Ride into the Sun Brad Mehldau

• 1 Better Be Quiet Now 04:03
• 2 Everything Means Nothing to Me 05:19
• 3 Tomorrow Tomorrow (feat. Daniel Rossen) 04:02
• 4 Sweet Adeline 03:21
• 5 Sweet Adeline Fantasy 04:44
• 6 Between the Bars 05:01
• 7 The White Lady Loves You More 04:40
• 8 Ride into the Sun: Part I 03:19
• 9 Thirteen 04:01
• 10 Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands 04:01
• 11 Somebody Cares, Somebody Understands 03:48
• 12 Southern Belle (feat. Daniel Rossen) 03:52
• 13 Satellite 03:52
• 14 Colorbars (feat. Chris Thile) 05:23
• 15 Sunday 03:33
• 16 Ride into the Sun: Conclusion 09:38
• Total Runtime 01:12:37

Info zu Ride into the Sun

Brad Mehldaus neues Album Ride into the Sun – ein Songbook-Album mit Musik des viel zu früh verstorbenen Sängers, Songwriters und Gitarristen Elliott Smith. Mehldau hat die Songs gemeinsam mit einer hochkarätigen Runde von Musiker:innen aufgenommen: Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear) an Gesang und Gitarre, Chris Thile (Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek) an Gesang und Mandoline, Felix Moseholm (u. a. Brad Mehldau Trio, Samara Joy) und John Davis am Bass – Letzterer zeichnete außerdem für Engineering und Mix verantwortlich – sowie Drummer Matt Chamberlain (Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, Randy Newman). Zusätzlich kommt ein Kammerorchester unter der Leitung von Dan Coleman zum Einsatz, der bereits Mehldaus Album Highway Rider (2010) dirigiert hatte.

Ride into the Sun umfasst zehn Elliott-Smith-Songs, ergänzt um vier Eigenkompositionen von Mehldau, die – wie er sagt – „von Smith inspiriert sind und sein Werk reflektieren“. Ebenfalls auf dem Album: eine Interpretation von Big Stars „Thirteen“, das auch Smith gecovert hat, sowie Nick Drakes „Sunday“. Für Mehldau ist Drake „eine Art visionärer Pate von Smith“.

Wie Mehldau Smiths Musik für sich entdeckte? Nach Jahren in New York zog er nach Los Angeles – und stieß dort auf eine vibrierende Singer-Songwriter-Szene rund um den Club Largo. „Dort traf man auf Elliott, aber auch auf Leute wie Rufus Wainwright oder Fiona Apple“, erinnert sich Mehldau. „Freitagabends kamen auch erfahrene Musiker:innen vorbei und setzten sich zur Session unter der Leitung von Jon Brion auf die Bühne. Ich spielte mit Jon hinter Elliott – das fühlte sich an wie eine kleine Renaissance des Songwritings, die sich über mehrere Jahre hielt.“

„Elliott Smith beherrschte das Wechselspiel aus Licht und Schatten meisterhaft – nicht zuletzt über seine ganz eigene Harmonik“, so Mehldau. „Er kombinierte Dur- und Mollklänge auf seine Art. Man hört das zum Beispiel im faszinierenden Akkordwechsel gegen Ende von ‚Tomorrow Tomorrow‘ – er taucht nur ganz kurz auf, direkt vorm letzten Vers. Ich greife ihn auf und dehne ihn für mein Pianospiel aus. Dieses Spannungsfeld aus Moll und Dur hat eine lange Tradition – für mich schwingen da auch Schubert oder Brahms mit.“

Besonders prägnant wird diese emotionale Ambivalenz für Mehldau in „Better Be Quiet Now“: „Ein Trennungssong, so zart wie schmerzvoll. Der Protagonist lächelt traurig beim Abschied. ‚Smiling through tears‘ – so hat ein Brahms-Biograf einmal ein Stück von ihm beschrieben. Genau das trifft es hier.“

Der Albumtitel entstammt dem Song „Colorbars“, in dem Smith singt: „Everyone wants me to ride into the sun“. Mehldau dazu: „Wenn ich Musik höre, habe ich manchmal das Gefühl, in Verbindung zu treten mit jemandem, der nicht mehr hier ist – so wie mit ihm. Dieses ‚ride into the sun‘ – vielleicht ist es ein ewiges Weiterreiten in Richtung Licht. Keine Ahnung… da ist etwas Mystisches.“

Ride into the Sun ist Brad Mehldaus 22. (!) Veröffentlichung auf Nonesuch. Sein Labeldebüt gab er 2004 mit dem Soloalbum Live in Tokyo. Seitdem erschienen unter anderem sechs Trio-Alben, diverse Kollaborationen sowie weitere Solo-Werke. Zuletzt veröffentlichte Mehldau im Mai 2024 die Alben After Bach II und Après Fauré, auf denen er Werke der namensgebenden Komponisten mit eigenen, davon inspirierten Kompositionen kombiniert.

