No big deal what

No, I won't make a big deal of my FIRST EVER BLOG ENTRY!!!!!! It's not something I have dreamed of doing. My good wife has compelled me into this. I said, no time. She said, spring break. I protested, no topic. She rebutted, Brad Mehldau Trio concert - then proceeded to announce it to the cyberworld. One afternoon she reminded me, so when you are going to write in OUR blog? I philosophised: blogging is for the night. Today I wiggled, don't know how to do it la. She clicked the mouse, and here we are. An empty page stares at me, inviting and taunting. Excuses have dried up. UMass is on spring break, it's night time, I don't have homework, we just saw that marvellous jazz trio on Saturday. Yes, that is a good topic to blog about.

We saw the Brad Mehldau Trio in concert at Scullers Jazz Club, Boston. We have at least ten Mehldau CDs, nine original and one ripped for me by my Italian friend who introduced me to this master pianist. I listen to his music more than any other. Live concert recordings, experimental studio material (well, everything is experimental, since he constantly improvises), trio and solo albums. One of the best acts in music today, to my mind. I'm not sure where he is based, but he performs a lot the cities of Northeast US and in Europe. Jacqui and I vowed not to leave America until we see the Trio in concert. In January, when I spotted this Boston concert on his website (www.bradmehldau.com - you can get a few free samples) the forces of nature determined that we would go. We bought tickets three months ahead of the event. At last! How timely too that the Trio would be playing on the first weekend of spring break. Mr. Mehldau must have known my schedule.

You can say I was excited about it. You can say it again. But, hmmm.... approaching last Saturday, as I was getting directions, I developed some reservation about the venue. I found out that the club is parked in a hotel, away from the downtown 'hood. Man, that don't seem right. Jazz clubs belong in the bowels of the city, crammed between other local establishments, with doors opening to noisy streets with dim lamps. My best jazz experiences, anyway, have been in such places. But a hotel, away from the mess? Well, it's the top draw in Boston; all the high acts of jazz play at Scullers. Including the Brad Mehldau Trio. So we went.

Rather, we tried to get there. To drive on Boston's roads is to volunteer to be tortured. We had to go by car because the hotel is not accessible by public transport (yet another sign of misplacement, but I'll stop). I'd rather not recollect the journey. Suffice it to say we ended up parking by the roadside somewhere and hailing a cab to the hotel. We rushed up the stairs to Scullers and were ushered to our seats five minutes late. Late! Good thing jazz concert songs usually last ten minutes so we only missed half of the first song. We had good seats, thankfully, directly in front of the players. Bassist Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard on drums were having a rollicking good time, unsuspectingly breaking out in grins, in between pinching their eyes shut and rolling their heads in the manner of one fully at ease and having sheer fun.

Brad Mehldau was poised as we see on the album covers - intense, concentrated, and hunched over the piano keys. He didn't seem to be in a good mood, peevishly complained after a flash went off from the audiene. But maybe he's like that. Eyes shut the entire time, except when needing to tell his friends, ok, now we approach the close of the song. I recognized most of the tunes, but of course, every rendition is improvised upon. I thought Mehldau was quite reserved, plus the volume balance sometimes made the drum outspeak the piano. While I enjoy his super refined yet spontaneous touch with ballads on the CDs, I had hoped for a more wild, crazy, raucous set on stage. The Trio had that chemistry, playing in their own worlds yet in a large overlapping space at the same time.

Suddenly, after five songs, Mehldau took the mic, introduced the band, and said, we will close with... huh? I thought, he must mean, this is the last song before the intermission. This is a jazz club, we are supposed to leave at 2am. It wasn't even midnight. They played splendidly. And the crowd applauded not in the way people do before half-time - the band stood up, and we were loudly doing the encore thing.

One more song, and we were out of there by 12:10am.

So, I had a terrific night, but I had hoped for more. We returned to our friends' house without hassle and slept soundly at two. I can say I've seen Brad Mehldau in person. And I've blogged about it, for the FIRST TIME EVER!

HA