Brad Mehldau's latest Nonesuch album, the double-disc Highway Rider, was released yesterday to critical acclaim, which you can read more about in recent Nonesuch Journal articles. Mehldau and his new album were the subject of an extensive profile on today's episode of NPR's All Things Considered.

NPR's Jeff Lunden spoke with the pianist/composer, who plays the central musical theme of Highway Rider for Lunden and explains how the rest of album tracks develop from there, varying by degrees, rhythmically and stylistically. As Mehldau imagined it, variation took on a broader meaning as well. "There is this narrative that I feel and that I was thinking about the more I wrote it," Mehldau says, "of traveling and leaving and coming back."

Lunden also speaks the producer of Highway Rider, Jon Brion, who had last worked with Mehldau on the 2002 album Largo. "I just like the fact that he keeps changing it up," Brion tells NPR, "and I think that this is just another example of that."

Also weighing in is Mehldau's label mate saxophonist Joshua Redman, who is among the musicians featured on the album, along with Mehldau's trio partners, Jeff Ballard and Larry Grenadier; drummer Matt Chamberlain; and a chamber orchestra. As Redman says of Mehldau: "He has the best groove on the planet."

Listen to the complete All Things Considered piece online at npr.org. To purchase Highway Rider, with an exclusive bonus demo/commentary track, visit the Nonesuch Store.