Anything Goes

Ironically, Anything Goes would have been a more fitting title for pianist Brad Mehldau's previous effort, the idiosyncratic and experimental Largo. Completely eschewing the electronic flourishes and horn sections that characterized the 2002 Jon Brion-produced album as Mehldau's most adventurous release up to that point, Anything Goes is actually a return to a more traditional approach. Featuring his longtime sidemen bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, Mehldau has crafted a thoughtful and pretty standards-based album. Classics including the title track and "Get Happy" are artfully deconstructed in a style that calls to mind a deft blending of Mehldau's most obvious touchstones, Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans. Similarly, "The Nearness of You" and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" are masterpieces of impressionism that veritably weep with the plangent yearning of Miles Davis' trumpet. However, by the time Mehldau turns Radiohead's "Everything in Its Right Place" into the missing track off Sketches of Spain and solidifies Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" as the most poignant ballad ever written, Anything Goes moves from the expected to the inspired and that alone makes this worth a listen.