Brad Mehldau does things to a piano that should be illegal. His recent concert at Carnegie Hall astonished a sold-out crowd as he created sounds on a grand piano that didn’t seem possible. Though he played Bach and Brahms, it was his rendition of Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film)” that shocked the audience into a realization that he was reinventing the piano on the spot. His relentless staccato stabbings with his left hand played two parts at once, while his right hand wandered into chords and melodies that were one part Radiohead and two parts mad genius.
Liz Maratta, a New Yorker and long-time Mehldau fan, remembers seeing Brad play in a dingy club in lower Manhattan. “There was this dreary room, and suddenly he took the stage and it was magic. He played music I never thought possible,” Maratta says.
Mehldau studied jazz at New York’s The New School and soon made a name in jazz circles, playing with the likes of Pat Metheny. His albums and tours include arrangements of the Beatles, Paul Simon, John Mayer and Radiohead, as well as his own compositions.
His eclectic mix led to a historic landmark: he holds the chair of Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall. He’s the first jazz artist to be so recognized.
None of this describes the experience of hearing him. He plays as if he has four hands, with his little finger playing a bass line while his thumb finds melodies and the other hand plays chords and melodies of its own. He uses all this to launch into a wild trance on the Radiohead song, leaving behind the “how did he do that” questions for a “please keep doing that” thunderbolt of sound that is almost frightening in its emotionalism.
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