And yet....it would take a determinedly tin ear not to find the man a fresh & welcome presence on the jazz scene, one of the few younger players to work squarely within the jazz mainstream & yet sound entirely & compellingly original. He's digested the entire keyboard literature whole--both classical & jazz, notably the instances of Evans, Jarrett & Corea, I think--& come out on top.

Whatever my ambivalences, I'm not ambivalent about this album: it's a truly stunning debut, & one of the best jazz albums of the 1990s. It kicks off with an insouciant version of "It Might as Well Be Spring"--it's indeed wonderfully bucolic, & it took me a few listens until I noticed that he's given it an understated off-kilter lilt by performing it in 7/8. Works just fine. The album is a mix of his originals (I especially like "Angst") & some shrewdly chosen standards--as usual with Mehldau, the originals are fairly straightforwardly done while the standards inspire him to his most intricate & far-reaching playing. "My Romance" goes Bill Evans one better in terms of daringly slow tempos--it's performed with the melody & chords at half-speed, & it's utterly remarkable. "Prelude to a Kiss" is similarly remarkable. "From This Moment On" is performed in a coyly dissonant mid-tempo arrangement with some unexpected Latin interludes spliced in; it stutters for a moment, & then breaks into a furious uptempo for Mehldau's solo. What's impressive here & throughout is Mehldau's preference for sparseness in his solos: they're technically extremely impressive, but he doesn't simply fill up all the available space with notes.