Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau

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Release Date
DescriptionExcerpt

Mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau, longtime admirers of each other's work, make their duo debut together with this mix of covers and original songs. The artists "come from different worlds but the same species," says the New York Times. "Mr. Thile is a progressive-bluegrass pacesetter; Mr. Mehldau is the most influential jazz pianist of the last 20 years. Both are team players." The Guardian exclaims: "Two very different musicians hit a remarkable rapport on this double album."

Description

Nonesuch Records labelmates mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau, longtime admirers of each other's work, first toured as a duo in 2013. At the end of 2015, they played a two-night stand at New York City's Bowery Ballroom before going into the studio to record Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, a mix of covers and original songs that Nonesuch releases on January 27, 2017, on two CDs / LPs.

"Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau come from different worlds but the same species," says the New York Times. Mr. Thile "is a progressive-bluegrass pacesetter; Mr. Mehldau is the most influential jazz pianist of the last 20 years. Both are team players ... Both love Bach and the Beatles, and both have developed fan bases bigger and broader (and younger) than their genre silos can accommodate."

The two musicians first performed together in September 2011 as part of Mehldau's residency at London's Wigmore Hall. The Guardian said of that performance, "Mehldau struck up his signature rocking chord vamp over which lightly struck motifs swell to sensuous extended melodies. Thile kept cajoling him with percussive snaps, flying runs, and chords strummed fast enough to sound as seamless as a purring strings section, inducing Mehldau … to bat back the playful provocation with stinging rejoinders."

MacArthur Fellow and A Prairie Home Companion host Chris Thile is the founding member of Punch Brothers, which a Boston Globe reviewer called "the tightest, most impressive live band I have ever seen." The band has released four albums on Nonesuch beginning in 2008: Punch, Antifogmatic, Who's Feeling Young Now?, and The Phosphorescent Blues. Thile's other releases on the label include Sleep with One Eye Open with Michael Daves; Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile and Bass & Mandolin—the latter of which won a Grammy Award; a solo record of Bach violin sonatas and partitas; and A Dotted Line with his longtime band Nickel Creek. He also recently collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer on the double Grammy Award–winning album The Goat Rodeo Sessions.

Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch debut was the 2004 solo disc Live in Tokyo and includes six records with his trio: House on Hill, Day Is Done, Brad Mehldau Trio Live, Ode, Where Do You Start, and Blues and Ballads. His collaborative records on the label include Love Sublime, Highway Rider, Metheny Mehldau, Metheny Mehldau Quartet, Modern Music, and Mehliana: Taming the Dragon. Mehldau's additional solo albums on Nonesuch include Live in Marciac and last year's 8-LP/4-CD 10 Years Solo Live, which the New York Times says "contains some of the most impressive pianism he has captured on record." Earlier this year, he released a duo album with Joshua Redman, Nearness, of which the Wall Street Journal said: "Few records released this year better define what jazz sounds like today, even if there isn't a hip noun to describe it."

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau
Recorded December 30, 2015, and January 2–3, 2016, at Avatar Studios, New York, NY
Recorded and Mixed by James Farber
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York, NY

Design by Ben Tousley
Photograph by Michael Wilson

Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz

Nonesuch Selection Number

558771

ns_album_releasedate
Album Status
Artist Name
Chris Thile
Brad Mehldau
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Chris Thile, mandolin & vocals
Brad Mehldau, piano & vocals

Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
2LP+MP3
Price
23.00
UPC
075597940930
Label
2CD+MP3
UPC
075597940923
Label
96/24 HD FLAC
Price
10.00
UPC
075597919202
Label
FLAC
UPC
075597940954
Label
MP3
Price
9.00
UPC
075597919257
  • 558771

News & Reviews

  • Brad Mehldau’s After Bach II and Après Fauré are due May 10 on Nonesuch Records. The Bach album comprises four preludes and one fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as the Allemande from the fourth Partita, interspersed with seven compositions or improvisations by Mehldau inspired by the complementary works of Bach—including Mehldau’s Variations on Bach’s Goldberg Theme. On Après Fauré, Mehldau performs four nocturnes, from a thirty-seven-year span of Gabriel Fauré’s career, as well as a reduction of an excerpt from the Adagio movement of his Piano Quartet in G Minor. Here Mehldau’s four compositions that Fauré inspired are presented in a group, bookended by two sections featuring the French composer’s works.

