, he led him beyond the grammar of the trio.
- ColleaguePat Metheny
In 2006 they released duo and quartet albums together and toured, a collaboration that bridged generations.
I. From Jacksonville to West Hartford · 1970–1987 (age 0–17)
(Birth) He was born in August 1970 in Jacksonville, Florida. That he was adopted and raised by his adoptive family he revealed himself, years later, in his memoir Formation. After his early childhood the family moved to West Hartford, Connecticut, where he spent his teens. (Classical) He began piano as a child with classical lessons. The texture in which the two hands each carry an independent melody and weave around each other, as in Bach's keyboard music (counterpoint), became second nature to him then, and it later became the most distinctive trait setting his jazz playing apart from that of other pianists. His attachment to German Romantic composers such as Brahms and Schumann has stayed with him ever since. (Jazz) He discovered jazz in his early teens. He is said to have learned by ear, playing records by John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson and others over and over. He honed his skills in his high school jazz band, and in the same years listened freely to pop and rock as well, the Beatles among them. That teenage ear, which took in jazz, classical and rock with no hierarchy among them, foretold his later repertoire exactly. (Identity) The subtitle of his memoir Formation is 'Building a Personal Canon.' The book's through-line is the story of a suburban boy who built up, piece by piece, a sense of who he was through records and books, and he wrote that music was the very passage through which he made himself. His recollection that music held him steady through the confusion and loneliness of adolescence hints at why his playing always sounds like an inner monologue.
II. Apprenticeship in New York · 1988–1995 (age 18–25)
(The New School) In 1988 he went to New York and entered the jazz program at the New School. He studied with pianists Fred Hersch, Junior Mance, Kenny Werner and others. Hersch in particular was renowned for his lyrical ballads and delicate touch, and many critics hear that influence in Mehldau's early ballad interpretations. (Jimmy Cobb) As a student he played in drummer Jimmy Cobb's band, Cobb's Mob. Cobb was the man behind the drums on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. Mehldau has recalled that, working club stages beside a master of the bebop generation, he learned the fundamentals of swing and how to listen inside a band. Here the era of Miles covered in this series touched his generation directly. (Barcelona) In the early 1990s he traveled back and forth to Barcelona, Spain, recording with saxophonist Perico Sambeat and drummer Jorge Rossy. A few years later Rossy would become his trio's drummer. (Redman) In 1993 he joined tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman's quartet as an accompanist (sideman). With Christian McBride on bass and Brian Blade on drums, the band recorded MoodSwing in 1994 and toured the world. Redman was a young jazz star, and his stage became the occasion that introduced Mehldau's name to critics and the industry. (Debut) As a result he signed with Warner Bros., and in 1995, with producer Matt Pierson, released his first album as a leader, Introducing Brad Mehldau. It was the moment a sideman in his mid-twenties, who had made his living in other people's bands, began making music under his own name.
The signature album of the Redman quartet, which introduced Mehldau to the world in his sideman years. It is also a record of four young players, each of whom would go on to become a master in their own right, gathered in one place.
- Every track is a Redman original, and ballads take up a large share. Redman's warm, rounded tenor tone sets the mood of the whole album.
- Follow Mehldau's accompaniment (comping). Behind the soloist he props up the harmony with short, clipped chords, yet in his own solos you can already hear his later habit of letting the right and left hands each carry a melody of their own.
- Brian Blade's drumming has a wide dynamic range, surging suddenly from the softest sounds to loud ones. McBride's bass lays down a solid floor, striding along one note to the beat (walking bass).
III. The art of three · 1996–2001 (age 26–31)
(Trio) He formed a piano trio with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jorge Rossy on drums. From 1997 to 2001 they released five albums under the title The Art of the Trio. They mixed old jazz classics (standards) with originals, while naturally weaving in rhythms in which a bar breaks into an uneven count, such as 5/4 or 7/4 (odd meters). (Comparisons) Critics liked to call him the heir to Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. In a number of writings he kept his distance from such comparisons, noting that the roots of his music reach to Brahms and to rock as well. The long liner notes he attached to each album held reflections drawing on German literature and philosophy. (Los Angeles) In the mid-1990s he moved his base to Los Angeles. In 1996, at the club Jazz Bakery there, he played with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and Charlie Haden, once Ornette Coleman's bassist, leaving behind Alone Together. Among masters a generation older, he was both accompanist and conversational partner. (Recovery) In his memoir he disclosed that he went through heroin addiction in the 1990s and recovered. (Radiohead) His performance of Radiohead's “Exit Music” on the 1998 album Songs was emblematic. This interpretation, which treated the rock of his own generation like a standard, is often cited as a pioneering example of the trend of jazz musicians taking contemporary pop into their repertoire. In 1999, with the solo album Elegiac Cycle, he bound the themes of mourning and remembrance into a single cycle.
