Brad Mehldau Pushes Forward on ‘Variations on a Melancholy Theme’
The truly great thing about Brad Mehldau’s
Variations on a Melancholy Theme is that it rewards casual as well as careful listening.
Variations on a Melancholy Theme
Brad Mehldau
11 June 2021
It doesn’t seem that long ago that Brad Mehldau was angering jazz purists with his 2002 experimental album
Largo, only to follow it up with the more apologetically conventional
Anything Goes two years later. That would be pianist/composer/bandleader’s last gasp for Warner Brothers before jumping to Nonesuch, a child company of the Warner conglomerate, that same year. According to the press release for