Music for Grownups Reviews: Van Morrison, Brad Mehldau Trio
By: Richard Gehr | Source: AARP.org | Date Posted:
Richard Gehr is a veteran music critic based in New York City.
Van Morrison
“Keep It Simple”
Lost Highway
The title's a tip-off: Van Morrison's first album of new material in three years is a smooth, stripped-down affair with a let-it-go moral. The first half of this elegantly shuffling blend establishes Morrison's fallen and fed-up state by way of the blues ("How Can a Poor Boy"), country-gospel ("School of Hard Knocks"), and swing ("Don't Go to Nightclubs Anymore"). On the album's side-two equivalent, however, Morrison preaches an enlightened state of acceptance in "Keep it Simple," "End of the Land," and "Song of Home." And the sacred and the profane resolve themselves magnificently in Morrison's trance-like climax to "Behind the Ritual," which compares "drinkin' wine in the alley" to a Sufi meditation. Simple enough.
Brad Mehldau Trio
“Live”
Nonesuch
As the great improvisers of yore adapted popular music to jazz, rhythmically exuberant pianist Brad Mehldau transforms 1990s rock hits by the likes of Brit brats Oasis ("Wonderwall") and grunge heroes Soundgarden ("Black Hole Sun") into driving, inventive improvisations. Mehldau, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard also take on material by Jimmy Heath and John Coltrane on this nearly 160-minute double-disc album recorded at the Village Vanguard in 2006. But it's Mehldau's five originals, especially his luminous "Secret Beach," that give you the best sense of the trio's ceaselessly inventive, turn-on-a-dime style. They play modern jazz with tradition at its core and display equal creativity with old-school emotionalism and street-smart urban rhythms.
“Keep It Simple”
Lost Highway
The title's a tip-off: Van Morrison's first album of new material in three years is a smooth, stripped-down affair with a let-it-go moral. The first half of this elegantly shuffling blend establishes Morrison's fallen and fed-up state by way of the blues ("How Can a Poor Boy"), country-gospel ("School of Hard Knocks"), and swing ("Don't Go to Nightclubs Anymore"). On the album's side-two equivalent, however, Morrison preaches an enlightened state of acceptance in "Keep it Simple," "End of the Land," and "Song of Home." And the sacred and the profane resolve themselves magnificently in Morrison's trance-like climax to "Behind the Ritual," which compares "drinkin' wine in the alley" to a Sufi meditation. Simple enough.
Brad Mehldau Trio
“Live”
Nonesuch
As the great improvisers of yore adapted popular music to jazz, rhythmically exuberant pianist Brad Mehldau transforms 1990s rock hits by the likes of Brit brats Oasis ("Wonderwall") and grunge heroes Soundgarden ("Black Hole Sun") into driving, inventive improvisations. Mehldau, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard also take on material by Jimmy Heath and John Coltrane on this nearly 160-minute double-disc album recorded at the Village Vanguard in 2006. But it's Mehldau's five originals, especially his luminous "Secret Beach," that give you the best sense of the trio's ceaselessly inventive, turn-on-a-dime style. They play modern jazz with tradition at its core and display equal creativity with old-school emotionalism and street-smart urban rhythms.
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