Anything Goes | Brad Mehldau Trio

Anything Goes | Brad Mehldau Trio | Everything in Its Right Place

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Anything Goes

	Anything Goes Brad Mehldau Trio Nonesuch, 2004 average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Pianist Brad Mehldau's so-so excursion into atmospheric pop production, Largo, may be proving to be a worthwhile experiment after all. Having gotten that out of his system, at least for the moment, he sounds looser in the pocket than he has in a long time in returning to the ruminative piano trio format with which he made his reputation. In applying some of his quirkiest personal touches to jazz and pop standards, he also sounds--no offense intended--more awake. Hooking up with his longstanding rhythm mates, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jorge Rossy, Mehldau offsets his patented lyrical touches with antic minimalist strokes, bold vamps, and high-stepping two-hand strategies. Alternately spiky and seductive, his unaccompanied playing on an initially languid "Get Happy" is a winning case of the left hand pretending not to know what the right hand is doing. Reharmonizing Charles Chaplin's "Smile" with dense harmonic clouds, he properly obliterates that hoary melody. There's another sighing Radiohead treatment, "Everything in its Right Place," and an attempt at enlivening Paul Simon's "Still Crazy (After All These Years)," but it's his happy time with Thelonious Monk's "Skippy" that tells us his best may be yet to come. --Lloyd Sachs

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Another level

What has inspired Brad Mehldau? He was from the beginning recognized as an extraordinary player with an original cerebral approach to improvisation. Then he released the album called Largo which was widely described as an experiment. It has cuts like Paranoid Android--an inturpretation of Radiohead-- which are so original that I have seen music lovers react as though ice water was splashed in their face. What is this music? I owned several earlier albums and conjectured that the directness of Largo came from the compositions combined with the hybrid production sound. The next albums, Anything Goes, the Live in Tokyo, though they do not utilize new production techniques, have been equally remarkable. Mehldau has formulated a structural concept within each work, and the concepts have continuity from cut to cut. It is as though he has discovered a way to express himself more directly and powerfully without some of the technical detours. The Tokoyo album is technical wonder of live recording. All three are important profound albums.

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Everything in Its Right Place

Brad Mehldau. either alone, with diferent music guests , or with his inseparable trio, his "trio progression" is capable to offer amazing recordings, improvisation, excitement, enthusiasm, passion and refinement are the basic ingredients of every Mehldau s piece of work, the reason i wrote "Everything in Its Right Place" as a tittle for this review is because this track is for me a new classic in Mehldaus cataloge , along with "trailer park ghost" from Elegiac cycle, "Los Angeles" from places and "dusty mcnugget" from Largo this is a very progressive piece with a stuning bass intro, this song begin with a calm rithm , drum section starts to grow up step by step untill a climax of improvisation and "soft madness" take over the finnal minutes of this amazing track, its totally enjoyable, "get happy" is the perfec begining, it seems like this song didnt had many rehearsals before it was recorded and this is great because it sounds with a lot of spontaneity like the perfect begin for an intimate and closed concert, "Dreamsville" and the self tittled "Anything Goes" show this same emotion. another masterpiece in Brad Mehldau s collection
HM

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Mehldau does not disappoint

An album full of well crafted mid-tempo ballads that does not disappoint. It has both traditional jazz tunes (nearness of you, dreamsville, get happy) and more contemporary tunes (Still Crazy, Everything in its right place) yet the songs all seem to all fit nicely together. This is the only Mehldau album i have right now but after hearing this I am definitely getting Live in Tokyo and his Art of the Trio recordings. Awesome.

Great album

First of all let me just say as a veteran multi-instrumental musician, that this rythym section is EXCELLENT. Rossy is a bad mother on drums and he and Grenadier have ways of turning the bar unlike anyone I've heard in ages. They have a unique feel that is original and unpredictable...and then you have Mehldau too!!! What a trio.

Absolutely love this album. The chord work is haunting, the arrangements are very ambitious, and the piano (as always with mehldau) sounds like it comes truly from the heart. My personal favorites are the title track, Still Crazy (beautiful), the Radiohead cover (really picks up steam), and Smile (VERY ambitious arrangement.)

If you like Brad, you'll like this album. It has the great TRIO with the quality of studio sound. I still prefer Largo for the ballsy experimenting and think that it's gotten a very bad rap from the purists, but this is a close second for Mehldau studio albums.

Alot of jazz-philes keep whining about Brad doing Radiohead covers and other pop tunes. This is the big problem with jazz music. Many fans are music-snobs and want every jazz musician to stay away from any rock or pop influence, and keep themselves squarely confined inside the box of standard jazz. I think it's great that Brad acknowledges his love of rock, especially with such an innovative band as Radiohead. I wish more jazz musicians would realize that there is a world of quality music to draw inspiration from outside of the "standards."

Definitely get this album.

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