Pulling all the right strings: Mehldau trio regroups for next step in musical journey.(Jazz)

Standards have been changing in jazz for some time. Although the Broadway staples of Berlin, Gershwin and Rogers & Hammerstein will probably endure until the last note of music is heard on earth, the songs of pop and rock artists have been creeping into many a jazz rehearsal room, with anyone from Prince to Peter Gabriel to Joni Mitchell being reinvented by improvisers.

One musician leading the way is American pianist Brad Mehldau, who has straddled the divide between contemporary and traditional covers with some aplomb. His 1995 major label debut Introducing Brad Mehldau may have brought his effectively spaced single-note lines to "standard standards", but subsequent releases in the Art Of The Trio series saw him interpret music by the likes of Radiohead and folk hero Nick Drake.

In many ways, Mehldau is the link between the Herbie Hancock of the mid-Nineties and the Bad Plus of the Millennium. He is an artist both in and out of the tradition. On Mehldau's new Warner Jazz album Anything Goes, he works in widescreen, using his trio--including bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy--to sweep across the rhythmning style of Thelonious Monk's Skippy and the swish easy listening of Henry Mancini's Dreamsville. A fine reading of Radiohead's Everything In Its Right Place betrays the hypnotic, droning influence of Mal Waldron as well as the crystalline harmony of Herbie Hancock, while Mehldau reserves a particular affection for the happy-go-lucky melody of Charlie Chaplin's Smile.

"I love Smile because of its melodic simplicity--there's really only one idea that Chaplin uses for the whole thing and he doesn't try to develop it or alter it. There's a naivety and wisdom there. Other composers may have been tempted to add another idea to play off the first one, but he didn't. It's perfect."

Mehldau was given his first break as ...