Guardian Live Review (uncut version)
Sunday 1 July 2007
Jazz
Metheny Mehldau
Barbican Hall, London
*** (three stars)
The partnership of pianist Brad Mehldau with stadium superstar Pat Metheny looks good on paper, and sounds great on disc: there are two albums to prove it. But would this odd couple really work out as a touring unit?
Despite their obvious affinities, there’s an apparent difference in performing methods and personae. Mehldau, studious and clean cut, faces the keyboard in the manner of a mathematician with a fresh batch of differential equations to solve. Perched among potted ferns on the Barbican’s wide stage, you sense he would be happier somewhere smaller and quieter, like the Wigmore Hall, or home. Metheny, relaxed and hairy, is no less serious, yet his sunny manner reaches the most distant seats in the house. The platform is his home.
They open with several duos, including Annie’s Bittersweet Cake, a piece by Mehldau, in which he develops shimmering blocks of harmony over a pulsing ostinato. Metheny joins in quietly, and the number ends on an exquisitely tuneful coda.
There are moments when their timbre and harmonic languages don’t mesh so well; you sense that Mehldau has had to become more Metheny-like for it to work best. This is demonstrated further when they expand to a quartet. Larry Grenadier (bass) and Jeff Ballard (drums) are the mainstays of Mehldau’s own trio, but Night Away’s constant, even-quaver pulse, topped by Metheny’s creamy electric guitar tone, makes the band sound like a stripped-down Pat Metheny Group.
Metheny never disappoints his fans, whether creating extraordinary sounds on the multi-stringed Pikasso guitar (for the duo Sound Of Water), or delivering an interminable synth guitar solo that climaxes on screaming high notes. You wonder how Mehldau feels about such solos, yet it wouldn’t be a Metheny gig without them. Ring Of Life gives Mehldau a chance to blow back, with a spot of EST-style bombast.
There are plenty of surprises and moments to treasure, including Grenadier’s outstanding bass solos (reminiscent of Jimmy Blanton’s role in the Duke Ellington Band of the early 1940s) on a new, Ornette-ish blues by Metheny, on Silent Movie, and on the superb encore of Bachelors III. Above all, this is a group that understands jazz composition and all its nuances. Furthermore, these highly sophisticated musicians have internalised the simple cadences and chord sequences of pop, folk and indie rock songs so that they can re-interpret them in their own language. However complex and technical their music becomes, there’s also something familiar about it.
John L. Walters