The Art of the Trio 2

This live set, recorded at New York's Village Vanguard in the summer of 1997, presents pianist Brad Mehldau with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, the same personnel as on The Art of the Trio, Volume One. This is hardcore jazz, with tunes by Cole Porter, Thelonious Monk, Jerome Kern, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, and John Coltrane. Mehldau hasn't yet earned a place in the highest rank of the jazz pantheon, but if he keeps making recordings of this caliber, he'll blow away a lot of the opposition. He doesn't wear his influences on his sleeve but, with the support of Grenadier and Rossy, executes harmonic reconstructions of standard texts. --Stanley Booth