• Interview Brad Mehldau: "I keep challenging myself"

  • Saturday Day With Marco Mezquida in Heaven and Gato Barbieri on Earth

  • Friday El requiem por bulerías by Jorge Pardo for Chick Corea

  • Thursday Cuban landing, Basque flamenco and an empty voice

  • Wednesday Franco D'Andrea, go to Grandpa!

The last time we saw

Brad Mehldau

warned: his best concert would be the following. And so it was, in another

monument of pianistic expressiveness and emotion

as it passed through the Plaza de La Trinidad on the last day of Jazzadlia. Well, considering this reflection, we must conclude that no, the best Mehldau will sound tomorrow. However, no one will take an hour and a half of absolute, concentrated, beautiful pleasure from those present. He is so classy that in order to get hold of the encore, already somewhat past time, he asked permission from Bill Frisell, who happened to him on stage and who on the other hand also gave a recital full of imagination.

Play with whoever you play, in whatever square:

when jazz plays ... Mehldau always wins

. This time he was accompanied by that timeless trio that he forms together with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, with whom you don't speak and hardly look at each other, because they understand each other telepathically. There are three, but in reality, when the music moves. they are an indivisible musical unit, if we except the pianist's solos. They started with a piece of McCartney,

Great Day,

to later face their own repertoire in which his magnificent composition

Ode

stood out

.

Mehldau has

a mysterious and captivating inner creative world

, and seeks the truth of emotion without tolls. He is a silent pianist with an enormously lyrical and personal touch, who is used to finding the right notes, not looking for them. His is inspiration of the moment, poetry that dies as it is born, discovering every night different reasons to achieve happiness. The trio finished off the evening with another favorite piece by the pianist,

Highway rider

, the title of the album made with saxophonist Joshua Redman.

Then

Bill Frisell

appeared

to pick up the night and the festival, also in a trio lineup, along with double bass player Thomas Morgan and fine drummer Rudy Royston. Frisell is one of the undisputed leaders of today's jazz guitar, with his own sonic universe that also always wins. He played highly valuable circular improvisations supported by a very personal, distinctive lyricism, but by then many of us were still hooked on Mehldau's white magic.

Great closing of the festival in a day that also counted on the vital optimism of the singer

Silvia Pérez Cruz

, who presented her album

Farsa

, with which she posted no tickets for several days. Then the girl came to see Mehldau, which says a lot and good about her: it is very gratifying to see musicians listening to musicians. The same did Iñaki Salvador, master pianist of the house who in this festival has accompanied the singer Noa and has also given a solo piano at the San Telmo Museum, with a lot of music and a lot of humor.

The closing also brought us hope, the one represented by the trumpeter and singer Alba Creta, within the JazzEñe program of the Fundación Autor.

She composes very beautifully and comparisons with

Andrea Motis

are inevitable: let's hope she knows how to find her own way, because the girl has talent.

Jazzaldia lowered the curtain on its 56th edition with a very satisfactory organizational balance, and

unforgettable musical moments

, such as those sent by Franco DAndrea and Dave Douglas, the pianist Marco Mezquida and the tributes of Jorge Pardo and Giovanni Guidi to Chick Corea and Barbieri cat, respectively.

The city already awaits the Donostiarra Fortnight and then its Zinemaldia;

you know, Donosti, city of festivals,

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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