I saw Brad Mehldau Trio at Carnegie Hall last Monday, in Zankel Hall which has just opened. It's a warm-toned, intimate room paneled in wooden grids that look just like the pallets you find under giant rolls of paper in warehouses. I caught the Raritan Valley train back into the city from my grandmother's house and I couldn't hail a cab from Penn Station to save my life, so I missed the trio's first number and had to stand in the hall to hear their second: Alfie. The usher seated me during the applause. My grandmother had been given her last rites hours before, and I could've stayed with my sisters at the Marriott in Bridgewater, drunk wine with them in the bar like I would do every night last week, but I wanted to hear them play. And it was truly lovely. Like jazz church. Mehldau wore a short-sleeved shirt and you could see the tattoo on his right arm. He spoke sweetly to the audience, and seemed surprised and pleased at such long applause. They swung through Dreamland, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover, some original pieces, and, amazingly, Radiohead's Paranoid Android. The drummer, Jorge Rossy, painted colors with his brushes, and the bass player, Larry Grenadier, plucked his fingers off. God, but they play. I held my breath, anxious to see how they would find their way back to the tune after wandering out so far. When they grooved back into the melody-I'd-almost-forgotten it was like a combination lock quietly clicking open. A complicated puzzle solved by trust.

I walked to Tower Records today, but they don't have the trio's new CD - Largo - yet, so I'll stop at Borders on my way home, because now that I'm back and my grandmother is gone I need to hear this beautiful, brave music right away. Today.