Changed my little album dealio on the left there after way too many months to Brad Mehldau’s 2010 album Highway Rider.
Highway Rider is an album that has really grown on me. I liked it immediately—I really like Mehldau’s easygoing harmonic language and percussive style, and the album was produced my one of my favorite musicians, Jon Brion—but the album is a little, well, tame and I never thought it would edge its way into my favorites. It’s not very harmonically adventurous, its sound is slick and sometimes over-controlled, sometimes Mehldau’s piano patterns are extremely repetitious, and it sometimes strays close to muzak or easy listening. The thing is, it’s also just so right. It’s an album that conjures a world in its sound, and that world is warm and inviting, both communal and apart. It’s pre-language, pre-cognition; the perfect music for sitting outside on a sunny day without a single thought in your head.
Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman performing “The Falcon Will Fly Again” from Highway Rider:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMZnpYow3A]