Brad Mehldau, Barbican Hall | reviews, news & interviews
Brad Mehldau, Barbican Hall
Brad Mehldau, Barbican Hall
Premiere of jazz-classical masterpiece Highway Rider
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/mast_image_landscape/public/mastimages/0d803f57861a70492406334205b994be.jpg?itok=MeL8fmdY)
Brad Mehldau is a cool cat. An intellectual one, introverted to the point of semi-autism, precise and clear. A strong mystique based on critic-proof good taste and hardly talking to anyone, least of all many music journalists (I’ve tried). At least that’s what I used to think before last night’s extraordinary show. He still looks a bit of a nerd, hunched over his piano and pale as a baby polar bear locked in the attic for too long, but this was a warm, enveloping trip of a gig. The 21st century is the century the nerds took over - Gates, Zuckerberg, Mehldau. The jocks, the lookers, the sexy ones: your time is up - you really should have been concentrating in algebra, after all.
Brad Mehldau is a cool cat. An intellectual one, introverted to the point of semi-autism, precise and clear. A strong mystique based on critic-proof good taste and hardly talking to anyone, least of all many music journalists (I’ve tried). At least that’s what I used to think before last night’s extraordinary show. He still looks a bit of a nerd, hunched over his piano and pale as a baby polar bear locked in the attic for too long, but this was a warm, enveloping trip of a gig. The 21st century is the century the nerds took over - Gates, Zuckerberg, Mehldau. The jocks, the lookers, the sexy ones: your time is up - you really should have been concentrating in algebra, after all.
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