was one among a plethora of young jazz pianists who rose to prominence. He is one of the more absorbing and thoughtful practitioners within that idiom, and he is receptive to the idea of using material from the rock era (
's "Blackbird," for example). Though
's training is primarily classical, his interest in jazz began early. He played in the Hall High School jazz band of Hartford, Connecticut, winning the Berklee College of Music's Best All-Around Musician Award while still in his junior year of high school. He studied jazz at New York's New School for Social Research under
.
before forming his own trio in 1994 and recording his first Warner Bros. album,
, in 1995.
followed in 1997, with the next two volumes in the series appearing over the following months. Two years later,
.
followed in 2000, consisting of all original compositions focusing on various cities, hence the title of the album.
Another
Art of the Trio album came out in 2001, but the most significant release was
Largo, which recorded
Mehldau performing with other groups outside of his usual trio format. This was a big change from his previous work, and offered new challenges as he adapted to several interesting lineup situations.
Mehldau followed the genre-bending album with the standards-based
Anything Goes and
Live in Tokyo in 2004, with
Day Is Done arriving the following year. In 2006, he released
House on Hill as well as
Love Sublime, the latter with soprano vocalist
Renée Fleming on Nonesuch Records.
Mehldau chose to work with his trio plus
Pat Metheny on
Quartet in 2007; he followed it up with with the double-disc
Live in 2008, which was recorded with his trio at the Village Vanguard.
In 2010,
Mehldau emerged with the ambitious
Highway Rider, a double disc of 15 new compositions; it was produced by
Jon Brion. He employed his trio as well as drummer
Matt Chamberlain, saxophonist
Joshua Redman, and a small chamber orchestra led by
Dan Coleman.
Mehldau arranged and orchestrated all the music. Also in 2010,
Mehldau was honored by Carnegie Hall when he was named the first jazz artist to hold the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for the 2010-2011 season. In 2011,
Mehldau appeared on two live albums, his own Live in Marciac and the ECM date Live at Birdland (recorded in 2009) with saxophonist Lee Konitz, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Paul Motian. In September of that year, Nonesuch also released a studio album, Modern Music, a collaboration between
Mehldau, pianist Kevin Hays, and composer/arranger Patrick Zimmerli. The music on this set was comprised of tunes by each of the principals, as well as compositions by Ornette Coleman, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass.
On December 6, 2011, while
Mehldau was at the beginning of a world tour, Nonesuch issued a box set entitled Art of the Trio Recordings: 1996–2001. The set includes the five
Art of the Trio albums -- the last a double disc -- that were originally issued on Warner Bros. The box also includes a seventh disc of previously unreleased material from shows at the Village Vanguard in 1997, 1999, and 2001. In 2012,
Mehldau's Trio released two studio albums with the all-original, Ode, and the companion collection of cover songs, Where Do You Start.
–
Richard S. Ginell & Thom Jurek, Rovi