Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Records debut album, Live in Tokyo, first released on September 14, 2004, makes its vinyl debut fifteen years later today. The vinyl edition, made with Run Out Groove, comprises the original album's eight tracks plus seven tracks previously available only on the Japanese edition. This triple-LP set, pressed on 180-gram vinyl, is available to pre-order now. "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]."
Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Records debut album, Live in Tokyo, first released on September 14, 2004, makes its vinyl debut almost exactly fifteen years later today. 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, the Live in Tokyo vinyl edition is available at your local record store and on Amazon and in the Run Out Groove Shop and the Nonesuch Store.
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 year 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."
Brad Mehldau: Live in Tokyo Vinyl Edition
Side A
1. Intro (Brad Mehldau) 4:37
2. 50 Ways to Leave Your Love (Paul Simon) 6:30
3. My Heart Stood Still (Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart) 9:32
Side B
1. Roses Blue (Joni Mitchell) 8:16
2. Intro II (Brad Mehldau) 2:37
3. Someone to Watch Over Me (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) 10:08
Side C
1. Things Behind the Sun (Nick Drake) 4:49
2. C Tune (Brad Mehldau) 5:52
3. Waltz Tune (Brad Mehldau) 5:24
4. From This Moment On (Cole Porter) 7:57
Side D
1. Alfie (Burt Bacharach / Hal David) 6:50
2. Monk’s Dream (Thelonious Monk) 7:59
Side E
Paranoid Android (T. Yorke, E. O’Brien, C. Greenwood, J. Greenwood, P. Selway) 19:29
Side F
1. How Long Has This Been Going On (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) 9:00
2. River Man (Nick Drake) 8:58
- Log in to post comments
