Brad Mehldau's new double-disc of original work, Highway Rider, is due out in just one week, on March 16. The album is up for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store, with the complete album included as high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s at no additional cost and available on release day. And in a Nonesuch Store exclusive, orders also include an early demo and commentary track in which Mehldau explains to the album's producer, Jon Brion, how he sees the album's title track unfolding.

In advance of the album's release, the official Brad Mehldau web site, bradmehldau.com, has been redesigned and relaunched with a new look and lots of new material, giving an in-depth look behind Highway Rider and music from throughout Brad's career. You can also get a behin-the-scenes look at the making of the album in a video at nonesuch.com/media.

All About Jazz Managing Editor John Kelman describes the new album as "the most fully realized original music the pianist has written to date, as unequivocally American as Aaron Copland, Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny." With Highway Rider, "Mehldau the composer has clearly arrived."

While others have tried unsuccessfully to marry jazz with orchestral elements of classical music, this is hardly such a project, but rather "fully integrated music." Kelman cites as an example a track on which Mehldau's orchestration turns a "relatively simple, repeating set of eight chords into a masterful tour de force that's not only one of Highway Rider's most dramatic moments, but one that then resolves into one of its most tender interludes."

While Highway Rider is uniquely Mehldau, the reviewer does find useful a comparison to one of the pianist's past collaborators, at least in terms of its effect. "The music may bear no real resemblance to it," Kelman suggests, "but in scope Highway Rider is Mehldau's Secret Story, a fan favorite for Pat Metheny and a milestone in terms of ambition and scope until the guitarist reached a new level with The Way Up and, most recently, Orchestrion."

Furthermore, Kelman concludes, "In its almost perfect mix of form and freedom, Highway Rider manages to be both Mehldau's most personal and most broad-scoped album to date, and surely one that will remain a classic amongst his discography, no matter what's to come."

Read the full review at allaboutjazz.com.