Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles review – classy jazz homage
In a powerful live recording, the piano virtuoso brings out the boogie, blues and gospel in the Fab Four’s songs
March 2022
Jazz album of the month
Brad Mehldau: Jacob’s Ladder review – prog rock and Bible stories make for unique, ingenious jazz
The pianist draws on an unlikely combination of childhood obsessions for this hard-hitting, audacious electronic hybrid
March 2018
Contemporary album of the month – Brad Mehldau: After Bach
The pianist intersperses classic Bach pieces with his own responses in a headscratching album of harmonic adventures
November 2017
On my radar
On my radar: Toby Jones’s cultural highlights
The actor on Dragons’ Den, the jazz improvisations of Brad Mehldau, the Cinema Museum, a south London bus garage, and more…
May 2017
Brad Mehldau Trio review – searching, storytelling jazz at its finest
Mehldau is one of the contemporary form’s great improvisers, and with Jeff Ballard and Larry Grenadier he made unexpected but riveting connections
January 2017
Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau review – mind-boggling interplay
(Nonesuch)
Thile/Mehldau: Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau review – remarkable rapport as bluegrass meets jazz
'I've spent the last year in a dream state': virtuoso mandolinist Chris Thile
He has taken the mandolin where it has never gone before, even using it to record Bach. Now he’s teamed up with jazz giant Brad Mehldau and is promising to write a topical song every week
July 2016
Brad Mehldau Trio: Blues and Ballads review – old songs made ingeniously new
June 2016
Brad Mehldau Trio: Blues and Ballads review – extraordinarily inventive
(Nonesuch)
May 2016
On my radar
On my radar: Akram Khan’s cultural highlights
The dancer and choreographer on Kate Tempest’s poetry, Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse documentary, and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau
December 2015
Brad Mehldau review – a balance of space and intensity perfectly struck
A dense and dazzling recital of Bach’s classics and the compositions and improvisations inspired by them makes this a powerful, thought-provoking gig
October 2015
The playlist
The playlist – jazz: London jazz festival, Maria Schneider, Matthew Halsall and more
Brad Mehldau: 10 Years Solo Live review – virtuosity and ingenuity in five hours of solo piano
February 2014
Brad Mehldau/ Mark Guiliana/ Mehliana: Taming the Dragon – review
Brad Mehldau gets down and dirty on a remarkable new album from the electronics duo he formed with Mark Guiliana, writes John Fordham
December 2013
Take 5: John Fordham's month in jazz
Take Five: John Fordham's month in jazz – December
John Fordham reflects on a month of departures, and celebrates the Glasgow Improvisers' Orchestra festival. Plus, the jazz picks of this year and the next
November 2013
Brad Mehldau/Wadada Leo Smith – review
With Mark Guiliana, Mehldau was funky and electric – while Wadada Leo Smith's epic was both beautiful and sobering, writes John Fordham
November 2012
Brad Mehldau Trio – review
The Brad Mehldau Trio's show is well-received – rapt attention, pin-drop silence, three encores, standing ovation – but some long-standing reservations remain, writes John Lewis
October 2012
Fred Hersch
Hersch packs more jazz-piano invention into a single show than most of his better-known peers, writes John Fordham
September 2012
Brad Mehldau: Where Do You Start – review
The dynamics and empathy of this trio remain pretty irresistible on this set of covers from Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe to Sonny Rollins's Airegin, writes John Fordham
