Brad Mehldau: Three Pieces After Bach

Brad Mehldau takes Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier as a starting point to inspire his compositions, live at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Brad Mehldau is one of the most influential jazz musicians of the last twenty years. For this exceptional programme, he takes Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier as a starting point to inspire his compositions.

By committing to Three Pieces After Bach, a project created at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2015, Brad Mehldau was immediately clear in his approach: “It’s not a question here of doing jazzy Bach. I have nothing against that, but my programme only includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach or my own music.” Even if the influence of classical music – and that of Bach in particular – has always been big for many jazz musicians, what Brad Mehldau is proposing here is quite novel. The American pianist has always grasped his art without blinders on, and with unfailing intellectual rigor, whether playing his own composition or a jazz standard, or even a Radiohead pop theme. Three Pieces After Bach is first and foremost his personal way of taking on Bach’s heritage on virgin paths. From the Modern Jazz Quartet to Jacques Loussier via Joachim Kühn and, more recently, Dan Tepfer, the history of jazz is full of experiments around the Cantor of Leipzig, but the one that Mehldau offers is unlike any other.

Recording location Philharmonie de Paris
Production year 2018
Duration 75 mins
Video format HD
Director Samuel Thiebaut
Production Company Oleo Films
Distribution TV Auditorium Films