Junk

I've always had something of an aversion to jazz covers of rock, since so often it (to my ears) bowdlerizes the source into EZ-listening mush, but Brad Mehldau clearly has not a lounge player's approach but one much closer to that of John Coltrane, and the results are always engaging and often extraordinary. And I'm always pleased when my tastes line up with an artist's I like, since I think this is maybe the single most gorgeous song, melodically, that Paul McCartney ever wrote. Which, you know, isn't sayin' nothin', all things considered.

In fact, if I have any quibbles with this version, it's that I'd have liked it to go on about another half hour.

Bittersweet Symphony/Waterloo Sunset

This freakin' guy.

There are some who think the secret to Brad Mehldau's greatness is that he went to high school about half a mile from where DT and I went to school, and at the same time, no less. These people are (mainly) wrong.

What they're not wrong about is that he's great. 'cuz he is great.