Over the course of a recording career spanning some 30-odd years, Brad Mehldau has covered a fair few Beatles songs including Blackbird (The Art Of The Trio – Volume One, Warner Bros, 1997), Dear Prudence (Largo, Warner Bros, 2002) and Martha My Dear (Day Is Done, Nonesuch, 2005) so this live-in-concert collection of Fabs songs is welcome and arguably overdue.
Mehldau’s ingenious and inventive interpretation of each of the songs is equally engrossing and gratifying. In his liner notes Mehldau refers to the “strangeness” of The Beatles’ compositions but also alludes to their harmonic richness. For pop tunes they are often deceptively complex, particularly from Rubber Soul (Parlophone, 1965) onwards.
Mehldau manages to circumvent the pitfall of parodic reinvention by adopting a reasonably faithful approach but utilising clever, novel arrangements. So, I Saw Her Standing There is partially transformed into boogie woogie. The deconstructed I Am The Walrus is meditative and fascinating. The minor-keyed She Said, She Said is appropriately melancholic, as is the simply sublime version of Here, There And Everywhere. Mehldau affords Maxwell’s Silver Hammer a veritable smorgasbord of extemporisation whilst Golden Slumbers is transformed into a mesmeric and respectful paean.
Sure, the selection of tracks is quirky but this merely reflects the eclectic nature of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison’s varied output. It is interesting to note that three of the tunes are taken from Revolver (Parlophone, 1966) which contained some of the strongest songs the quartet ever recorded. The outlier addition of David Bowie’s Life On Mars is meant to demonstrate the effect The Beatles had on subsequent generations of pop/rock composers. But Mehldau – who has covered a considerable swathe of rock and pop songs over the years – reveals that the music of The Beatles continues to inform what he plays.
Discography
I Am The Walrus; Your Mother Should Know; I Saw Her Standing There; For No One; Baby’s In Black; She Said, She Said; Here, There And Everywhere; If I Needed Someone; Maxwell’s Silver Hammer; Golden Slumbers; Life On Mars? (48.26)
Mehldau (p). Paris, September 2020.
Nonesuch Records 0075597907407
