After attending a successful concert, I arrived home late. To prolong the positive feeling, I began to procrastinate and reviewed my spam folder. At the very bottom, I found an email from Warner Music that had been sent almost a month before: ‘Brad Mehldau’s new album will be released on 29 August. It is possible to interview him.’
From the first moment I heard Mehldau play in the Carel Willinkzaal of The Hague Congress Hall in the mid-1990s, I had tried to interview him. The date mentioned had not yet passed; in fact, it was the following morning. It wasn’t possible to postpone the interview because Mehldau was leaving that same afternoon for an extensive tour and it was now or never. And so I found myself in the ultra-trendy Warner office, face to face with the pianist I listen to almost every day.
On his new album Ride Into The Sun, Mehldau puts his own spin on songs by his contemporary Elliott Smith (1969–2003). This singer-songwriter achieved cult status among lovers of serious, fragile songs. His music can be heard on the few albums he made and in the films ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997) and ‘American Beauty’ (1999). Elliott Smith’s life was marked by depression, alcohol and drug abuse until he took his own life in 2003.
Did you know Elliott Smith personally?
‘Sure. He was part of the music scene in Los Angeles where I lived between 1995 and 2000. I played with him a few times, although we weren’t really friends.’
Your biographies show striking similarities: a preference for melodious, melancholic music, a love for the Beatles, and a predisposition to depression and addiction.
‘I can imagine that introverts with a tendency towards gloominess would enjoy his music. Still, Smith’s songs are interesting enough to appeal to a wider audience.’
What do you like so much about his music?
‘The pure beauty of his songs makes even the heavy subjects he sings about bearable. The fragile balance between darkness and light in his music really appeals to me. I feel the same way about Schubert’s late sonatas or the vocals of Thom Yorke from Radiohead.’
Are Elliott Smith’s songs suitable for jazz arrangements?
‘No, not really. The first time I heard Elliott was when he performed at the Largo club in Los Angeles. I was immediately struck by the way he interwove his guitar and piano playing with the melodies he sang. Harmonically speaking, his songs are sophisticatedly constructed. For me, that’s where the challenge lies in working with them.’
How do you choose a song to arrange?
‘I have to really like it; goose bumps are a good indication. For this project, I compiled a long list of about thirty songs. Sometimes, apart from playing a melody, I can’t do much with it. That’s a reason to drop it. I have to be able to add something to the music. I chose two songs that Smith didn’t write himself, but which he liked to play and sing: ‘Thirteen’ by Big Star and ‘Sunday’ by Nick Drake.’
Until now, you have mainly recorded instrumental albums. On Ride Into The Sun, some of the tunes are sung by Chris Thile and Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear). Why did you make this choice?
‘Initially, this was supposed to be an instrumental album. I had asked Chris to play the mandolin and Daniel to play the guitar. Shortly before recording, I suddenly realised that they are both good singers. I wanted to at least give it a try. When I heard them together, I was pleasantly surprised by the contrast between their voices. Chris’s voice is light, Daniel’s is darker.’
In 2023, the first part of your memoirs, Formation, building a personal canon, was published. You write painfully candidly about the first thirty years of your life, which, in addition to music, were coloured by your adoption history, experiences of abuse and your drug addiction. When you became successful as a musician, you were not particularly keen on giving interviews. Did that have anything to do with your past?
‘Interviewers can sometimes approach complicated subjects in a very simplistic way. For example, they see similarities between the freedom of improvisation and a jazz musician’s drug use. The two have nothing to do with each other! I only started playing well after I kicked the habit. To prevent my life story from being framed in such a trivial way in the press, I decided to tell it myself.’
I had expected more shocked reactions after the publication of your book.
‘That silence surprised me too. My parents weren’t happy about this publication, even though they understood how important it was for me to write it all down. The secondary school in West Hartford, where the principal abused me, didn’t respond. Everyone knows each other in that town and I suspect they hope the scandal will blow over as long as they remain silent about it in public.’
You describe the classical world as an elitist affair, while you immediately felt at home in the jazz scene. Yet in recent years you have been involved with music by Bach and Fauré, among others. How did that come about?
‘I listen with admiration to pianists such as Martha Argerich and Daniil Trifonov, who perform classical masterpieces in a perfect and clear manner. My talent lies in a different area. I have good technique and I am able to improvise, but you shouldn’t ask me to play an entire Rachmaninoff concerto.’
You composed a piano concerto that you have performed with various orchestras. Are there any improvised parts in it?
‘No, that piece was completely written out. I often play it in combination with Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood. It does contain improvisation in the form of question-and-answer patterns for piano and orchestra. Partly because of the high costs, concerts like these are rare, but they are wonderful experiences.’
Has the classical world become more accessible?
‘Musicians from different disciplines have been growing closer together in recent years. This is partly due to the rising standard of conservatories. Jazz musicians are better able to read music, and people with a classical background have become less hesitant to improvise.’
At the end of the first part of your memoirs, you meet Dutch singer Fleurine. She is now the mother of your three children. Can we read in part two how you found happiness?
‘No, I take a completely different approach. In part one, I described how my personal musical canon was formed during my youth, and in part two I elaborate on that. I don’t think Fleurine is looking forward to a book in which I put our private life on display.’
Ride Into The Sun
Brad Mehldau – Warner Music
