Grammy-award winning jazz pianist as though they were so many 16th notes.
His two new albums, 鈥淎fter Bach II鈥� and 鈥淎pr猫s Faur茅,鈥� use classical music as a foundation for solo explorations that draw a through line from Art Tatum to Thelonious Monk to Bill Evans to Keith Jarrett to Philip Glass. It all , and it all goes back to Bach.
The hybrid sets are out Friday, May 10, and 鈥淎fter Bach II鈥� is a sequel to Mehldau鈥檚 absorbing 2018 album, 鈥淎fter Bach.鈥� Once again, interpretations of Bach pieces alternate with original compositions inspired by him. 鈥淎pr猫s Faur茅鈥� follows a similar format, with the French composer鈥檚 work bookending four short original Mehldau compositions.
It鈥檚 music to delight a church choir or nightclub crowd. And, as Mehldau writes in the liner notes for the Faur茅 album, 鈥渕usic that breathes austerity and weirdness.鈥�
The Faur茅 set includes his final two nocturnes, minor-key pieces written in 1915 and 1921. Their restless, romantic melancholy inspires dark, discordant elements in Mehldau鈥檚 own pieces, which are filled with percussive, searching music that underscores how Faur茅鈥檚 work anticipated jazz.
There鈥檚 also a link between Jelly Roll Morton and J.S. Bach, which Mehldau has long embraced and celebrated. The new Bach album features graceful, persuasive interpretations of familiar material, including five pieces from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Mehldau describes the Fugue in A minor as an exploration of Bach鈥檚 funkiness, and it unspools as freely as a jazz solo, while the familiar melody of the Prelude in E major breaks out like sunshine.
Bach was an acclaimed keyboard improviser, so it鈥檚 fitting his Goldberg Variations are treated to . The seven include two in a 5/8 time signature and one in 7/4, creating a weird and wild flow that is very 21st century.
Mehldau鈥檚 variations are bracing and daring, breathtaking and beautiful, spiritual and psychedelic. Blue notes emerge from the contrapuntal complexity as he tests the limits of Bach鈥檚 music, showing there are none.
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