  • The 2024 Big Ears Festival is next week, taking place in venues throughout downtown Knoxville, TN, March 21–24, with more than a dozen Nonesuch artists past, present, and future performing as part of the label's 60th anniversary celebrations. In addition to all of the music and film offerings, Big Ears also hosts a number of artist conversations with music journalists Ann Powers and Nate Chinen, including talks with Sam Amidon, Laurie Anderson, Darcy James Argue, Rhiannon Giddens, Mary Halvorson, Robin Holcomb, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Brad Mehldau, Davóne Tines, and Yasmin Williams.

  • About This Album

    Nonesuch Records labelmates mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau, longtime admirers of each other's work, first toured as a duo in 2013. At the end of 2015, they played a two-night stand at New York City's Bowery Ballroom before going into the studio to record Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, a mix of covers and original songs that Nonesuch releases on January 27, 2017, on two CDs / LPs.

    "Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau come from different worlds but the same species," says the New York Times. Mr. Thile "is a progressive-bluegrass pacesetter; Mr. Mehldau is the most influential jazz pianist of the last 20 years. Both are team players ... Both love Bach and the Beatles, and both have developed fan bases bigger and broader (and younger) than their genre silos can accommodate."

    The two musicians first performed together in September 2011 as part of Mehldau's residency at London's Wigmore Hall. The Guardian said of that performance, "Mehldau struck up his signature rocking chord vamp over which lightly struck motifs swell to sensuous extended melodies. Thile kept cajoling him with percussive snaps, flying runs, and chords strummed fast enough to sound as seamless as a purring strings section, inducing Mehldau … to bat back the playful provocation with stinging rejoinders."

    MacArthur Fellow and A Prairie Home Companion host Chris Thile is the founding member of Punch Brothers, which a Boston Globe reviewer called "the tightest, most impressive live band I have ever seen." The band has released four albums on Nonesuch beginning in 2008: Punch, Antifogmatic, Who's Feeling Young Now?, and The Phosphorescent Blues. Thile's other releases on the label include Sleep with One Eye Open with Michael Daves; Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile and Bass & Mandolin—the latter of which won a Grammy Award; a solo record of Bach violin sonatas and partitas; and A Dotted Line with his longtime band Nickel Creek. He also recently collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer on the double Grammy Award–winning album The Goat Rodeo Sessions.

    Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch debut was the 2004 solo disc Live in Tokyo and includes six records with his trio: House on Hill, Day Is Done, Brad Mehldau Trio Live, Ode, Where Do You Start, and Blues and Ballads. His collaborative records on the label include Love Sublime, Highway Rider, Metheny Mehldau, Metheny Mehldau Quartet, Modern Music, and Mehliana: Taming the Dragon. Mehldau's additional solo albums on Nonesuch include Live in Marciac and last year's 8-LP/4-CD 10 Years Solo Live, which the New York Times says "contains some of the most impressive pianism he has captured on record." Earlier this year, he released a duo album with Joshua Redman, Nearness, of which the Wall Street Journal said: "Few records released this year better define what jazz sounds like today, even if there isn't a hip noun to describe it."

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Chris Thile, mandolin & vocals
    Brad Mehldau, piano & vocals

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Produced by Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau
    Recorded December 30, 2015, and January 2–3, 2016, at Avatar Studios, New York, NY
    Recorded and Mixed by James Farber
    Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York, NY

    Design by Ben Tousley
    Photograph by Michael Wilson

    Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz

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