The Brad Mehldau Trio’s new album, Ode, with 11 previously unreleased songs composed by Mehldau, is out now. The album is "full of seductive melody, and in its blues and bop references and surging swing, it's explicitly jazzy, too," says the Guardian in a four-star review. "It bears a lot of replaying." The Observer calls the new songs "absorbing," noting that "Mehldau is so brilliant at 'recomposing' standards that his remarkable talent as a composer is often overlooked." The Ottawa Citizen says: "A potent combination of deep lyricism, questing creativity and bar-raising virtuosity, Ode consistently provides the frissons that Mehldau fans have come to expect and that lesser pianists wish they could evoke."
The Brad Mehldau Trio’s new album, Ode, is out now. On the album, the Trio performs 11 previously unreleased songs composed by Mehldau. Many were written as tributes, or “odes,” to real and fictional people, such as the late saxophonist Michael Brecker, a character from the film Easy Rider, and the guitarist Kurt Ronsenwinkel. The album was met with great critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic upon its release in the UK last week, as noted in the Nonesuch Journal, and the praise continues with this week's wider release.
The Guardian gives Ode four stars. The album is "full of seductive melody, and in its blues and bop references and surging swing, it's explicitly jazzy, too," says reviewer John Fordham. "The often spindly, casually sown melodies are constantly enriched by Mehldau, bassist Larry Grenadier and firecracker drummer Jeff Ballard unfolding them collectively ... It bears a lot of replaying." Read the review at guardian.co.uk.
"Mehldau is so brilliant at 'recomposing' standards that his remarkable talent as a composer is often overlooked," writes The Observer's Dave Gelly. "Now, for his trio's first studio album in more than six years, he comes up with 11 absorbing new pieces." Read the review at guardian.co.uk.
New York Daily News music critic Jim Farber includes the album among the week's best new releases. "Pianist Mehldau has as firm a hold on melody as on invention," Farber writes. "He's never in closer synch with both than with his core trio, including bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard."
The Ottawa Citizen says "Ode finds Mehldau, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard lighting the way ahead for the modern mainstream jazz pack." Reviewer Peter Hum concludes: "A potent combination of deep lyricism, questing creativity and bar-raising virtuosity, Ode consistently provides the frissons that Mehldau fans have come to expect and that lesser pianists wish they could evoke." Read the complete album review at ottawacitizen.com.
To pick up a copy of Ode, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the complete album at checkout. Ode is also available to purchase there as MP3s and FLAC lossless files.
The Brad Mehldau Trio is currently on tour in Europe, performing this week in France and the Netherlands, and will tour the States in May, following Mehldau's own US tour with label mate Joshua Redman. For details, go to nonesuch.com/on-tour.
- Log in to post comments
