Live in Tokyo [3LP]

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The triple-LP vinyl edition of Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Records debut album, Live in Tokyo, first released on the album's 15th anniversary in 2019, was made in partnership with Run Out Groove, pressed on 180-gram vinyl, and comprises the original album's eight tracks plus an additional seven tracks previously available only on the Japanese edition. "Few pianists can match Brad Mehldau when it comes to cross-fertilizing jazz, classical, and rock," said JazzTimes. "The same applies for technique, taste and intellectual curiosity. All of those qualities are on display [here]."

Description

Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Records debut album, Live in Tokyo, first released on September 14, 2004, made its vinyl debut almost exactly fifteen years later, on September 13, 2019. The vinyl edition, made in partnership with Run Out Groove, comprises the original album's eight tracks plus an additional seven tracks previously available only on the Japanese edition and sequenced in the order of that release. (See below for complete track list.) This triple-LP set was mastered by Alex DeTurk and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Record Industry in the Netherlands. Limited to 3,000 copies worldwide.

On Live in Tokyo, Mehldau, hailed by the Washington Post as "one of his generation’s most gifted and thoughtful pianists," performs his own tunes and interprets material from artists as varied as George Gershwin, Thelonius Monk, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Burt Bacharach, and Radiohead on an album recorded live in concert at Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo in February of 2003.

"Few pianists can match Brad Mehldau when it comes to cross-fertilizing jazz, classical, and rock," said JazzTimes. "The same applies for technique, taste and intellectual curiosity. All of those qualities are on display [on Live in Tokyo]."

"Mehldau plays beautifully on his own, his work is florid with detail, yet never just flowery," said All About Jazz. "There is a deeply felt passion in all he plays, and that's exactly why he is so engrossing to hear: in a solo setting Mehldau demonstrates how he selects his ideas altogether discriminatingly from what must be a veritable flood of variations that occur to him as he plays. It's not long into listening to Live in Tokyo that you are reminded how skillfully he runs the gamut of emotion in his playing."

Brad Mehldau's latest album, Finding Gabriel, released earlier this month on Nonesuch Records, features performances by him on piano, synthesizers, percussion, Fender Rhodes, and vocals, with guest musicians including Ambrose Akinmusire, Sara Caswell, Kurt Elling, Joel Frahm, Mark Guiliana, Gabriel Kahane, and Becca Stevens, among others. The Times of London says “the dominant mood is of a master musician having fun” on this latest album from "the American jazz pianist, one of the best alive." The AP calls it "a soundtrack for our times."

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Original credits:
Produced by Brad Mehldau
Recorded live in concert February 15, 2003, Sumida Triphony Hall, Tokyo
Engineer: Yoshihito Saegusa
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City

Design by Barbara deWilde
Photographs of Brad Mehldau by Michael Wilson
Back cover (Cherry Blossom) and panel photograph (Pole) by Ye Rin Mok

Vinyl credits:
Vinyl coordinated for release by Matt Block
Mastered for vinyl by Alex DeTurk
Design adapted for vinyl by Edward ODowd

Nonesuch Selection Number

ROGV-085

ns_album_releasedate
Album Status
Artist Name
Brad Mehldau
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Brad Mehldau, piano

reissues?
reissues
Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
3LP
UPC
075597924664
  • ROGV-085

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

    Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Records debut album, Live in Tokyo, first released on September 14, 2004, made its vinyl debut almost exactly fifteen years later, on September 13, 2019. The vinyl edition, made in partnership with Run Out Groove, comprises the original album's eight tracks plus an additional seven tracks previously available only on the Japanese edition and sequenced in the order of that release. (See below for complete track list.) This triple-LP set was mastered by Alex DeTurk and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Record Industry in the Netherlands. Limited to 3,000 copies worldwide.

    On Live in Tokyo, Mehldau, hailed by the Washington Post as "one of his generation’s most gifted and thoughtful pianists," performs his own tunes and interprets material from artists as varied as George Gershwin, Thelonius Monk, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Burt Bacharach, and Radiohead on an album recorded live in concert at Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo in February of 2003.

    "Few pianists can match Brad Mehldau when it comes to cross-fertilizing jazz, classical, and rock," said JazzTimes. "The same applies for technique, taste and intellectual curiosity. All of those qualities are on display [on Live in Tokyo]."

    "Mehldau plays beautifully on his own, his work is florid with detail, yet never just flowery," said All About Jazz. "There is a deeply felt passion in all he plays, and that's exactly why he is so engrossing to hear: in a solo setting Mehldau demonstrates how he selects his ideas altogether discriminatingly from what must be a veritable flood of variations that occur to him as he plays. It's not long into listening to Live in Tokyo that you are reminded how skillfully he runs the gamut of emotion in his playing."

    Brad Mehldau's latest album, Finding Gabriel, released earlier this month on Nonesuch Records, features performances by him on piano, synthesizers, percussion, Fender Rhodes, and vocals, with guest musicians including Ambrose Akinmusire, Sara Caswell, Kurt Elling, Joel Frahm, Mark Guiliana, Gabriel Kahane, and Becca Stevens, among others. The Times of London says “the dominant mood is of a master musician having fun” on this latest album from "the American jazz pianist, one of the best alive." The AP calls it "a soundtrack for our times."

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Brad Mehldau, piano

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Original credits:
    Produced by Brad Mehldau
    Recorded live in concert February 15, 2003, Sumida Triphony Hall, Tokyo
    Engineer: Yoshihito Saegusa
    Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City

    Design by Barbara deWilde
    Photographs of Brad Mehldau by Michael Wilson
    Back cover (Cherry Blossom) and panel photograph (Pole) by Ye Rin Mok

    Vinyl credits:
    Vinyl coordinated for release by Matt Block
    Mastered for vinyl by Alex DeTurk
    Design adapted for vinyl by Edward ODowd

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