You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Ahh, To Be Brad Mehldau In The 90's

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

In this episode, Peter and Adam travel back in time to a time when things were just simpler. Think baggy pants and gel bracelets. Sitcoms on tv and dial-up internet, heck... we're talking flip-phones baby! Join in as Peter and Adam check out a live concert of Brad Mehldau playing at Parc Floral de Paris which was part of the "A Fleur de Jazz" Festival in 1997. Check the OG concert! Right HEREHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, let me take you back in time. Okay, let me take you back. 26 years ago. It was like it was yesterday. It's to me. So try. They just reissued the Volkswagen Beetle.

Mm. A young Steve Jobs is between jobs. Ooh. And one of the great piano trios of the 1990s is at their peak. Mm. And they're in-Jarred? No. Oh.

They're in Paris. Oh, Chickeria. No. Oh. Any guess? Brad Mabla? Yes. I'm Adam Mennis.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcasts. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio, jas.com, to check out Open Studio. It's what we're doing around here. We're talking about jazz piano all the time. That's right.

And Open Studio is a place to be. Should we tell them what we were just talking about in the episode that we kept finishing prematurely? We're going to do that episode. We're going to do is Bill Evans, the Larry Bird of Jazz. Oh, he's putting it out there. It's going to happen. We tried. We just tried three times.

Going negative, man. We're not good at it. So I thought we would have... I like that teaser, though. It's good. Caleb, producer Caleb, suggested that we go positive and just have a bit of a palette cleanser. Caleb wants to just to finish something. I think he's hungry.

I mean, it is late. I'm hungry. Okay. This is going to be fun. I know. Because what you were describing that time and where we're going is a place. Not so much that I, of course, we all want to go back in time. But it's like sometimes when we talk about, let's go back in time.

Well, think about some horrible thing that happens. when you were a teenager when you were being bullied and shoved into a trash can at university city high school not that that happened this is happening in 97 so that's right in the prime time for me for that kind of thing okay yeah but this was like you know i was in europe that summer i know this venue i've known brad from before this time and i mean i love the brad the classic brad meldott trio which i believe he's out on tour with again now i could be wrong on that you might be wrong i might be wrong Well, okay, anyway. Larry Grenadier and Jorge Rossi?

Yeah. Yeah. Are they on the road? I thought so. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I had not heard that. Well, we'll fact check that as we go.

It is, I think, one of the great groups of the 1990s. Yeah. Brad Meldow trio specifically with Jorge and Larry, and that's no offense to Jeff Ballard or anybody else that has played. Shout out Jeff. That's also a classic trio. But there's something with the energy when these guys were all super young and really kind of like making some. now classic records you know all the live at the village vanguard

the art of the trio records are have been studied by my generation and I think generations underneath us so it's kind of cool to go back and see this concert at a venue that I know Peter you've played at in Paris Park to Floral so they have a wonderful

outdoor festival that's been going on for years and I'm trying to remember the last time I did it it was it's been a while but I believe it is at least it was a free festival. It's in Paris, which is Paris has one of the best jazz or just live music audiences in the world, you know, just in terms of, and this is very subjective in terms of feedback I've gotten during gigs and clubs, the New Morning. I mean, first time I went there was 1991. Were you in diapers then? I'm sorry. I can't remember. No, man, come on. No, it was like 12 years old.

What are you talking about? Okay, good. Oh, you got out of diapers early? Good. Way to go. But so at the New Morning Jazz Club with Betty Carter, I'm in, I'll never forget that. But the audience has always been sort of the constant different venues, big venues, small venues, clubs, or whatever. I mean, I think the Strasbourg Saint-Denise with, you know, We're Hargrove and our dear friend Montes Coleman, the vibe, the level that they played there is a big part of it is that audience interaction, that energy from the audience. And Park, Park, Florida is just a special place. It's a special place like you, it's just, they're hyped up and in all the right ways. They're outdoors. They're not acting like they're indoors, but they're not like sitting, like,

looking the other way and eating wine and cheese and, you know, well, it's France, of course. Of course. You'd be smart to eat some wine and cheese. But I mean, the idea is just that everything kind of comes together. So it's a great challenge for a really good group to hit that higher level, too, since everything else is. So I'm excited to see this. I've never seen this either. I don't know how you found it, but I don't know how I missed it.

But this was right, this would be in the time where I was really discovering Brad Meldal's music and I saw him live a bunch during this time. Yeah. Never in Paris, unfortunately. But now we get this great video. And this is the way you look tonight, which was from, I believe, Art of the Trio, Volume 4, a super burn in fast version of the way you look tonight. I'm wondering if this is going to be that fast. But I did sneak peek here.

