Originals and a fine take on ‘You Go To My Head’
We much prefer Better Angels as a setting to experience Brad Mehldau this year as a sideman in this Peter Bernstein originals + standards context than on his own solo piano records Après Fauré and After Bach II.
Apples and pears – hold on. But scoff ye not for a moment. Save pelting us with berries or placing us in the stocks if currently prostrate at the shrine to his Bradness and mortally offended by the sheer temerity of such a claim.
Bear with the thought. Looking for better matches journey back gentle Mehldau fan and if you loved Blues and Ballads – a Mehldau trio record put out by Nonesuch in 2016 – then that fits in well and to us is far better than recent work, even the perfectly fine Beatles foray Your Mother Should Know the concept of which has already spawned imitators.
Nuts and bolts
Even more to the point there are even stronger connections.
The nuts and bolts of the album mean that the main soloing is done by Bernstein and what a melodic, intuitive player he is.
Mehldau chips in rather than is deferred to which wouldn’t have been so good – to be honest his comping is worth the price of admission alone – and for the piano soloing we loved what he does on ‘Ditty For Dewey’ most. Dewey is Bernstein’s son.
Erstwhile Robert Glasper bassist Vicente Archer and the Milesian drummer Al Foster complete the quartet – with Foster so loose and open. He swings marvellously.
It’s not exactitude that Foster only brings which of course he does in terms of feel and touch. It’s more the sheer pace and beatific buoyancy that makes all the difference.
Stranger in Paradise and Signs Live in common
Go back and contrast what first on Stranger in Paradise Larry Grenadier (on that Brad record Blues and Ballads mentioned earlier) and Bill Stewart did so burningly with Bernstein and Mehldau 20 years ago.
Clearly a continuum
If anything there was a fuller sound on the surface at play with Christian McBride and Greg Hutchinson on board on 2017’s Signs Live. But not so fast because actually these earlier records have far more in common fundamentally with this latest even bearing in mind the rejigging of bass and drum players than not.
Mystic chords of memory
“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Better Angels refers to a speech made by Abraham Lincoln at his 1861 presidential inauguration
Angels angle: Bernstein tunes + standards
So the changes in personnel don’t really matter. Because Bernstein’s method and sense of esprit de corps frame everything.
This quartet is recording together for the first time.
Better Angels begins with Bernstein pieces ‘Perpetual Pendulum’ and the aforementioned ‘Ditty for Dewey’ followed by a version of the late-1930s Gillespie and Coots standard ‘You Go To My Head’ sung by Billie Holiday and Marlene Dietrich in early versions and Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan in the 60s.
I hear some similarities in the Bernstein/Mehldau rapport as found between John Abercrombie and Andy LaVerne displayed on their Timeline 2003 version of the same tune issued by Danish jazz indie SteepleChase.
Blue monumentalism
The Velvet Fog’s ‘Born to be Blue’ is more of a showcase for Bernstein at the beginning and there’s nothing wrong with that. If – guitar fan – you just want to hear Bernstein chops more than anything then this is the track for you.
Seraphic flow
As for the Bernstein title track it has a gentle reflective, oh go on then – seraphic flow – to it.
But there’s lots of interest and mellow tones all over the place.
Both Mehldau and Foster do interesting things to disrupt and enhance but not disturb the mood.
Mumbles memory
The inclusion of the jaunty Duke Jordan standard ‘No Problem’ that Clark Terry interpreted on Mumbles’ 1961 Candid album Color Changes makes sense and you will hear it very differently here.
Context is core
An album full of Bernstein tunes whose ‘Hazel Eyes’ is also here. And JJ Johnson’s mid-50s piece ‘Lament’ that the trombonist performed with his fellow instrumentalist Kai Winding and later featured on Miles Davis-Gil Evans Columbia 1957 classic Miles Ahead is also catnip for any self respecting member of the jazzerati.
So, strong originals, a nostalgic feel, consummate instrumentalism and a great choice of standards.
Modern mainstreamer, jazz guitar nut, Mehldau spotter and above all Bernstein appreciator: who could ask for more.
Not so much -esque is more – much as we admire faithful, well honed homage. But what counts here is context, that step up curatorially, cloaked by vision that proves resolutely core.
Solid Jackson coming out in November
Final word – look out for M.T.B.’s Solid Jackson from Mehldau, Turner and Mehldau with Larry Grenadier and Bill Stewart.
It’s new in late-November on Criss Cross Jazz – details in the screenshot above which includes the Mehldau title track and the deliciously entitled ‘Maury’s Grey Wig,’ Bernstein’s ‘Ditty for Dewey’ among his originals, a version of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Angola’ and Hank Mobley gem ‘Soft Impression.’
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