Description:
Having essayed the art of the trio on several albums boasting that tag, pianist Brad Mehldau opens up his style on Largo to embrace horns and strings, electronics and robo-beats. Produced by popmeister Jon Brion (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple), with whom Mehldau hooked up at the Largo nightclub in Los Angeles, the CD is thick with atmosphere: titles such as "When It Rains" shouldn't be taken lightly. But its studied romanticism, while cutting back on the pianistic posturing that has turned off some jazz critics on Mehldau (while intensifying the devotion of others), is ultimately thin in substance. At its best, as on the fre
Having essayed the art of the trio on several albums boasting that tag, pianist Brad Mehldau opens up his style on Largo to embrace horns and strings, electronics and robo-beats. Produced by popmeister Jon Brion (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple), with whom Mehldau hooked up at the Largo nightclub in Los Angeles, the CD is thick with atmosphere: titles such as "When It Rains" shouldn't be taken lightly. But its studied romanticism, while cutting back on the pianistic posturing that has turned off some jazz critics on Mehldau (while intensifying the devotion of others), is ultimately thin in substance. At its best, as on the freewheeling "Paranoid Android", the music attains a kind of hermetic intensity. At other times, it recalls the acoustic experimentation of Medeski, Martin and Wood with its decorative grooves and empty claims on free expression. Cocktail music is but a few degrees of banality away, which, depending on your taste, is either reason to stay away or reason to make Mehldau even more of a hot property. --Lloyd Sachs
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Manufacturer: WARNER BROS
Release date: 13 February 2006
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0093624811428 UPC: 766481843528
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