Brad Mehldau made his late-night television debut on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, performing "Colorbars," the latest track from his upcoming album of Elliott Smith music, Ride into the Sun, with singer/mandolinist Chris Thile, who is featured on the track, along with bassist Felix Moseholm and drummer Matt Chamberlain. You can watch it here:

The performance came on the same day the album track, performed by all of the artists as well as guitarist Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear, was released. You can watch the video made during its recording at Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, directed by Matthew Edginton, here:

Ride into the Sun’s ten Elliott Smith songs are complemented by four Mehldau compositions that he says are “inspired by, and reflect, Smith’s oeuvre.” Also included are interpretations of Big Star’s “Thirteen,” which Smith also covered, and “Sunday” by Nick Drake, who Mehldau says, “I look at in some ways as sort of Smith’s visionary grandfather.”

"Chris Thile is someone that I've had a musical relationship with now for a little more than a decade," Mehldau says. "When I'm playing with him, I just feel that we're very close in rhythm and there's this wonderful simpatico. And Chris loves Elliott's music as much as I do, and he knows it really well.

"The title of the record is Ride into the Sun, and that is a beautiful point in the lyrics of 'Colorbars," he explains. "Elliott Smith says in the original song, 'Everyone wants me to ride into the sun.' When I listen to music, I have the feeling that I can be in communion with somebody who's no longer in this earthly realm. Like he is here, you know? And as far as riding into the sun, it's maybe more of a perpetual riding into the sun with him. It's something mystical there."