FIVE WORKS THAT INFLUENCED
BRad mehldau’s highway rider

October 5, 2016 | by SFJAZZ

Brad Mehldau (Highway Rider Sessions, 2009)

With GRAMMY-winning pianist Brad Mehldau revisiting his magnum opus, Highway Rider, here's a deeper look at five recordings/collaborations that influenced the work, as noted by Mehldau in his Highway Rider essay.

"'Highway Rider' is influenced by a bunch of music – a bunch of classical scores I’ve lived with for a while, jazz performances and pop songs. Different people might hear different things. In terms of the writing for the orchestra and the way that would mesh with the band, there are a few orchestrator/arrangers that I’ve listened to closely who worked specifically with singers, and they may have rubbed off a little on this record."

1. "One piece of music that’s huge for me is Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen. I’ve been looking at the score for years. It’s a unique score because each string player has a separate part. In most orchestral music, the strings are split into sections – violin 1, violin 2, violas, cellos and basses. The composer may call for the sections to be divided in two or sometimes three parts, but usually there are no more than 5 to 8 distinct voices in the strings. Strauss scored Metamorphosen for 23 strings exactly – 10 violins, 5 violas, 5 cellos and three basses – but gave each player an individual part: Instead of Violin 1 and 2, there is Violin 1, Violin 2, Violin 3, etc. all the way to Violin 10, and so on with the rest of the instruments. It’s like a mammoth chamber piece, but it’s an unmistakably orchestral sound... I used Strauss’ configuration of 23 strings on two of the pieces on 'Highway Rider': 'Now You Must Climb Alone' and at the beginning of 'Always Departing.'"

 2-4. "Francois Rauber for his work with Jacques Brel, Bob Alcivar’s arrangements for Tom Waits, and Francis Hime’s orchestrations for Chico Buarque. The way they all wrap the instruments around the voice – keeping the individual personality of the singer in the forefront while still writing richly and imaginatively for the orchestra – is instructive. They offer great examples of how to use the orchestra in a modern setting more generally – the excitement for me in those records is the mix of the more 'classically' beautiful orchestral sounds with the idiosyncratic vocal style and rhythmic approach that is less polished but more 'here and now.'"

 5. "Claus Ogerman is a model as well, particularly his stellar collaborative album with Michael Brecker, 'Cityscape', a long-time favorite of mine."