The pandemic, lockdown and social distancing were the start and end point for this solo piano album that Brad Mehldau had clearly never expected to record nor publish. The impact of this most outlandish situation can be seen clearly in track’s titles on Suite: April 2020 (waking up, stepping outside, keeping distance, stopping, listening: hearing, remembering before all this, uncertainty, the day moves by…) and even the record’s sleeve, a self-written text and sort of explanatory waybill of a period that ended up more exciting than mundane. The piano playing is indeed exciting and purer than usual as if each note holds weight and questions itself own individual purpose. There’s an ambiance that gives Mehldau’s improvisations an authentic simplicity and surreal purity. It’s without doubt about the simplicity of finding oneself, like never before, among family and enjoying basic daily tasks and pleasures, as written on the cover. And to conclude this work: an indoor promenade of three parts: Don’t Let It Bring You Down by Neil Young (a song Mehldau often looks to for guidance), New York State of Mind by Billy Joel, a love letter to the Big Apple which has suffered greatly during the epidemic (and a place he considers a home away from home), and the classic Look for the Silver Lining, which closes in a reassuring, warming manner full of hope for a period in which the world stopped spinning; or almost. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz