Description

Brad Mehldaus Nonesuch Records debut album, Live in Tokyo, first released in September 2004, makes its vinyl debut almost exactly fifteen years later. The vinyl edition, made in partnership with Run Out Groove, comprises the original albums eight tracks plus an additional seven tracks previously available only on the Japanese edition and sequenced in the order of that release. This triple-LP set was mastered by Alex DeTurk and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Record Industry in the Netherlands. Limited to 3,000 copies worldwide.

On Live in Tokyo, Mehldau, hailed by the Washington Post as one of his generations most gifted and thoughtful pianists, performs his own tunes and interprets material from artists as varied as George Gershwin, Thelonius Monk, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Burt Bacharach, and Radiohead on an album recorded live in concert at Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo in February 2003.

Few pianists can match Brad Mehldau when it comes to cross-fertilizing jazz, classical, and rock, said JazzTimes. The same applies for technique, taste and intellectual curiosity. All of those qualities are on display [on Live in Tokyo]. Mehldau plays beautifully on his own, his work is florid with detail, yet never just flowery, said All About Jazz. There is a deeply felt passion in all he plays, and thats exactly why he is so engrossing to hear: in a solo setting Mehldau demonstrates how he selects his ideas altogether discriminatingly from what must be a veritable flood of variations that occur to him as he plays. Its not long into listening to Live in Tokyo that you are reminded how skilfully he runs the gamut of emotion in his playing.

Mehldaus latest album, Finding Gabriel, released in May 2019 on Nonesuch Records, features performances by him on piano, synthesizers, percussion, Fender Rhodes, and vocals, with guest musicians including Ambrose Akinmusire, Sara Caswell, Kurt Elling, Joel Frahm, Mark Guiliana, Gabriel Kahane, and Becca Stevens, among others. The Times says the dominant mood is of a master musician having fun on this latest album from the American jazz pianist, one of the best alive.