Brad Mehldau's teasing talent for setting a mood of fascinating expectation and then unhurriedly revealing its multiple implications has been a marvel of contemporary jazz since the 1990s, and rarely more so than on this riveting seventh album featuring his longterm trio with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard. Mehldau plays that game from the first moments of the standout opener, ‘Spiral’ – at first alone and almost absent-mindedly spinning a descending eight-note ostinato, then floating a spacious treble melody over it, quickly joined by a bass pulse and discreet latin snare-tick to unwrap a long piano improv of asymmetrical lines, playful delays, and fresh melodies as that hypnotic left-hand mantra murmurs on. The title-track, a deceptively languid waltz with a central role for the imaginative Grenadier, similarly kindles a stream of intensifying variations in which Mehldau never raises his pianistic voice. ‘Almost Like Being In Love’ (one of five covers) is playful and springy, Elmo Hope's ‘De-Dah’ is rhythmically jagged and then euphorically-swinging bebop, Brian Wilson's ‘Friends’ is massaged by slinky long lines and hints of blues, Sam Rivers' ‘Beatrice’ is a tender melody soon stirred into a Bill Evans-reminiscent trio sprint that propels the leader into some of his most freewheeling doubletime flights. The ever-empathic Mehldau trio might offer a familiar brew, but it never stops fizzing with life.

Jazzwise spoke to Brad Mehldau about the album

Does playing with this trio always feel like a kind of ‘coming home’ to you?

It does, and I guess that's mostly because it's where I started with my own journey as a leader. But the piano trio format continues to grow, through contributions from different musical streams – some less blues-based/swing based, some in a more compositional/new music vein, and some saying something new with the jazz tradition. Think of what EST accomplished, and more recently, Vijay Iyer or Jason Moran. I've possibly managed to jump between music informed by Western classical music, pop/rock, Brazilian stuff and of course swinging, blues-oriented jazz itself as a base. The piano is central to all those traditions.

How did that title come about?

I had a dream that I was sitting in an ornate library, and actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was there in a tweedy suit, pacing slowly, reading the US Constitution to me in doleful tones. I could hear a melody, and when I woke up I wrote it down. Not even two weeks later, he passed away. I was a big fan of his, so it became a kind of elegy for him. Jump to now and the current American president. The dream seemed like a portent from the future, like Philip Seymour Hoffman saying, “good luck you guys. I got out before all this mess.”

It's a very different project to your other 2018 release, After Bach.

After Bach did have some elements of improvisation, but it was largely written music – Bach's, and my own three pieces. But I found, after a bit of time performing it, that I could vary my approach to phrasing night after night. The classical players I admire the most seem to me to be ‘free’ in the sense that they have internalised the score so strongly that they can have their way with it. I don't think I achieved that in my Bach performances – I was too damn nervous. But it's something to strive for – that sense of discovery – that plays out in both disciplines, classical and jazz performance.