Brad Mehldau LIVE IN TOKYO (Nonesuch)

Great solo jazz piano performances create the illusion that you’re alone with the performer and his or her innermost thoughts, even if a concert-hall audience surrounds you. Most of Brad Mehldau’s rhapsodic solo album casts just such a spell. From the opening moments of Nick Drake’s "Things Behind the Sun," he seems to disappear into himself and the music. He’s at his best when he keeps it simple, using the melody as a touchstone, moving away from it, then circling back to give the improvisations a natural tension and release. Tuneful, romantic, sincere songs like the Gershwins’ "Someone To Watch over Me" and "How Long Has This Been Going On?" are ideal for him: he sets a slow tempo with his left hand, reharmonizes the melodies each time he reprises them, adds simple embellishments, constructs appealing improvised passages over pedal points, and builds to a natural climax.

Keith Jarrett and Abdullah Ibrahim take a similar approach to solo playing, but Mehldau favors jazz and classical references over blues and gospel touches. Cole Porter’s "From This Moment On" and Monk’s "Monk’s Dream" sound a bit cluttered — Mehldau packs too many devices and changes of direction into them, and they lack the punch of the more tightly constructed tracks. But at his best, as on his 19-minute meditation on Radiohead’s "Paranoid Android," his harmonic penetration and his thoughtful recasting of the melody become a means of profound self-examination, the plumbing of his deepest feelings.

(Brad Mehldau plays solo piano this Wednesday, October 6, at Scullers, in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road at the Mass Pike; call 617-562-4111.)