Elegiac Cycle

This is an album about loss: the passing of heroes, the withering of beauty, the end of an age--one song is titled Elegy for William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Despite the subject, the mood is never dour. Nearly every track has the liquid warmth of a freshly shed tear. This 28-year-old pianist is a wonder at weaving together musical traditions. On his last album, playing in a trio, he performed a moving jazz rendition of a song by the art-rock group Radiohead; on this CD, playing solo, he smoothly merges jazz improvisation with classical piano. A few of the tracks search for meaning and melody, but on songs like Resignation, Mehldau achieves an almost spiritual resonance, chords echoing like amens.