If anyone can bear the title of future music, that would probably be the work of artists like Jojo Mayer, Bred Mehldau, Mark Guiliana, among others. They took the sounds and styles established by the electronic artists, mostly in the nineties, and transformed them into an organic, live phenomenon. Why is it the music of the future if it relies on forms from the nineties, someone could ask? Well, drum’n’bass, breakbeat, techno, hip-hop, and other forms of digitally produced music are the echo of the modern urban lifestyle. Fast tempos, intense noises, and loud playback, which characterize modern electronic genres, are the mirror of the urban uproar. But in the huge cities of today, there are no robots walking the streets - it’s still us, humans. In that sense, the electronic styles of the past two and a half decades don’t represent the position of humans in the fast-changing world, because it lacks one substantial element - dynamics. The humans breathe, computers don’t, and that is felt deeply in the world of synths. That is probably why did such authors, as the ones mentioned above, decide to combine these two separate dimensions (the one of the fast-paced progress of the material world, and ours, the never-changing world of the humans) and create music which can both touch your soul and satisfy your progressive mind. It is music from the future that breathes, laughs, and cries in the natural dynamic of the human existence.
A perfect example of this kind of progressive creative exploration is the album “Mehliana: Taming the Dragon” by Brad Mehldau and Mark Guiliana. Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, one of the strongest forces of contemporary jazz. Gulliana is among the most progressive and versatile drummers around, recently risen to stardom through his participation in David Bowie’s swansong “Blackstar.” Together, these super musicians created an album with a strong esthetical statement expressed with a masterful performance, both as individuals and as a combo. The record was released in 2014 on the Nonesuch label and Mehldau's solo on "Sleeping Giant" was nominated for Best Improvised Jazz Solo in the 2015 Grammy Awards. “Mehliana” comprises 12 original tunes—six written by the duo and six written by Mehldau—and was engineered and mixed by Greg Koller (Jon Brion, Kanye West). The video in the background is a live performance of the composition "Just Call Me Nige". Enjoy!