Weitere Releases der letzten Jahre: das während des Lockdowns entstandene Soloalbum Suite: April 2020, das spirituell getönte Jacob’s Ladder (2022) mit Einflüssen aus Prog Rock, sowie Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles (2023), ein Live-Soloalbum mit Interpretationen von Lennon, McCartney und Harrison. 2023 erschien zudem Mehldaus Memoir Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part I – ein seltener Einblick in die Gedankenwelt eines der führenden Jazzmusiker unserer Zeit, aus erster Hand erzählt.

„Brad Mehldau ist einer der einflussreichsten und renommiertesten Jazzpianisten der Gegenwart. Seine zahlreichen Aufnahmen umfassen ein breites Spektrum an Jazz- und amerikanischen Pop-Song-Standards, sind aber auch für seine Interpretationen jenseits des typischen Jazz-Katalogs bekannt.“ – NPR, Fresh Air

„Mehldau hat einen einzigartigen Stil entwickelt, der das musikalische Vokabular des Jazz nicht nur erweitert, sondern auch modernisiert hat.“ – Mojo

„Brad Mehldau ist wohl der größte aktive Jazzpianist. Er gehört definitiv zu den Top 5.“ – New Yorker

Brad Mehldau, Klavier
John Davis, Kontrabass (Tracks 1, 11); E-Bass (Tracks 2, 10, 15, 16)
Matt Chamberlain, Schlagzeug (Tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16); Percussion (Tracks 13, 2), Hintergrundgesang (Track 2)
Daniel Rossen, Leadgesang (Tracks 3, 12), Akustikgitarre (Tracks 3, 10, 12, 14, 16); E-Gitarre (Spur 10), Hintergrundgesang (Spur 10)
Chris Thile, Mandoline (Spur 3, 14); Hintergrundgesang (Spur 3); Leadgesang (Spur 14)
Felix Moseholm, Kontrabass (Spur 3, 6, 12, 14)
Orchester (Spur 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15)
Dan Coleman, Dirigent

Aufgenommen vom 24. bis 28. Januar 2025 im Bunker Studio (Brooklyn, NY). Fotografie: Augusta Quirk
Tontechnik: John Davis und Nolan Thies
Produktion: Brad Mehldau und Dan Coleman

Brad Mehldau
Grammy Award winning jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has recorded and performed extensively since the early 1990s. Mehldau’s most consistent output over the years has taken place in the trio format. Starting in 1996, his group released a series of five records on Warner Bros. entitled The Art of the Trio (recently re-packaged and re-released as a 5-Disc box set by Nonesuch in late 2011). During that same period, Mehldau also released a solo piano recording entitled Elegiac Cycle, and a record called Places that included both solo piano and trio songs. Elegiac Cycle and Places might be called “concept” albums made up exclusively of original material with central themes that hover over the compositions. Other Mehldau recordings include Largo, a collaborative effort with the innovative musician and producer Jon Brion, and Anything Goes—a trio outing with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy.

His first record for Nonesuch, Brad Mehldau Live in Tokyo, was released in September 2004. After ten rewarding years with Rossy playing in Mehldau’s regular trio, drummer Jeff Ballard joined the band in 2005. The label released its first album from the Brad Mehldau Trio—Day is Done—on September 27, 2005. An exciting double live trio recording entitled Brad Mehldau Trio Live was released on March 25th, 2008 (Nonesuch). On March 16, 2010, Nonesuch released a double-disc of original work entitled Highway Rider, the highly anticipated follow up to Largo. The album was Mehldau’s second collaboration with renowned producer Jon Brion and featured performances by Mehldau’s trio—drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Larry Grenadier—as well as percussionist Matt Chamberlain, saxophonist Joshua Redman, and a chamber orchestra led by Dan Coleman. In 2011 Nonesuch released Live in Marciac—a two CD release with a companion DVD of the 2006 performance, and Modern Music, a collaboration between pianists Brad Mehldau and Kevin Hays and composer/arranger Patrick Zimmerli.

In 2012 Nonesuch released an album of original songs from the Brad Mehldau Trio—Ode—the first from the trio since 2008’s live Village Vanguard disc and the first studio trio recording since 2005’s Day is Done. Ode went on to garner a Grammy nomination. Nonesuch released the Brad Mehldau Trio’s Where Do You Start, a companion disc to the critically acclaimed Ode, in the fall of 2012. Whereas Ode featured 11 songs composed by Mehldau, Where Do You Start was comprised of interpretations of 10 tunes by other composers, along with one Mehldau original. In 2013, Mehldau produced and performed on Walking Shadows, the acclaimed Nonesuch release from Joshua Redman. 2013 also saw a number of collaborative tours including a duo tour with mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, piano duets with Kevin Hays and a new electric project with prodigious drummer Mark Guiliana entitled “Mehliana.” Mehliana: Taming the Dragon, the debut release by Mehliana, was released in early 2014. Mehldau’s monumental and ambitious 10 Years Solo Live eight-LP vinyl box set was released to unanimous critical acclaim on October 16th, 2015 (with CD and digital versions released in November). The set was culled from 19 live recordings made over a decade of the pianist’s European solo concerts and was divided into four thematic subsets of four sides each: Dark/Light, The Concert, Intermezzo/Rückblick, and E Minor/E Major.

