A beautiful album from 1998, “Songs” is a true handbook for Brad Mehldau’s piano art. He skillfully combines melodic sense and never-idle-virtuosity in the form of a song. Mehldau is often regarded as too conceptual but the listener shouldn’t be mislead by one of his peculiarities which is the ability to play jazz with the counterpoint technique as opposed to swing - once this is understood we are ready to be cradled by these ever so sweet tracks.
A good example of his virtuosity is the solo in track 2 “Unrequited” where the art of counterpoint applied to jazz reaches some of its highest peaks and the great independence of one hand from the other allows him to play an even tempo with his right hand and an odd one with his left. An awesome performance that grants him a place among the best jazz musicians of his generation.
Buon Ascolto
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