Almost seven years since the last time we saw him here, Brad Mehldau returned to the CSO for a concert on Friday eve in his standard trio setup with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums. The material mostly (all?) new and drawn from the upcoming album Blues and Ballads. The morning of the concert---which happened to be the final one in their tour---he retweeted a bit from this review in the Boston Globe

[Brad Mehldau] flashed facets of his renowned pianism: crystalline touch, deep lyricism, harmonic sophistication, adroit use of space, and the otherworldly independence of his right and left hands.

I cannot really describe his style any better than this. If you get a chance to see him, go!

Just got home from a wonderful concert by Brad Mehldau at the CSO. This was long overdue as I kept reading about Mehldau. And even though he performs quite regularly around here, I had never seen him. Big mistake. The first set was performed as a (strictly acoustic) trio with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums. After several compositions by Mehldau and a brazilian samba piece, the first set closed with a rendition of 'Holland' from Sufjan Stevens' album Michigan which was truly beautiful. The second set had Mehldau performing solo, again with several compositions of his own as well as one from Neil Young's classic 'The Needle and the Damage Done' leading two two pieces from the Sound of Music including an amazing, yet really different 'My favourite things' that just hushed a piece of the central melody along with a strond rhythmic element. Lovely. And then to cap it all off, four encores. Highly recommended.