Lee Konitz: Everything Happens To Me

Lee Konitz playing "Everything Happens To Me" with a drummer-less trio. Could that be the perfect combination of player, tune and format? It could, if the pianist was, say, Martial Solal. Unfortunately, Monsieur Solal was nowhere to be found on the night this set was recorded live at Los Angeles' The Jazz Bakery. Instead, a callow Brad Mehldau sat at the piano. As an accompanist, Mehldau does passably well. He lets Konitz's stunningly beautiful solo breathe and grow. In general, he stays out of the way. As a soloist himself, however, Mehldau's ornate grotesqueries slobber all over what up until that point had been a lovely performance. Full of "look-ma-no-hands" technical gloss and irrelevant reharmonizations, his Art Tatum impersonation is one of the most tasteless examples of jazz piano one will ever hear. Haden is fine, and Konitz outdoes himself, but Mehldau's stupendously incongruous contribution sticks painfully in the ear.