Album: Brad Mehldau Trio, The Art of the Trio, Recordings: 1996-2001 (Nonesuch)

This box-set collects pianist Mehldau's five albums with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jorge Rossy on drums, plus five unreleased Village Vanguard tracks.

Ethan Iverson's excellent sleevenotes hail Mehldau as the synthesis of 1980s traditionalism and 1960s experiment, while regarding the trio as a co-op of equals, which it surely wasn't. But marvel at Mehldau's uncanny independence of left and right hands, and his wan way with a ballad, as heard on the celebrated "Songs".