Brad Mehldau, like many of his contemporaries, began his career with heavy classical training, long before he was exposed to jazz. He started experimenting with the piano when he was just four and began taking lessons when he was six, continuing until he was fourteen. As a youngster he listened more to rock than jazz. Brad moved to New York city in 1988 where he worked with a variety of musicians over the next several years and made several recordings as a sideman. During that period he began to develop his own style which he attributes to the influence of his musical peers, specifically bandleaders Peter Bernstein, Jessie Davis and David Sanchez as well as other musicians he worked with often - Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Perico Sambeat, Leon Parker, Avishai Cohen and Chris Potter, to name a few. In addition he met and played with his future trio mates, Larry Grenadier and Jorge Rossy in several projects. Brad's first major international exposure came as a member of the Joshua Redman Quartet, with which he recorded and toured the US and Europe for a year and a half.