Big congratulations to Pianist, composer, french horn player and all round nice guy Gwilym Simcock for getting a nomination for this year’s Mercury Prize. For those of you unfamiliar with Gwilym’s playing click the link below to watch a clip of him playing Stevie Wonder’s ‘Summer soft’ on the Andrew Marr show in March this year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12725834

The album nominated for the prize is his release from earlier this year: ‘Good Days at Schloss Elmau’ a solo piano album of original compositions recorded at Schloss Elmau in one day.

“To walk out of your hotel room, and within a minute be sitting at a fantastic piano, looking out over the German mountains and countryside, free to make music in whatever way you choose, is indeed a wonderful experience and one I’m grateful for. these are definately the good days”

Buy the album here

Gwilym has recorded two other albums as a leader: ‘Perception’ 2007 and ‘Blues Vignette’ 2009.

‘Perception’

‘Perception’ is an excellent album with varied ensembles and styles, showing Simcock to be highly versatile. Buy it here.

His second album ‘Blues Vignette’ is a double CD with the  first CD featuring mainly solo piano work but also incorporating some original compositions for piano and cello. The second CD of the set features Gwilym with his trio of Goloubev on bass and Maddren on drums who I had the fortune of seeing in concert on their world tour in Cardiff November 2009.

One treat from the first CD is Simcock’s solo piano version of the 2nd movement from Grieg’s piano concerto a nod to his ‘classical’ training at the Royal Academy of Music, the original chords are all there, but then Gwilym begins to develop the melody further whilst maintaining the integrity of the original:

Buy the excellent double CD set “Blues Vignette” here

The winner of the 2011 Barclaycard Mercury Prize ‘Albums of the Year’
will be announced on Tuesday 6th September.

Nonesuch records have announced a new release: ‘Modern Music’ a collaboration between pianists Brad Mehldau and Kevin Hays and composer/arranger Patrick Zimmerli, all longtime friends, on September 20, 2011. The album features pieces written by each of the three musicians as well as works by Steve Reich, Ornette Coleman, and Philip Glass, performed by the two pianists in arrangements by Zimmerli.

According to New York based composer, Zimmerli’s website:

Carnegie Hall Premiere. Jazz Pianist Brad Mehldau will be premiering a piece written by Zimmerli for him and jazz pianist Kevin Hays at Carnegie Hall in March of 2011. The performance will be part of Mehldau’s residency at the hall, the first ever such residency by a jazz musician.

Production Complete on Modern Music. In October Zimmerli, Hays, and Mehldau went to Mechanics hall in Worcester, Mass, one of the best acoustic spaces in the country, to record. In addition to originals by Hays, Mehldau, and Zimmerli, the two pianists, produced by Zimmerli, recorded arrangements of works by Steve Reich, Richard Strauss, Glass, Part,Gorecki, and Ornette Coleman, which featured improvisation. Legendary engineer Tom Lazarus got an unbelievable sound on the two matching Hamburg Steinways.

Here is an example of Zimmerli’s writing for piano:

The nonesuch website has the following tracklist for the new release:

Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman have been touring as a duo recently including most recently at the North Sea Jazz Festival July 2011.

“It’s like one of those friendships where you don’t see someone for a long stretch and then you fall right back where you left off, yet you don’t harp on the past, With some people, you can pick up like that and it’s not strange, with some people you can’t. With Josh and I, it’s been easy over the years.”

Amongst the material used on the tour is the Mehldau original ‘The Falcon will fly again’ taken from his 2010 album ‘Highway Rider’ which also featured Redman.

Pianist Barry Douglas conducting from the keyboard in a performance of Liszt’s first Piano Concerto:

http://www.rte.ie/tv/symphonysessions/av_20080828.html?2415224,null,228

After a successful 2 CD release featuring standards and a premiere recording of Mehldau’s song cycle ‘Love Songs’, Anne Sofie Von Otter and Brad Mehldau still continue to tour together. Recent reviews have been mixed about both Mehldau’s compositions and Von Otter’s performances of the more modern material:

New York Times: “Mr. Mehldau’s songs are attractive but not particularly varied: all five are slow, gentle and languid, even when the texts (poems by Teasdale) suggest something more spirited”.

