A New Album From Brad Mehldau Trio

It has been more than two years since the release of "Blues and Ballads", latest recording of Brad Mehldau's classic trio. The fans were impatiently waiting for a new recording and here it is : "Seymour Reads The Constitution"...

As usual, Brad Mehldau along with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums, take the listener on a journey right from the opening piece. The trio travels in time and between styles but the musical and artistic coherence can be heard on each and every piece.

The album consists of 8 tunes. 3 original compositions of Mehldau, an American songbook classic, 2 pop songs covers from McCartney and Beach Boys and 2 jazz pieces from Elmo Hope and Sam Rivers.

After listening to this album, I started to wonder which musical format suits Mehldau the best. Obviously there is no doubt that all his work,be it the solo ones, classical or even electronic ones are pretty much among my favorite all time albums but the ones with his classical trio have a special soul. I almost feel that he is even freer with the trio compared to his solo recordings. The synergy and the unity of the three musicians might be creating this feeling but it is for sure that whatever it is, always end up with one hell of a good jazz album.

The Lost Album of Coltrane

In one my previous posts I had announced that a lost album by John Coltrane was about to be released. The newly discovered and previously unreleased album finally hit the market on the last day of June 2018.

Normally the late discovered albums are not considered to be the highlights of an artist and that is why I have always approached this concept as a marketing gimmick. But not for this one... I can easily say that the album is probably going to be considered as a truly great Coltrane album.

The album was recorded in  1963 with the "Classic Quartet" (i.e. John Coltrane, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner).The story is that the master tape was destroyed by Impulse Records in order to optimize storage area (can this be true I don't know) and the sole copy was handed to John Coltrane's wife.

The new release has been compiled by Coltrane's son Ravi Coltrane and Ken Druker including liner notes from Sonny Rollins.


There are two different versions, one with 7 tracks or a deluxe version with 14 tracks. Both available as CD and Vinyl. I doubt the recording quality will be that great but hey, this is a new album from the great Trane.

Listen on Spotify

Here is "Nature Boy" from the album.