A combination of smart marketing and youthful hubris saw Brad Mehldau launch onto the international jazz stage as the self-appointed delineator of "The Art of Trio". Two decades on from the five formative albums bearing that lofty title, the American pianist continues to lead the three-way field as demonstrated at the Brad Mehldau Trio performance at Hong Kong City Hall recently as part of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department's Jazz Up series.

Over the past decade Mehldau, now 48, has moved increasingly away from the traditional, acoustic piano-double bass-drums configuration in which he made his name, instead exploring symphonic composition (with 2009's long form suite The Highway Rider) art song duets (Love Songs, alongside opera star Anne Sofie von Otter) and avant garde classical (Modern Music) as well as electronica, folk-pop and a reframing of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Against the backdrop of this restless, borderless chronological sweep, the Hong Kong show felt like a pleasant, if inconsequential, side-step where Mehldau held court with a bemused, nonchalant air. If jazz is a genre defined by exertion, struggle and sweat, then the Brad Mehldau Trio's calling is to make everything look easy.

The greatest effort was perhaps being made in the brain with a perpetual battle between thinking and feeling raging the synapses. Unlike the spontaneous outpourings of early hero Keith Jarrett, Mehldau's interests lie in subtly subverting conventions, transgressing within familiar forms: bassist Larry Grenadier warmed up over a Frankensteinian blues contraption (introduced simply as "B Blues"), while Jeff Ballard's drums galloped beneath the trilling, twisted waltz of Twiggy.

More typical of Mehldau's cerebral compositional flair was the rolling opener Gentle John and rollicking closer Green M&Ms - both built around spiraling, two-handed vamps which never let the harmony, or the ear, rest.

Greater calm, and convention, came in the eclectic covers and standards that bulked out the set. Duke Ellington's Caravan was recast as a lazy summer funk, while George Gershwin's Strike Up the Band was a purist's foot-tapping, symbol-clanging bop. A nod-wink quote from Van Halen's metal-pop smash Jump found its way into the playful shuffle of Thelonious Monk's idiosyncratic classic Monk's Dream.

As ever, it was best when the mind submitted to pure gut. The mushy Sidney Bechet ballad Si Tu Vois Ma Mre crested into an unaccompanied, arm-crossing, contrapuntal catharsis, channeling the five-hour intensity of career-high 10 Years Solo Live into a few minutes, while an encore of Richard Rodgers' My Favorite Things served as an unlikely exercise in collectivist chamber-jazz soundscaping.

Like the famous modal reconstruction that John Coltrane dealt that Sound of Music sing-along, Mehldau's greatest contribution has been bringing a scholar's legitimacy to performing contemporary popular music in a jazz idiom. Once viewed as a cheap trick, the pianist's frequent use of material by Radiohead, Nick Drake, Nirvana and myriad others as a serious source for intellectual improvisatory exploration has bred insight and exchange between opposing camps.

Yet the two pop selections presented in Hong Kong marked the evening's sleepiest moments, with respectfully stoic renditions of The Beatles' And I Love Her and a third and final encore of Paul Simon's Still Crazy After These Years, which pushed neither the players nor their listeners.

Notably absent from the set was a single tune from last year's Seymour Reads the Constitution!, Mehldau's first trio recording in four years. By the time its players arrived in the city, their principal had already moved on. Just 11 days before the Hong Kong appearance Mehldau unveiled Finding Gabriel, an all-star multi-layered electronic song cycle tackling The Bible in the era of fake news, which marks this fidgety talent's bravest bid yet.

(HK Edition 06/14/2019 page10)