 When Elan Mehler plays, people stop what they are doing and listen in rapt attention – and for anyone who doubts that assertion then this new live album, where there’s no audible sign of a restless or an indifferent audience and only the occasional clink of a glass, provides compelling evidence of the Boston pianist’s communicative powers as a musician. When he plays he creates the sonic equivalent of magic – something that world-renowned DJ, label boss, and talent spotter, Gilles Peterson, can readily attest to. While on vacation he first heard the six-foot-eight Israeli-American playing in a Swiss hotel at a spa resort and promptly added Mehler to his roster at the Brownswood label. Five years on and Mehler, who has two studio albums under his belt - 2007’s ‘Scheme For Thought’ and 2009’s ‘The After Suite’ – now makes his debut for the Challenge label with an acoustic piano trio recording. ‘Being There, Here’ captures Mehler’s threesome (Tod Hedrick on bass with drummer Max Goldman) playing in Therme Vals, Switzerland, the very spa hotel where the pianist was first ‘discovered’ performing by Gilles Peterson. The ambience of their surroundings – peaceful and reflective - is vastly different from a normal jazz club date and as a result Mehler’s largely introspective repertoire mirrors this fact. The set opens with a dreamy rendition of Duke Ellington’s immortal ‘In A Sentimental Mood.’ Beginning with delicate chordal ripples that underpin sustained right-hand notes, Mehler’s delicately-wrought lines shimmer like soft-spun gossamer in the sun. Hedrick’s bowed bass resonates mournfully in the background while Goldman supplies soft cymbal crescendos. By contrast, Sy Oliver’s ‘Yes Indeed’ is transformed into a blues-tinged after-hours groove with Goldman laying down a lazy backbeat of brush strokes in tandem with Hedrick’s slow walking bass. The album’s title track was originally an acoustic guitar instrumental written by Matt Joy, a songwriter friend of Mehler’s (the two played together in a high school jazz trio and more recently, the pianist recorded Joy’s ‘Factory’ on ‘The After Suite’). It’s a reflective mood piece characterised by highly intuitive musical interplay from Mehler and his band. Thelonious Monk’s ‘Bemsha Swing’ receives a jaunty reworking that demonstrates that Mehler’s trio know how to swing and mine a groove while a fresh take on the standard, ‘When I Fall In Love,’ highlights the pianist’s crystalline right-hand filigrees, which together with rich chords weave a lush harmonic fabric. The set’s second Ellington number, ‘Reflections In D,’ is reconfigured as a meditative nocturne; its soft chords resonating like a spellbinding musical reverie for a moonlit night. Then the mood changes with Mehler’s self-penned ‘Waltz Ferwerda’ – a swirling stream of sophisticated chords and dextrous right-hand improvisation rendered in a lively 3/4 tempo. More downbeat is ‘I Dream A Highway,’ originally a slice of atmospheric Americana co-written by alternative country singer Gillian Welch and which Mehler first deconstructed on his second studio album, ‘The After Suite.’ Here, the song becomes a hushed, stately hymnal that gradually builds in intensity and captures the spirit and stark simplicity of Welch’s original. A deeper intensity is evident on the trio’s slow-burning take on the Brazilian bossa nova classic, ‘Insensatez,’ where Mehler can be found caressing Antonio Carlos Jobim’s sinuous melody with extraordinary tenderness. A third Ellington tune closes the album – the timeless ballad, ‘Solitude.’ A remarkable solo piano performance, it underscores Elan Mehler’s well-balanced blend of supreme sensitivity and virtuoso technique. It also cogently demonstrates why the young East Coast pianist is being heralded as a must-hear/must-see performer in the jazz world. On ‘Being There, Here,’ Elan Mehler and his trio acknowledge the jazz tradition while doing something distinctly individual – there might be faint echoes of Bill Evans, perhaps, or Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau in the DNA of Mehler’s music but he’s mature enough to be his own man. And he can make the piano sing – with grace, elegance, wit and an enchanting, hypnotic beauty. As was stated at the beginning: when Elan Mehler plays, people stop what they’re doing and start to listen. And the good thing is that they keep listening. Charles Waring
|
Catalog 
