Music Review: Brad Mehldau connects Bach, Fauré to jazz on albums, ‘After Bach II’ and ‘Après Fauré’
Grammy-award winning jazz pianist Brad Mehldau connects the dots as though they were so many 16th notes.
His two new albums, “After Bach II” and “Après Fauré,” use classical music as a foundation for solo explorations that draw a through line from Art Tatum to Thelonious Monk to Bill Evans to Keith Jarrett to Philip Glass. It all sounds like Mehldau, and it all goes back to Bach.
The hybrid sets are out Friday, May 10, and “After Bach II” is a sequel to Mehldau’s absorbing 2018 album, “After Bach.” Once again, interpretations of Bach pieces alternate with original compositions inspired by him. “Après Fauré” follows a similar format, with the French composer’s work bookending four short original Mehldau compositions.
It’s music to delight a church choir or nightclub crowd. And, as Mehldau writes in the liner notes for the Fauré album, “music that breathes austerity and weirdness.”