Brad Mehldau Trio - Exit Music (for a film) live (from Art of the Trio, Vol. 4)

When being in the South of France between the years (that's a German expression, no clue if it makes sense in English) I listened to some of the 4,000 or so songs on my full mp3 jukebox on shuffle in order to gain some hard disk space. I wasn't very successful though there were very few revelations (my jukebox is full of stuff I have never listened to). I could only delete between 0.5 and 1 Gigabyte of stuff. My evaluation of many tracks had to be postponed as I wasn't sure if I wouldn't maybe warm up to them one day. This song was one of the maybe ten tracks which grabbed me so much that I had to listen to it over and over again.

At first I thought I know this, isn't it Keith Jarrett doing an unknown Nick Drake song on piano? After a while I realised that this must be a composition by Radiohead. The motiv has got that unique sad and lost Thom Yorke feel to it. I must admit that I hadn't heard the original as I never bought the hype over OK Computer and I still don't buy it after having listened to the album afterwards. The song was used at the end of the Romeo and Juliet movie with Di Caprio from 1996. Which I didn't see and don't intend to see.

Anyways Brad Mehldau transforms this song into jazz in a way that it is almost something completely new. Obviously Thom Yorke's irritating and intimidating voice isn't there. Everything is much subtler here. The melody is understated, the tickling cymbals kick in after half a minute, the even more restrained bass comes in after a minute. And then there is a groove which isn't there on the original. The melancholy makes place for a playful joyfulness which then turns into improvisational jazz. Mehldau is breathing life into a body which is closer to death than to life. Thank you Thom and Brad, what a heavenly meeting of rock and jazz. Amazing how classic some of the Radiohead tunes are. I think Mehldau also does a version of Knives Out on his latest album. I am intrigued to say the least.

By the way the version of Christopher O'Riley is too slow (if you heard this one first) and sticking too close to the original if you ask me. And the other shorter version by Mehldau on Art of the Trio, Vol. 3 which I purchased erroneously (Vol. 4 is on the way) is a preliminary work which just prepared us for this ingenious definite version.

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