Live in Tokyo [3LP]

Submitted by nonesuch on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 14:22
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Release Date
DescriptionExcerpt

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

  • “Among the top [jazz] practitioners in the world, and certainly among one of the most thoughtful and inquisitive spirits in jazz, is pianist Brad Mehldau,” says Sebastian Scotney on The Economist’s The Intelligence podcast. “He probably has the mantle of the world’s preeminent jazz pianist.” You can hear their conversation here.

  • Brad Mehldau has published his debut book, Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part I, out now on Equinox Publishing. "It's an autobiographical bildungsroman of sorts, tracing my musical and personal formation up until the age of twenty-six," he says. "Along the way, it gives a picture of what the New York City jazz scene felt like in the late 1980s and early ’90s." Joshua Redman says: "His music is nothing short of magic—an impossible wonder of ecstatic and empathic creative communion, to which I myself have borne witness, time and time again. Now, in this probing and provocative memoir, Brad finally shares with us some of the secrets (or at least the stories) behind the casting of his innumerable spells. A worthy read for anyone intrigued by the genesis of genius.”

  • 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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