The Brad Mehldau Trio--Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard--has become one of the most in-demand trios in modern jazz. First and foremost an improviser, Brad Mehldau loves the surprise and wonder that can occur from a spontaneous, directly expressed musical idea. But he also has a deep fascination for the formal architecture of music, which informs everything he plays. These two sides of his personality — the improviser and the formalist—play off each other, and the effect is something like controlled chaos. His performances convey a wide range of expression, and he favors juxtaposing extremes, with the intellectual rigor and density of one tune followed by a stripped down, emotionally direct ballad in the next.