Summer teeth: Mehldau's and Frisell's lastest

Brad Mehldau and Bill Frisell are hardly underrepresented in my CD collection. That's probably because whenever one of them cuts a new joint, I run right out and pick it up and am generally dazzled by the results. And predictably enough, I've been spinning their latest respective recordings on a fairly regular rotation this summer, both of which should be included among the best work of the artists.

Pianist Mehldau teams up once again with perhaps his best rhythm team, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, for the exquisite double-disc simply titled Live (on the Nonesuch label). Recorded over several nights at The Village Vanguard in 2006, the trio works through a repertoire encompassing everything from Oasis' "Wonderwall" and Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" to Jimmy Heath's "C.T.A." and Trane's "Countdown." And yet, it hardly sounds schizophrenic or forced, but rather all of one piece, that is, like excellent piano jazz played at a dizzyingly high level. Mehldau originals such as "Ruby's Rub" and "B-Flat Waltz" provide plenty of excitement and harmonic complexity, as Grenadier provides sensitive and toneful accompaniment and Ballard is simply a marvel as he uses color and texture like a master impressionist. The pianist has been honing his trio sensibilities over the years live and in the studio, and it's a thrill to hear just how far he's gone within the genre.

Mehldau's Nonesuch labelmate Frisell also returns to familiar terrain with the aptly titled History, Mystery, also a double disc. As he has so effectively over the past decade or so, Frisell delves into dark corners of a variety of roots musics, exploring and probing the fascinating and creepy things he finds there. The guitarist and composer assembles frequent collaborators including violinist Jenny Scheinman, violist Eyvind Kang, cellist Hank Roberts, cornetist Ron Miles, bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen for a creepy, moonlit ride along dusty backroads, perhaps stopping to peek under the tent of a traveling freak show or a town peopled by circus folk. The program almost feels like a motorist fiddling with the radio dial as he drives — particulary given Frisell's penchant for electronic noodling — tuning into various stations along the way. In addition to his own chill-raising compositions, Frisell also interprets world music, bop (Monk and Konitz both get the Frisell treatment here) and R&B, this last represented with a cool (but not glib) slink through Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," featuring some beautiful work from saxophonist Greg Tardy, who sermonizes like a country preacher. Frisell sounds like no one else, unless of course they're copying him; he continues to refine his genius for this style of music and plays this terrific ensemble like another instrument in his arsenal. Brilliant stuff.