In 2016, Nonesuch Records released the Brad Mehldau Trio’s Blues and Ballads—the ensemble’s first new release since 2012’s Where Do You Start—and the celebrated debut album of the Joshua Redman/Brad Mehldau Duo, Nearness, featuring recordings from their 2011 European tour. Both albums have received universal praise from critics and audiences alike, and both earned a Grammy nomination for Mehldau. After several years of performing live, labelmates Mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and Mehldau released their debut: Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau. In 2018, Nonesuch Records released both After Bach, an album that paired improvisations on Bach and Mehldau’s previously commissioned solo piece Three Pieces After Bach, and the highly anticipated Brad Mehldau Trio studio recording Seymour Reads the Constitution! 2019 saw the release of the critically and commercially acclaimed conceptual recording Finding Gabriel – an album of harmonically rich vocal layers paired with strings, synthesizers, rock drums, and improvisation - featuring a number of high profile guests including Ambrose Akinmusire, Kurt Elling, Becca Stevens, Gabe Kehane, and Mark Guiliana among others. The release won Mehldau his first Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.

Mehldau’s musical personality forms a dichotomy. He is first and foremost an improviser, and greatly cherishes the surprise and wonder that can occur from a spontaneous musical idea that is expressed directly, in real time. But he also has a deep fascination for the formal architecture of music, and it informs everything he plays. In his most inspired playing, the actual structure of his musical thought serves as an expressive device. As he plays, he listens to how ideas unwind, and the order in which they reveal themselves. Each tune has a strongly felt narrative arch, whether it expresses itself in a beginning, an end, or something left intentionally open-ended. The two sides of Mehldau’s personality—the improviser and the formalist—play off each other, and the effect is often something like controlled chaos.

Mehldau has performed around the world at a steady pace since the mid-1990s, with his trio and as a solo pianist. His performances convey a wide range of expression. There is often an intellectual rigor to the continuous process of abstraction that may take place on a given tune, and a certain density of information. That could be followed by a stripped down, emotionally direct ballad. Mehldau favors juxtaposing extremes. He has attracted a sizeable following over the years, one that has grown to expect a singular, intense experience in his performance.

In addition to his trio and solo projects, Mehldau has worked with a number of great jazz musicians, including a rewarding gig with saxophonist Joshua Redman’s band for two years, recordings and concerts with Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden and Lee Konitz, and recording as a sideman with the likes of Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, and Charles Lloyd. For more than a decade, he has collaborated with several musicians and peers whom he respects greatly, including the guitarists Peter Bernstein and Kurt Rosenwinkel and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner. Mehldau also has played on a number of recordings outside of the jazz idiom, like Willie Nelson’s Teatro and singer-songwriter Joe Henry’s Scar. His music has appeared in several movies, including Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Wim Wender’s Million Dollar Hotel. He also composed an original soundtrack for the French film, Ma Femme Est Une Actrice. Mehldau composed two new works commissioned by Carnegie Hall for voice and piano, The Blue Estuaries and The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, which were performed in the spring of 2005 with the acclaimed classical soprano, Renee Fleming. These songs were recorded with Fleming and released in 2006 on the Love Sublime record; simultaneously, Nonesuch released an album of Mehldau’s jazz compositions for trio entitled House on Hill. A 2008 Carnegie Hall commission for a cycle of seven love songs for Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter premiered in 2010. Love Songs, a double album that paired the newly commissioned song cycle, with a selection of French, American, English, and Swedish songs that Mehldau and von Otter performed together, was released in late 2010 (on the Naïve label) to unanimous praise.

In 2013, Mehldau premiered and performed Variations on a Melancholy Theme a large format orchestral piece which was performed with both Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Britten Sinfonia. Commissioned by Carnegie Hall, The Royal Conservatory of Music, The National Concert Hall, and Wigmore Hall with the support of Andre Hoffmann (president of the Fondation Hoffmann) in 2015, Mehldau’s Three Pieces After Bach were inspired by selections from Johann Sebastian Bach’s seminal work, The Well-Tempered Clavier. In 2018, Mehldau premiered his Piano Concerto at the Philharmonie de Paris, commissioned by L'Orchestre national d'Île-de-France and Festival Jazz à la Villette Paris, L’Auditori de Barcelona, National Forum of Music, Wroclaw, Poland (Jazztopad Festival), The Barbican Centre London and Britten Sinfonia, and Philharmonie Luxembourg and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Gustavo Dudamel Artistic Director. In 2019, Mehldau premiered his song cycle, The Folly of Desire, with tenor Ian Bostridge. The work was commissioned by Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wigmore Hall, Stanford Live at Stanford University, and Carnegie Hall.

Mehldau was appointed as curator of an annual four-concert jazz series at London's prestigious Wigmore Hall during its 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons, with Mehldau appearing in at least two of the four annual concerts. In late January 2010 Carnegie Hall announced the 2010-11 season-long residency by Mehldau as holder of the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall—the first jazz artist to hold this position since it was established in 1995. Previous holders include Louis Andriessen (2009–2010), Elliott Carter (2008–2009), and John Adams (2003–2007).

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet