Brad Mehldau Trio with Larry Grenadier & Marcus Gilmore

In 2005, writing for JazzTimes, the critic Nate Chinen called pianist Brad Mehldau “the most highly acclaimed jazz artist to have emerged in the last decade.” Less than a decade later, writing for The New York Times, Chinen doubled down, labeling Mehldau “the most influential jazz pianist of the last 20 years,” around the same time Gerald Clayton suggested he and other pianists should be jailed for how much they had lifted from Mehldau. Indeed, ever since Mehldau neared the spotlight with Joshua Redman’s short-lived but stellar quartet on 1994’s MoodSwing, he has charted a staggering path through jazz, classical, and even pop, making music that feels accessible but is also endlessly subtle and complex. The trio he formed to play half of his 1995 Warner Brothers debut—bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy—became key to this path of surprises, allowing him to move among originals, standards, and elegant Radiohead and Nick Drake covers on a brilliantly conceived series of records called Art of the Trio. As Mehldau told Chinen in 2005, “The trio created my identity.”

His career has stretched far beyond that original trio during the last two decades, of course. He has recorded a duo album with Chris Thile, worked with him again on a recent album of Elliott Smith interpretations, made an album with Renée Fleming, and cut two solo records of Bach pieces. But the trio remains a pillar of Mehldau’s wide range and supple work, with Jeff Ballard stepping in for Rossy two decades ago. Last year, Mehldau toured with Christian McBride (with whom he had been in Redman’s band) and the standout drummer Marcus Gilmore, nearly two decades their junior. At Big Ears 2027, Gilmore joins Grenadier for this new iteration of the Brad Mehldau Trio, one of the most important jazz ensembles this century.