Setting songs by Radiohead and Nick Drake alongside standards, this album marked the turning point at which his trio took contemporary rock into the language of jazz.
- “Exit Music” lays out the original melody very slowly; then, over the left hand's stubborn repetition of a single figure (ostinato), the right hand swells by degrees to a climax.
- Nick Drake's “River Man” is in an odd meter even in the original, with five beats to the bar. Listen to how the trio turns this lopsided meter into a steady, natural flow.
- On the standard “Bewitched,” Jorge Rossy sweeps the drums with brush-shaped beaters in place of sticks (brushes), backing the others in a whisper, while Grenadier's bass goes beyond accompaniment to sing like another melody.
- The original “Unrequited,” true to its title of one-sided love, has a lonely melody, and it later became one of his signature pieces.
A cycle for solo piano on the themes of mourning and remembrance. It carries over into piano improvisation the idea of the song cycle, in which Romantic composers strung songs together into a single story.
- Each piece can be heard on its own, but melodic fragments from earlier pieces return transformed in later ones. Heard straight through from beginning to end, a single large cyclical structure emerges.
- As in “Elegy for William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg,” which honors two writers who died in 1997, the titles themselves declare the feeling of letting someone go.
- The sound is closer to classical piano music than to swing rhythm. Listen for the contrapuntal texture, in which the melodies of the two hands move independently and intertwine, and for the lingering resonance of chords sustained with the pedal.
IV. Largo and new companions · 2002–2009 (age 32–39)
(Largo) Largo, made in 2002 with producer Jon Brion, marked a sharp change of direction. The title came from the name of the Los Angeles club where Brion played a regular residency. Boldly bringing in winds, percussion and studio sound processing, it explored territory beyond the grammar of the trio. (Ballard) From the mid-2000s he began releasing records on Nonesuch, part of the same Warner Music family. In 2005 Rossy left and drummer Jeff Ballard joined. Day Is Done, recorded the same year, was the new trio's point of departure. Ballard's drumming had a firmer groove than Rossy's, and the trio leaned toward rhythm felt more in the body. Grenadier and Ballard stayed by his side for nearly 20 years after that. (Metheny) In 2006 he released Metheny Mehldau with guitarist Pat Metheny. It mixed duo pieces with quartet pieces joined by Grenadier·Ballard, and the following year Quartet, gathering tracks from the same sessions, appeared. In this collaboration two harmony instruments found a way not to collide but to make room for each other, and it led to a tour the two made together. (Voice) He also wrote songs for singers. Love Sublime (2006), a cycle written for Renée Fleming, was his first major attempt to widen the scope of his composing to stages beyond the jazz club.
The first recording by the new trio with Jeff Ballard. It captures intact how the trio's way of moving changed along with the drummer.
- The opener, Radiohead's “Knives Out,” begins over a fast, restless rhythm. You can hear at once how Ballard's drums drive the trio with a far firmer groove than in the Rossy years.
- The album treats pop classics such as the Beatles’ “Martha My Dear” and Burt Bacharach’s “Alfie” as if they were jazz standards. Listen for the skill with which he keeps the original melodies intact while dressing them in new harmonies.
- The title track is a Nick Drake song. That he turned to Drake again after “River Man” reveals his long attachment to the lonely mood of this English singer-songwriter.
This is the record of a first meeting between two generations of chordal players. The intimacy of the duo and the drive of the quartet alternate within a single album.
- Guitar and piano are both chordal instruments, so they can easily collide. Listen for how sparsely one accompanies while the other solos, or how he lifts his hands away altogether and leaves the space open.
- The duo pieces are quiet as conversation, while in the quartet pieces, with Grenadier and Ballard joining in, the rhythm rolls forward. The shifts of mood as the album moves between the two lineups give it its architecture.
- The pleasure of listening lies in hearing how the two men’s musical habits fit together when Metheny’s signature long, singing guitar lines overlap with the interwoven lines of Mehldau’s two hands.