There is a classic 90s Brad Meldow intro, solo piano intro on this. And so let's check it out. I'm sorry, before we check it out. I do a little reconnaissance here. Check this. Boom. So it's with Ballard. Okay, it's with Ballard.

I mean, look at that. I would be checking that out. For sure. You can go on here, look at this. And is there a sound? This is just kind of, you know, look at that. Oh, at the show then. Oh, we got to go see him.

Yeah. Anyway, go to bradmell.mysk.com. You can check out this whole schedule. Sweet. Okay, let's check it out. Okay, so I feel validated. I think Brad and I are about the same age. I was playing.

There's some potato quality YouTube videos of me out there from this time and I was always very skeptical and self-aware and a lot of self-deprecation to my long sleeve length on my shirts during that period. Buddy, things were just baggyer and boxier. No, but I thought it was due to the short stature that I enjoy as a gentleman. Clothes were cut. By the way, Brad's the same. By the way, this is now back in fashion.

Oh, I'm pulling myself out. Willie Ware is back in the house. I mean, I'm a sucker. sue me for it. I'm a sucker for the triplets. I'm a sucker for all of it. Yeah. And then some five stuff in there. Brad has such a great like kind of understated technical mastery is the way the best words I can come up with right now. It's a rhythmic mastery that is almost like so unique to him. Very much. And I mean, people always think about like piano technique just being like velocity, all these things that you work on for technique. But when you fold that in with the musical stuff,

like that's real technique. And you know how much of this shit has been ripped off by people, including myself. But like, So many people play like this, but this all, I mean, he didn't invent all this stuff, but it's so specific to his sound that it's like you can't help but be ripping him. And there's some, like, like there's a way that he plays it that makes it seem accessible as a, if you're a pianist. Yeah. It's not necessary. It's very refined and difficult to do, but it's, it kind of comes out of that tradition of making something look easy. It's because it's so free and relaxed with it.

Exactly. Some modulation there. Unisone's going on in there. Yeah. There's a couple things. The transition. Yeah, yeah. Of course, the beautiful solo piano.

And look, the only knock I can hear people saying is like, that's just Keith Jarrett. That's Keith Jarrett trio. That's Gary Peecock and Jack Dejanette coming in. But what would you say to that, my friend? It's not, but it's just not. No. It's influenced by that. Yeah, of course.

But as anybody would be by Keith Jarrett, but it's its own thing. It's his own. Why is the Keith Jarrett thing, like if you imitate, you know, Hank Jones or the Winton Kelly Trio from the 60s or something, like there's not as much pushback. For some reason, the Keith Jarrett thing, if you're referencing that or using that as an influence, like there's some kind of, like, that's a little bit of a third rail. Well, like, don't do, oh, no, Keith is his own thing. For some reason, there are some people that think that some artists created music in a vacuum

and other artists are just ripping off those artists who created music in a vacuum. But as we've heard, Keith Jarrett wasn't in a vacuum. Coming soon to an episode near you. Yeah, we, with our help of our dear friend Aaron Parks have discovered. It's going to be Keith Jarrett, a regional. genius or plagiarist. Well, no, there's a, there is, there are some musicians where you can like, oh, there's Keith Jarrett, like, you can hear his influences. So no one grew up in a vacuum. No one learned music in a vacuum. So I don't, I don't know. I don't think of this as Keith

Jaredesque even. Well, that did come to my mind, but only in the happiest of ways. And I think just in terms of like a lot of the more obvious things are not as interesting me as like piano trio. It's kind of like saying, like what is this combination, like a big band, right, in jazz, or a string quartet in classical music or whatever. Like, what are you going to do with this iconic combination of instruments? You know, not who are you going to reference, but like how are you going to place yourself into something that already works really well? You're playing, you know, this great Jerome Kern standard.

Like, to me, it was about the intro. You know what I'm saying? Like, all that stuff that he played. Like, what a cool thing then to go in. And I love that transition the way that it went in there. Like all these little touch points of that. You know, did Keith Jared do the, did the Red Garland Trail? I don't care.

I don't know. I'm just happy. I'm enjoying what's going on now. And this is obviously, so the intro and the transition, and then even the first few phrases of the solo here are almost exactly like the record. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm about Brad Meldow's record. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, of the way that you look tonight. Nice. Let's see how it turns out.

That left hand covering. Ready to see now. Yes. We are allowed to not play with our left hand. So sick. Okay, this would be a good little pullout section for folks to analyze them. Can we get some max chemoese training? Yeah.

