It’s only natural for Brad Mehldau to release a solo piano album comprised almost entirely of material by the Beatles. After all, on his 2002 Warner Bros. album Largo, he included two tunes of Lennon/McCartney’s (“Mother Nature’s Son” and “Dear Prudence”) and he regularly features the iconic group’s material in his live shows. Plus, the brilliant pianist/composer just came off a project devoted to progressive rock (2022’s Jacob’s Ladder), so his eclectic tendencies have arguably never been in a higher gear.
He’s also covered Oasis and Soundgarden over the course of his career and it’s arguable which style(s) proffers the greater artistic challenge(s). Such distinctions become moot, however, when listening to Mehldau play “I Am The Walrus” as the very first cut: he doesn’t so much deconstruct a song almost indistinguishable from its involved production, he roots it out from its near-impenetrable 1967 recording. In doing so, he reveals all its confused and melancholy glory, note by nuanced note.
The tune as Brad plays it here alternates between segments of dream-like reverie and an ominous sense of dislocation. As a result, the cumulative effect of the contrast(s) generates a noticeably restless air. But then Brad almost instantaneously segues into a number quite unlike it, “Your Mother Should Know,” which only further heightens the effect; through this expert track sequencing, the sing-song quality of the latter provides respite from the edgy intensity of the former.
Nothing Brad Mehldau does is predictable though, so it should come as no surprise that within Your Mother Should Know – Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles he jumps all around the Beatles’ catalog. Yet even as he leaps from the boogie-woogie likes of 1963’s “I Saw Her Standing There” to the elegiac atmosphere of “For No One,” off the Revolver album of three years later, this brilliant musician, as usual, refuses to indulge himself: playing in September 2020 at Philharmonie de Paris, he doesn’t belabor the turns of phrase integral to the structure of the second any further than he relishes the upbeat air of the first.
Not surprisingly, the clarity of sound on Your Mother Should Know mirrors the precision Brad Mehldau applies to his interpretation(s). As recorded by the venue, mixed by Nicolas Portrenaud, then mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone, the continuity of the audio highlights the album’s overall pacing. Within that ebb and flow, the artist rightly places a blues-oriented “Baby’s In Black” near the epicenter of the eleven tracks. Yet it’s only one of the most obvious touches of his fastidious efforts.
Likewise, it’s a daring but fruitful juxtaposition of that somewhat unsung Beatles tune next to one of the most famous, “She Said She Said.” Still, even given how the selections proceed in such quick succession, Brad’s welcome variations on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” are nonetheless unmistakable. And while more improvisation along those lines might be applied to other numbers like “Here There And Everywhere,” Mehldau’s oblique approach to the songs serves the same purpose: his light touch during George Harrison’s “If I Needed Someone,” for instance, does not preclude a clear delineation of the composition’s rise and fall structure and, in the end, what was originally the author’s warm and affectionate tribute to the Byrds turns softly haunting.
Non-sequitur that it is, hearing David Bowie’s “Life On Mars” as the final cut renders confounding Mehldau’s reasoning for its inclusion (unless it’s his indirect way of drawing attention to his point about the evolution of post-Beatles pop). If, as he explains in his liner notes–the voluminous likes of which are a frequent insertion in his albums–he was aiming to represent piano-based compositions of the post-Beatles era, he had plenty of the Fab Four’s own solo material to choose from.
To that end, how wondrous of an alternate conclusion would be an instrumental take on “Maybe I’m Amazed,” (which was in fact part of the concert) especially in following Brad Mehldau’s soul-searching take on Abbey Road‘s “Golden Slumbers.” Talk about finishing with a flourish, not to mention maintaining the conceptual purity of this collection.
One Response
I’m still wondering why they included the spell-breaking applause between numbers, since there’s a brief pause before the clapping. Editing would have been so easy.