V. Toward large forms · 2010–2019 (age 40–49)
(Highway) In 2010 he joined forces again with Jon Brion to release the double album “Highway Rider.” Joining the trio were Joshua Redman, drummer Matt Chamberlain, and a chamber orchestra conducted by Dan Coleman. It amounted to a reunion, fifteen years on, with a colleague from his Redman Quartet days. The same year he recorded “Love Songs” with the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. (Experiment) In 2013 he formed the duo Mehliana with drummer Mark Guiliana, releasing an album the following year that put synthesizers and electric keyboards front and center. The year after that came “10 Years Solo Live,” culled from a decade of solo concerts in Europe. A desire to hold the freedom of improvisation and large-scale structure in the same grasp runs through this period. (Bach) He released a duo album with the mandolinist Chris Thile (2017), and on 2018’s “After Bach” he alternated selections from Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” with original pieces that answer them. The counterpoint that began in his childhood lessons had returned, decades later, as a single work. (Gabriel) He has said that 2019’s “Finding Gabriel” grew from impressions formed while reading the Bible and from anxiety about the society of his day. He layered multiple keyboards and synthesizers himself and added a wordless vocal choir. The album won him the Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. It was a win that came at the end of numerous nominations.
A two-disc magnum opus featuring the trio, Redman, and a chamber orchestra. It is the high point of his effort to bind improvisation and large-scale composition into one.
- As the title suggests, it depicts a journey on the road. Themes introduced early return again and again across both discs, so it is best heard straight through from beginning to end.
- Two drummers, Jeff Ballard and Matt Chamberlain, play together. Listen for the passages where their drums overlap and the rhythm thickens.
- The strings and winds of the chamber orchestra conducted by Dan Coleman wrap around the jazz band from behind. The moments where Joshua Redman’s soprano·tenor saxophones intertwine with the orchestra are counted among the album’s highlights.
- Jon Brion’s production created a sound that uses space expansively, more like a film score than a club recording.
An album he has said captures impressions gathered while reading the Bible and his anxiety about the times. It won the Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
- This is not a piano-trio record. Mehldau layers multiple keyboards and synthesizers himself, creating a sound as if he had assembled a small orchestra on his own.
- A wordless vocal choir is laid throughout. The singers’ voices are used like instruments, creating a solemn, chantlike atmosphere.
- Mark Guiliana, his partner in Mehliana, anchors the pieces on drums with intricate rhythms that move between the electronic and the acoustic.
VI. Formation and reflection · 2020–2026 (age 50–56)
(Lockdown) When the spread of COVID-19 brought live performance to a halt in the spring of 2020, he was in the Netherlands with his family. He turned those few weeks into twelve short piano pieces, “Suite: April 2020,” released that June. Everyday scenes such as waking up, keeping distance and remembering before all this became the titles. The proceeds went to a fund of the Jazz Foundation of America for musicians whose livelihoods had been cut off when performances stopped. (Progressive) On 2022’s “Jacob’s Ladder” he wove the progressive rock he loved as a teenager together with biblical imagery. The following year he released “Your Mother Should Know,” a collection of Beatles songs recorded live in Paris in 2020. One by one, the records that had filled his boyhood shelves were returning as his own work. (Memoir) In 2023 he published the memoir “Formation.” In this book, which spans his childhood through his years as a young player in New York, he wrote openly about adoption, the drift of his adolescence, and the process of building a self through music. A musician who had always voiced his thoughts in liner notes was, for the first time, putting his life itself into words. (Now) On 2024’s “Après Fauré” he paired Fauré’s nocturnes with his own pieces, and on 2025’s “Ride into the Sun” he revived, with a chamber orchestra, the songs of the singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, who died in 2003. Today he moves among a new trio formed in 2025 with Felix Moseholm·Jorge Rossy, solo work, and collaborations.
A piano diary of the weeks he spent with his family in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 lockdown. The proceeds went to a fund supporting musicians who had lost work.
- Twelve short pieces with titles such as waking up, keeping distance and remembering before all this sketch the scenes of each day in turn. Heard in order, they trace the flow of daily life under lockdown.
- Simple, quiet melodies outnumber flashy improvisation. It ranks among the most unadorned playing of his solo work.
- After the suite he appended songs by Neil Young and Billy Joel and the standard “Look for the Silver Lining.” One senses that he chose songs to offer comfort in hard times.