Something like that. But the precision. Whoa. So he's going off this sort of like F minor triad plus one. Like that kind of thing. But that last part, like sometimes you could break this stuff down and then be like, oh, that's just, you know, jazz arpeggers or whatever you want to call it. But the placement of it with that like kind of extended.

Once you start that kind of thing, you better know not how you're going to finish it, but you better be open to like thinking on the fly as you come through because where you end and how you end and the rhythmic precision is all. And very few people can rip it that clean. Exactly. What's he played before? That space. He kind of got caught up in a middle with like I know that with that feeling.

Yeah. Larry, Greg Redmond here. Such an amazing basis. April really. Follow grab For ambiguity Yeah, come in and like I was just going to say like one thing

And this is more just sort of like pitfalls And potential Beautiful things that can come out of like checking something like this out And with the historical context of so many Pianists and Trio's imitating kind of this way of playing Like don't lose the groove element

Yeah You know like because it's kind of like all the fancy lights flashing on and off And all the cool stuff they're doing in terms of interaction And coming in on unexpected places. Like, that's all great and cool stuff you can learn.

I mean, you're not going to learn how to do all that, but you can start to take some of those things. But I don't think it's as useful if you only take those and don't have the foundation of just being able to swing through this tune. Yeah. Which they did on the head and they've done different times. But like, you have to have that foundation because then this can all float on top of that without it just becoming like a little bit of a random nebulous mess.

And a lot of people I hear imitating this way. It's not as strong. Well, at least they go in and out of that sometimes. I mean, I think the strongest thing about this trio, specifically, all of Brad's bands, but this trio specifically at this time was they really had a sense of their own sense of groove. Like they had an identity. A confidence in it. A confidence of their own sound and their own groove. Yeah. That is just very specific and at this point, I think, kind of iconic. Like if you were to recreate this, people would be like, oh, it's like the Brad

meldelt out tree in the 90s. Like it sounds like their own sound. And it is an interesting thing to think about like, okay, it's cool to take some of this and try to play like this. And, this, but that can be frustrating too because it can be like, oh, I can't do it. You know, or like at best, you're going to be a little bit of a mockery of that. Yeah. But what we can take is what you're talking about, that confidence and that of the personality of the groove, not of like, is it grooving hard enough or am I the hardest grooving? No, no, no.

It's like where, where's that commonality? Where's the Venn diagram of the way Jorge and, well, all three of them, really. I shouldn't say just bass and drums, what you think about the rhythm section, like how they're feeling that groove. what is the passing the baton back and forth, but knowing that that groove essence is already there, and then how can you dance on top of that? Yeah, exactly.

And so that can be done in a lot of different ways, and you look at a lot of, especially trios when you've got this beautiful kind of like three-way conversation, the potential for that just with the instrumentation of it, like that's a great space to come in and be influenced and inspired by, I would say. You don't have to put on an early 90s shirt. No. And during this time, you know, this trio was getting compared a lot to the Bill Evans trio,

and I know Brad hated that. Like, actually wrote on liner notes that he... Why? Third ones? I don't know. Christian McCaffrey of... Crispus. Crispin? Okay.

Christmas. Christmas, you love it. Playing double. That is a very... That kind of thing. This is short of shape. It's not exactly what we played, but that's a very Brad Melvinck.

Yeah, and this kind of like, I love... It wasn't, like, obviously, they've been hinting at the double time and some, you know, going in and out of it, Brad, probably... Well, he did. didn't do the first. Horhe probably hinted at it the first, but like that flexibility of being like, it's like you're interjecting a little something in the conversation. A lot of times,

especially young players are here like, how do I know when to go into double time? How do I, you know, it's like, no, there should never be like, can you tell me when they went into double time? No. Is it when the last, I mean, sometimes it's like when the bass player is actually walking, but he had been hinting and going in and out of it. It's like, that's the fun of it. It's masterful. Whole tone down, half step up, hold on. Is that what's going on? I think so. that's all that is oh maybe force it might be fourths or fifth

yeah yeah yeah it's fourth yeah perfect cadences great solo from Larry here coming up man

how great is that very great that's very great so you could see why he was a phenomenon absolutely and this trio Bill Evans's

influence for sure Brad you can write to PM just kidding that was good yeah yeah yeah it was so fun because it takes me back to that venue to that time um you know to that sound um and and just one little last note that i'll that i would add to that little kind of insider piano stuff that piano was out of tune jack leg you know what i'm saying like probably a killer piano the way he was playing it made me think i mean i remember from that venue they get a good piano yeah it's a big old stein right it wasn't totally out of tune but it had

some, but I mean that didn't rattle him at all, I don't think. Not seemingly so. That's a, that's a really cool resource. I'm going to go watch that whole concert. There you go. Until next time, you'll hear it.