“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new,” was how Samuel Beckett put it more than a little darkly in Murphy. Leaving deep philosophy to one side at least for a moment, a ‘new’ record from bluegrass mandolinist Chris Thile and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau is certainly in the pipeline and makes a pithy statement all of its own. As a meeting of minds and styles bluegrass and bebop aren’t immediately obvious yet the two rub along nicely together in their hands. Chick Corea and Béla Fleck certainly paved the way towards such an innovation. Hearing Mehldau and Thile rip into a Bob Dylan song at close quarters live is a memorable experience and now there is the album which also features the haunting ‘Scarlet Town,’ the opener of 2011 Gillian Welch album The Harrow and the Harvest. Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau is released in late-January