Formation

Building a Personal Canon, Part 1

By: Brad Mehldau

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Hardcover | 15 January 2023

At a Glance

Hardcover
311 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 1.91

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As an innovative and constantly inventive jazz pianist, Brad Mehldau has attracted a sizable following over the years, one that has grown to expect a singular, intense experience from his performances. With Formation, Brad seeks to extend that experience to the page, by sharing some of the deeply personal elements of his life, and how these came together for him to become the musician and person that he is today. For the first time, he offers an in-depth look at how he came to understand his adoption, survive sexual abuse, and overcome heroin addiction. The book creates a vibrantly-written portrait of the jazz world in New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, showing how a generation of musicians met and sparked off one another to take the music in new directions, drawing on a wealth of influences but also keeping sight of tradition, including those rooted in both the jazz and classical worlds. The atmosphere of the clubs, the creative scene in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and Brad's early experiences of touring are brilliantly brought to life. The formation of the "Mood Swing" quartet with Joshua Redman is described, as is the growth of Brad's own groups, leading to his acclaimed Art of the Trio series of recordings with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy. The trio's later life with Jeff Ballard joining in place of Rossy; Brad's solo ventures; and his explorations of other areas of music, are also covered. There is no holding back when it comes to Brad's period of heroin addiction - his painful personal decline and ultimate redemption make for compelling and often distressing reading. Yet throughout the book, his own reading and listening are a constant frame of reference and often inspiration, from the works of James Joyce and Thomas Mann to the sounds of Prog rock and Bob Dylan, not to mention critics from Harold Bloom to Terry Eagleton. The book can be read as a bildungsroman, but this coming-of-age is no novel, it is vividly lived personal experience. Intimate, vulnerable and profound, Formation is a rare look inside the mind of an artist at the top of his field, in his own words.

Industry Reviews

Reviews

This is incredible writing. It's loose, specific and sharp as a knife. Brad writes words like he plays piano - with delicate strength and a gift for accessing memories and turning them into thick emotions.

I feel lucky to be around while Brad is here with us. He seems to have access to wells of memories and emotions that few people do. I love his writing as much as I love his music.

It's hard to go backwards and access memories like Brad does here. They are dark, funny, inspiring and moving. It's details are what makes it special - the kind of things that only happen when you open yourself.

Paul Thomas Anderson

Brad Mehldau's elegant clarity and lyrical interiority, hallmarks of his artistry as a jazz pianist, also stamp every page of this brilliant and affecting memoir - rooted in a fearless, radical candor. Rarely has an artist revealed themselves so fully as a prism onto the meaning of their art, and a chronicle of a dynamic moment in time.

Nate Chinen, author of Playing Changes: Jazz For the New Century

Brad Mehldau is our jazz generation's Conjurer-In-Chief. His music is nothing short of magic - an impossible wonder of ecstatic and empathic creative communion, to which I myself have borne witness, time and time again. Now, in this probing and provocative memoir, Brad finally shares with us some of the secrets (or at least the stories) behind the casting of his innumerable spells. A worthy read for anyone intrigued by the genesis of genius.

Joshua Redman

Few jazz biographies are this personal, and this raw, but then few are so good.

Jazz Journal

Mehldau's writing style reflects both his musical character and his persona; juxtaposing deep philosophical insight with intensely personal experiences described in straight-talking, graphic detail. He is equally eloquent writing about Harold Bloom's and Terry Eagleton's views on ideology in art as he is writing about shooting up heroin in a run-down building, needing to call an ambulance, and getting arrested.

Throughout the book, Mehldau keeps the reader engaged in a compelling account of a twisted life which threatened to derail the music and the musician but in which, thankfully, the music prevailed.

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