(2022) Brad Mehldau - Jacob's Ladder
Review:
…Being the manager of Brad Mehldau‘s record label must require an indulgent heart. While the pianist has recorded some of the best jazz trio albums of recent decades, he has regularly headed off-piste into rock music (Largo), club beats (Mehliana: Taming the Dragon) and classical (multiple times). Luckily, Mehldau is with Nonesuch, where such detours seem to be waved through. Still, you wonder how the pianist pitched his latest: Jacob’s Ladder is a prog rock-theological-synthesizer concept piece featuring covers of Yes and Rush and the words of Jehovah. It veers from the sublime to the bracingly ugly, from manic to serene. Mehldau says that Jacob’s Ladder reflects on scripture and the search for the divine inspired by the progressive rock he loved as a teen – kind of God meets Gentle Giant. The album starts with an ethereal taste of a tune by Canadian prog titans Rush. Tom Sawyer melds a boy treble, broken beats, fluttering piano and synths into gentle loveliness, but the mood is rudely shattered by a clattering keyboard work-out, Herr Und Knecht, which resembles Emerson, Lake & Palmer at their most diabolical. The screaming vocals add a touch of Teutonic metallers Rammstein. Mehldau is clearly not making The Art of the Trio Vol 4 here. However, the mood calms as Mehldau plays some Chopin-esque piano before the playful three-part Cogs in Cogs suite. Here the programmed drumming and electric keyboards recall his Taming the Dragon project. For part II Mehldau introduces a lira da gamba, an antique stringed instrument. With Becca Stevens‘s high-altitude vocals and a tricksy time signature the mood floats between vintage Renaissance and vintage Yes. Double Fugue is just that, played on period synths before a full version of Tom Sawyer. The 1981 Rush anthem is imaginatively reworked as Chris Thile, a regular collaborator, sings and plays mandolin abetted by multiple keyboards, power drums and fluting boy treble. After a brief and lovely Latin-tinged interlude, it’s time for the main event: Jacob’s Ladder (I hope you’re keeping up here). Anyway, if you’ve wanted the bedtime tale from the Book of Genesis recited in Dutch and English on record, here it is. After Mehldau improvises on piano over beats, the music becomes steadily stranger. Amid washes of synth and wandering sax come snatches of dialogue (may be Dutch again, Google Translate was baffled). Finally comes a sudden massed yowl of pain (nope, no real idea). The good news is that this is followed by what Mehldau calls his vision of heaven, which fans of Yes will be delighted to hear is soundtracked by a good lump of Starship Trooper from The Yes Album of 1971. Again a prog-rock warhorse finds a new spring, imaginatively rearranged with harp and a wordlessly angelic vocal from Cécile McLorin Salvant and ending with a rhapsodic sign-off from Mehldau’s Steinway.
Track List:
1. maybe as his skies are wide 03:43
2. Herr und Knecht 07:47
3. (Entr'acte) Glam Perfume 05:44
4. Cogs in Cogs, Pt. I: Dance 04:11
5. Cogs in Cogs, Pt. II: Song 04:02
6. Cogs in Cogs, Pt. III: Double Fugue 04:30
7. Tom Sawyer (feat. Chris Thile) 07:44
8. Vou correndo te encontrar / Racecar 05:05
9. Jacob’s Ladder, Pt. I: Liturgy 01:27
10. Jacob’s Ladder, Pt. II: Song 11:30
11. Jacob’s Ladder, Pt. III: Ladder 04:19
12. Heaven: I. All Once – II. Life Seeker – III. Würm – IV. Epilogue: It Was a Dream but I Carry It Still 10:07
Media Report:
Genre: jazz, prog-rock
Country: Netherlands
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
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