Brad Mehldau

小簡(jiǎn)介
科班出身的爵士鋼琴家Brad Mehldau被媒體譽(yù)為90年代的Bill Evans，他繼承了后者的和諧曲風(fēng)和鋼琴三重奏的建構(gòu)，并非常樂(lè)意于從搖滾音樂(lè)人那里借鑒一些經(jīng)典曲目，而Largo卻讓Brad Mehldau在曲風(fēng)上有了一定的轉(zhuǎn)變，合作藝人也大大超出了鋼琴三重奏的范圍。
by Richard S. Ginell
Brad Mehldau was another of the plethora of young jazz pianists in the 90s to adopt Bill Evans as their role model. Yet while the influence of Evans still thoroughly dominates Mehldaus introspective manner, harmonic constructions, and preferred format (the piano trio), he is one of the more absorbing and thoughtful practitioners within that idiom, and he is receptive to the idea of using material from the rock era (Paul McCartneys Blackbird, for example). Though Mehldaus training is primarily classical, his interest in jazz began early. He played in the Hall High School jazz band of Hartford, CT, winning Berklee Colleges Best All-Around Musician Award while still in his junior year of high school. He studied jazz at New Yorks New School for Social Research under Fred Hersch, Junior Mance, Kenny Werner, and Jimmy Cobb. Cobb soon hired him to play in his band, Cobbs Mob, and Mehldau also played and recorded with the Joshua Redman Quartet before forming his own trio in 1994 and recording his first Warner Bros. album, Introducing Brad Mehldau, in 1995. Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 followed in 1997, with the next two volumes in the series appearing over the following months. Two years later, Mehldau returned with Elegiac Cycle, as well as Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard. Places followed in 2000, consisting of all original compositions that focused on a certain city, hence the title of the album. Another Art of the Trio album came in 2001, but the most significant release was Largo, which recorded Mehldau performing with other groups outside of his usual trio format. This was a big change from his previous work, and offered new challenges as he adapted to several interesting lineup situations. Mehldau followed the genre-bending album with the standards-based Anything Goes and Live in Tokyo in 2004, with Day Is Done arriving the following year. In 2006, he released House on Hill as well as Love Sublime, the latter with soprano vocalist Renée Fleming, on Nonesuch Records.