Lesser-known stories
His first recordings as a leader came out not in America but in Spain. In the early 1990s he recorded for the new-talent series of the local label Fresh Sound with the Barcelona saxophonist Perico Sambeat, the drummer Jorge Rossy, and others. Because his Warner Bros. debut is usually presented as his official starting point, these recordings are often skipped over, but they amount to more than a footnote: his bond with Rossy, who would later become the core of the trio, had already begun. “Long Ago and Far Away,” his duo album with Charlie Haden, is a live recording of a 2007 concert in Germany, but it did not appear until 2018, four years after Haden’s death. The two men’s association, which began with the 1996 trio album “Alone Together” with Lee Konitz, also documents how the veteran who had been a companion to Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett treated a young pianist as an equal partner in dialogue. Because of its late release, it is usually missing from accounts of his work in the 2000s. He has also written seriously for the voice outside jazz. In 2006 he composed the song cycle “Love Sublime” for the soprano Renée Fleming, setting poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and the American poet Louise Bogan, and in 2010 he also released a record with the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. As classical vocal records, they are little known among jazz fans, yet they are the work in which his childhood devotion to Schumann and Brahms shows most directly.
Notes on terms 📚🔎
Piano trio
(Etymology) Trio comes from the Italian tre, meaning three, and refers to a performing unit of three people. (In jazz) In jazz it usually means a band of three instruments, piano·bass·drums. The piano handles melody and harmony, the bass the low foundation, and the drums the beat, but the better the trio, the more the three trade on equal terms. Think of three people jumping rope together. It may look as though two turn the rope while one jumps, but if any one of the three falls out of step, the rope catches. (Elsewhere) In classical music, a piano trio usually means a lineup of piano·violin·cello.
Standard
(In jazz) A song that so many jazz musicians have loved to play that everyone knows it. Many come from musicals and films of the 1920s–50s, and players show their skill and personality by interpreting these tunes each in their own way. Think of the relay race, a fixture of every school field day. Everyone knows the rules, but each class runs in a different order with a different strategy, so every race turns out differently. (Elsewhere) In everyday usage, standard means a norm or benchmark, as in a standard specification or a basic model.
Sideman
(In jazz) A player hired to perform in someone else’s band rather than leading a band under their own name. Young musicians usually gain experience and make a name as sidemen alongside famous leaders before forming their own bands. It is like taking a supporting role in a school play to grow comfortable onstage before eventually landing the lead.
Counterpoint
(Word meaning) Daewibeop (對位法) means 'setting note against note' (對位). The Western name counterpoint likewise comes from the Latin punctus contra punctum, 'point (note) against point.' (In jazz) The compositional craft of sounding two or more distinct melodies at once, weaving them so that each goes its own way while all of them blend well together. Bach was its master, and Mehldau carried the technique into jazz improvisation with playing in which the left and right hands each spin out an independent melodic line. Think of singing a round: two groups sing different phrases, yet what you hear is a single song. Counterpoint is a way of designing that kind of harmony on purpose.
Odd meter
(In jazz) A rhythm that divides a bar into an odd number of beats, such as five or seven. Because most popular music flows in four beats, one-two-three-four, odd meters can feel awkward at first hearing, as if a step were left over or missing. Mehldau's trio is renowned for its knack for letting such meters flow naturally, without making a show of them. Imagine a jump-rope game in which you hop off the beat on every fifth turn. Until you get used to it you stumble, but once it settles into your body it becomes a new kind of fun.
Ostinato
(Word meaning) Ostinato is Italian for 'stubborn.' It shares a root with the English obstinate. (In jazz) An accompaniment that stubbornly repeats a short figure or rhythm over and over. When another melody shifts and swells above it, the ground stays put while the top keeps moving, and tension steadily builds. In solo performance Mehldau often builds a climax by layering right-hand improvisation over a left-hand ostinato. It is like a gym class where someone keeps up a steady boom-boom on a drum, and everyone moves to the beat with more and more excitement.
Song cycle
(Word meaning) Yeongagok (連歌曲) means 'linked (連) songs (歌曲)'; in German it is called Liederzyklus, a cycle of songs. (In jazz) A work that binds a number of songs into a single theme or story, to be sung one after another. German Romantic composers such as Schubert and Schumann favored the form. Mehldau wrote a song cycle for Renée Fleming, and on his solo album Elegiac Cycle he borrowed the same idea of linking pieces into a single story. It is like a webtoon: each episode is fun to read on its own, but read from the beginning in sequence, they become one large story.