Brad Mehldau's new album, Suite: April 2020, is now available on CD and standard vinyl, following the release of the digital and limited-edition deluxe vinyl editions earlier this year. You can pick up a copy at your local record store, the Nonesuch Store, Amazon, and iTunes, and listen on Spotify, Apple Music, and Qobuz. Brad Mehldau will perform live in concert at venues across Europe in the days and months ahead, including two concerts at Philharmonie de Paris this weekend; two nights at Enjoy Jazz in Ludwigshafen in October; and shows in Dublin, Barcelona, Madrid, and Rotterdam in November, with more to be added; you can find details and tickets here.

While sheltering at home with his family in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic this spring, the pianist and composer wrote twelve new songs about what he was experiencing; he was able to record them safely in an Amsterdam studio, together with interpretations of three tunes that mean a great deal to him personally. The resulting solo album, Suite: April 2020, was first released in June as a limited-edition deluxe 180-gram vinyl LP. One thousand numbered and signed copies were sold, with a minimum of $90 from each sale donated to the Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19 Musician’s Emergency Fund.

As Mehldau said in June, “Suite: April 2020 is a musical snapshot of life the last month in the world in which we’ve all found ourselves. I’ve tried to portray on the piano some experiences and feelings that are both new and common to many of us. In ‘keeping distance,’ for example, I traced the experience of two people social distancing, represented by the left and right hand—how they are unnaturally drawn apart, yet remain linked in some unexplainable, and perhaps illuminating way. As difficult as COVID-19 has been for many of us, there have been moments of revelation along the way. ‘stopping, listening: hearing’ highlights that moment as well.

“I’ve pointed to some of the strong feelings that have arisen the past month or more: ‘remembering before all this’ expresses a bittersweet gut-pain that has hit me several times out of the blue, when I think back on how things were even just a few months ago, and how long ago and far away that seems now; ‘uncertainty’ hits on the feeling that can follow right after that—a hollow fear of an unknown future,” he continues.

“There’s also been a welcome opportunity to connect more deeply with my family than we ever have, because of the abundant time and close proximity. The last three pieces hit on that connection—the harmony we find with each other, making meals together or just horsing around. ‘Lullaby’ is for everyone who might find it hard to sleep now.”

“Neil Young’s words in ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’ have always been counsel for me, now more than ever, when he instructs: ‘Don’t let it bring you down/It’s only castles burning / Find someone who’s turning / And you will come around.’ Billy Joel’s ‘New York State of Mind,’ a song I’ve loved since I was nine years old, is a love letter to a city that I’ve called my home for years, and that I’m far away from now. I know lots of people there and miss them terribly, and I know how much that great city hurts right now. I also know that it too will come around.”