It's a bit of a cliche, but jazz musicians seem to love the Beatles. For some reason, McCartney/Lennon songs seem to be able to easily jump the gap between pop music and jazz. Not only have jazz vocalists taken on Beatles tunes in a jazz setting, but many instrumental artists have arranged Beatles tunes to jazz orchestration, and even into sprawling avant-garde styles.
Brad Mehldau is a legendary jazz pianist, arranger and composer in more modern styles of jazz. His first recording came in 1991, and he has since become a very well known and critically acclaimed performer. His own style merges modern jazz forms with contemporary styles and avant-garde leanings. Not only did he record "She's Leaving Home" for his 2005 Nonesuch album Day is Done, he's also tackled other Beatles fare like "Blackbird", "Mother Nature's Son" and "Martha My Dear"
"She's Leaving Home" is one of the saddest songs in the Beatles repertoire. It's a heartbreaking song about a daughter leaving her parents suddenly, running away in the wee hours of the morning. She leaves a short note, trying to explain why she had to leave, while her parents struggle to understand why she left. The instrumental treatment that Mehldau gives the song evokes the memory of the lyrics of the song while not explicitly singing them. Instead, it's like a distant, dreamlike memory of a song, the sadness coming along with the minimalist, half-remembered melody he weaves. Mehldau's improvisation strings the track along past the 3 minute length of the original song, prolonging the desperate sadness of the song to unbearable levels.
While it is cliche to see a jazz Beatles cover, Mehldau is able to leap past the cliche of a jazz musician grasping at popular music to be relevant, and turns it into something uniquely his.
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