Long Ago and Far Away captures pianist
Brad Mehldau and bassist
Charlie Haden in a live duo performance recorded during the 2007 Enjoy Jazz Festival in Mannheim, Germany. One can hardly think of a more compatible pairing, with both
Mehldau and
Haden embodying an introverted, harmonically rich, and endlessly inventive jazz paradigm. This concert comes roughly a decade after their first outing, alongside saxophonist
Lee Konitz and drummer
Paul Motian, on 1997's
Alone Together. That album, and its follow-up, 2011's
Live at Birdland, are themselves deeply introspective standards sets. This concert bridges those albums with an equal amount of atmosphere and introspection, and with an added layer of intimacy from the duo setting. Free to float together in the swell of their lyrical conversation,
Mehldau and
Haden commune over a handful of well-loved standards including "My Old Flame," "What'll I Do," and "My One and Only Love." Particularly compelling is how they choose to flow in and out of expected norms, as on the opening
Charlie Parker blues "Au Privave," in which
Mehldau ably states the main theme before launching into a spiraling, stream-of-consciousness solo, his angular asides only loosely tethered to
Haden's own ambling sideways basslines. Conversely, as on the
Jerome Kern and
Ira Gershwin title track, they evoke the carefree insouciance of trumpeter
Chet Baker's classic 1955 version, before
Mehldau drops out completely, allowing
Haden to probe the arid harmonic emptiness with a stark gravitas. They also draw upon
Baker's bewitching, melancholy ghost with "Everything Happens to Me," taking turns playing solos that are heartbreaking in their deft simplicity. It's that casual intensity, and the willingness to commune with yearning lyricism one minute and dive into dark voids the next, that make
Mehldau and
Haden's duo work here so compelling. ~ Matt Collar