Brad Mehldau

The streams of influences that feed into jazz pianist Brad Mehldau's work are as varied as they are broad. A big chunk of his recordings turn to classical music as a source, stretching across a range from Bach's baroque through romantics to Schoenberg style modernist compositions. Much of his straight-up jazz work tends to be in the post-bop style. He is a player renowned for his improvisational approach and his refined and measured delivery. In that vein, he is also known to bring out different shades and feel from songs he picks from popular music, whether he is reinterpreting Beatles, or the songs of Rush, or diving head first into Elliot Smith's catalog. He is just as likely to play solo, as he is in small ensembles or with full orchestras, depending on the project.