Other than the album's genre-crossing premise, there's nothing
particularly gimmicky or flashy about bluegrass singer/songwriter Chris
Thile and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau's 2017 Nonesuch collaboration, Chris
Thile & Brad Mehldau. Simply put, Thile and Mehldau deliver a set
of deeply engaging, organically realized songs that perfectly balance
their respective jazz and bluegrass skills. Given that they seemingly
come from polar ends of the musical spectrum, the collaboration may feel
like an odd choice at first. However, after hearing this debut, one
might be hard-pressed to imagine a more compatible duo to emerge from
their generation than these two distinctive mavericks. The similarities
have always been there; both musicians started out as purist arbiters of
their prospective roots-based genres, but later transitioned into
leading proponents of their own progressive, harmonically nuanced
musical ideologies. Thile broke the mold when he started incorporating
pop, folk, and traditional bluegrass with Nickel Creek, a permutable
instinct later underlined with his nods to rock and fusion with the
Punch Brothers. Similarly, while Mehldau is often justifiably compared
to jazz icons like Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, his reconceptualization
of alt-rock hits by Radiohead and Nirvana, combined with his deft
improvisational skill, long marked him as a gentle jazz radical. This
inkling that both artists shared a philosophical and aesthetic
sensibility is apparently exactly what motivated executive producer and
label president Robert Hurwitz to introduce the two to each other after a
Punch Brothers show several years prior to this album. Subsequently,
Thile and Mehldau began playing together casually, purportedly
developing a strong rapport. Based on the songs here, that rapport
sounds effortless, as they warmly intertwine both their instruments and
voices on covers like a rambling take on Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice,
It's All Right" and an evocative reworking of Joni Mitchell's "Marcie."
One minute, Mehldau is framing Thile's yearning vocals in soft, velvety
chords and the next, Thile is comping with furious intensity on his
mandolin as Mehldau launches into a cascading solo. The duo's original
songs are also quite fascinating, particularly the Eric Clapton-esque
"The Old Shade Tree" and the poetic, classically inflected "Noise
Machine," inspired by the recent birth of Thile's first child. These are
deeply hued, literate songs, as personal as anything either artist has
done, yet delivered with an almost startlingly robust virtuosity. Even
when they defy expectations, as when Thile sets down his mandolin for a
piano-accompanied reading of the standard "I Cover the Waterfront," or
when they eschew lyrics for an instrumental version of Elliott Smith's
"Independence Day," there's a palpable sense of real listening, of
generously shared creativity. Ultimately, it's that synergistic spark
that makes Thile and Mehldau's collaboration sound less like a one-off
experiment and more like the start of a lasting partnership. Matt Collar
1 The Old Shade Tree 6:27 
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