Highway Rider
- Brad Mehldau
- Nonesuch
He may play piano like a jazz classicist, but Brad Mehldau is a real rock fan. You can hear it in his covers of Radiohead, Nick Drake and Oasis, and in the way this album builds from approachable tunes instead of abstract chord changes. Working with pop polymath Jon Brion, who's produced albums by Fiona Apple and Kanye West, Mehldau delivers beautifully brainy tunes, sometimes with lush orchestration, sometimes with just his trio, but always with a strong sense of melodic logic. Saxophonist Joshua Redman plays straight enough to keep jazz purists from being outraged, but in general Highway Rider does its damnedest to make jazz seem as accessible as rock, as smart as classical, and more fulfilling than either.