The National Post: “The piano part was assertive, even competitive. Possibly this is what brought out more projection and passion from von Otter. The people loved the music, applauding between songs even though they knew better. This cycle was certainly the highlight of the night.”

Here is a clip of ‘Calling you’ performed live at the the Opera Garnier, Paris.

Last summer, Brad Mehldau played a solo concert held at Europe’s largest roman amphitheatre in the city of Vienne (25 kilometres south of Lyon).

Among the pieces Brad played at that concert are:

‘Bittersweet Symphony’

‘Smells like a teen spirit’

‘Teardrop’

‘Dreambrother’

‘This here’

‘Things behind the sun’

‘My favourite things’

Here is some video footage of the concert:

“I’m quite fond of Art of the Trio 4, but there’s no substitute for putting your ears in the same room as the man.”

and

“Brad Mehldau is almost certainly our greatest living improviser.”

Click here to buy tickets.

Finally, some video footage taken earlier this month of Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile performing Radiohead’s ‘Knives out’ at Le Poisson Rouge, New York:

and this version of ‘Bottle up and explode’  by Elliot Smith

Thought I’d add a quick post about this album. Kurt Elling is a great Jazz vocal talent, I’ve heard it mentioned he is ‘a baritone with four octaves’, this  certainly sounds like it when you hear him live. The album ‘Dedicated to you’ is a very good album, firstly it has great standards on there: ‘All or nothing at all’, ‘Lush life’, ‘Nancy with the laughing face’ and others. The next thing to marvel at is the arrangements, Laurence Hobgood, Elling’s regular collaborater has put together arrangements featuring himself on piano with his regular trio, but with the addition of a string quartet and saxophonist Ernie Watts. Finally there is Elling himself, an easy to listen to voice that has a bit of the ‘Sinatra swagger’ as well as the scat style and improvised qualities of a typical jazz instrumentalist.

The album is a tribute to the six track Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane album, the rest of the tracks are taken from Coltrane’s ‘Ballads’ album. The other great feature is the album is live.

To purchase this album click here

For those of us fortunate enough to have seen a Brad Mehldau solo concert live, this DVD and 2 CD set acts as a perfect souvenir, for those that haven’t,  it is the closest you will get to the actual ‘live’ experience.

The DVD, ‘Live in Marciac’ 2006, is excellently filmed with a number of different angles, including many close ups of the hands on the keyboard, as well as long shots and close ups all capturing the essence of the live concert. Coupled with the DVD are two CD’s featuring the audio from the same concert with an additional encore, not contained on the DVD ‘Dat Dere’.

Being among the fortunate, I was reminded of some of the habitual elements of Brad Mehldau’s solo concerts, starting with jacket for the concert before removing it after the first piece, staying seated after each piece and acknowledging the audience from the piano stool, only standing at the end of a set or an encore, the reluctant speaker, preferring to list the songs played in one go towards the end of the concert rather than introducing them in stages.

The beauty of watching Brad Mehldau is that he’s not a showman, it’s as if we have walked in on him playing piano for himself as he weaves ideas from melodies and harmonic progressions for fun. For those familiar with Mehldau’s work there are some wonderful re-workings of ‘Elegiac Cycle’ as well as some favourites (Martha my dear, Things behind the sun, Exit music for a film) also some pieces not previously recorded (My Favorite things, Lilac Wine, Lithium). Fans will know that his rendition of ‘My Favorite Things’ has proved a great hit on youtube over the past couple of years, it is great to watch it finally on DVD and seeing Brad’s initial response to his performance after playing it!

One of the most impressive things about this set is watching how he adapts his material compared to versions previously recorded, the independence of the right and left hands is so impressive when viewed live, the influence of the late romantic music that Mehldau speaks about is present in many of the songs in his treatments especially in ‘Goodbye Storyteller’ which sounds like Rachmaninov in places to me, the way he then segues straight into Radiohead’s ‘Exit Music for a Film’ from this..….pure genius!

To purchase this double CD and DVD, click here

Here are a couple of clips from the forthcoming release, firstly ‘My Favourite things’:

Secondly, a segment from the animated transcription of Mehldau’s original ‘Resignation’:

Finally, a segment from ‘Goodbye Storyteller’ originally from ‘Elegiac Cycle’

To purchase this double CD and DVD, click here