American piano master Brad Mehldau has played both Bach and electronic funk in the UK recently, but this is a return to acoustic jazz with his long-running trio (Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums) and a tracklist of classic songs. But if all that sounds too familiar, forget it. Mehldau is a genius (and a still-improving one) at taking predictable materials to unpredictable destinations. His 10-minute dissection of the 1945 hit Since I Fell for You – begun delicately in flicks and hints, hurried and leaned on by assertive left-hand figures, then turned dreamy in an unaccompanied episode – sets the standard for the set. A soft Latin groove gets quietly ecstatic on I Concentrate on You, Charlie Parker’s Cheryl is fascinatingly formal and deliberate (as if the band are fascinated by its intricate bebop latticework), the Beatles’ And I Love Her is a flood of inexhaustibly fresh melody. These are old songs subjected to an old jazz method, but brought scintillatingly into the here and now.
