2 years ago
The Bad Plus
So I saw this band tonight (at http://kuumbwajazz.org — check it out) and felt that I had to write about these guys. I was able to find so little written about The Bad Plus, nothing that really described them well to me.
*The girl in the image above was not with them (I’m not sure who she is but my guess is that she sang with them because I saw a female vocalist listed on their last album). The external image I linked to has changed—carry on…
Well, in the typical way these small jazz shows go I bumped into Ethan, the piano player, before the show without knowing it—I guessed he was playing because of the suit but still.
So my little review:
First off this is a trio. An unapologetic jazz trio (bass, drums, keys)—so expect low-end sounds primarily. Kinda like the Bill Evans trio except not. Just the same basic frequency and that is the only similarity. They started the set with a sort-of Radiohead-remix (a song which distinctly sounded like the outro to Paranoid Android—”from a great heeeight…the crackle of pig’s skin”—it was actually very interesting the way he led into it with the quiet piano and slowly you could figure the melody out (if you knew Radiohead). Yeah, Ethan on piano had my respect right there the way he alternated the timing of his hands to go in seemingly incompatible ways and yet tie it all together.
The second song dragged a little bit to me and made me keenly aware that these guys don’t have that “full” high range sound that I have subconsciously come to expect when I am listening to live jazz. I debated internally whether I am just biased or if something would in fact not be mightily gained by the integration of a saxophone or something. Someone choppy, complex, and capable of playing weirdly when he wants—Chris Potter comes to mind. Speculation. I jokingly asked myself if The Bad Plus would not sell a dramatic number more than they do if they included another solo instrument (like sax or guitar).
The rest of the songs of the night provided more opportunity for their individual lyricism and intensity to find expression; and tempo! I was surprisingly able to put away from my mind any distraction about The Bad Plus and simply enjoy watching and hearing them play.
Two things that stood out were Ethan’s chops on piano—like one time it sounded like he was throwing Chopin and Debussy into a blender and playing intervals of each, interposed and sliced up into a completely engaging solo piece that had the whole audience entranced. And the last song they did, which they said is uncommon for them, was ‘an old jazz standard’—everyone laughed. The put the song through a broken record player, basically speeding it up and slowing it back down in a way that made you feel like you were thrown into some kind of time bend like an action scene from the Matrix.
OK, three things! They also played together through a drum solo which I thought was cool. Like hitting all the same beats together through a complicated timing. Definitely very different.
The last thing I’ll say as I end this (and I only thought of this later) is that I was surprised that even though these guys are very experimental and known for covering songs that are totally not-jazz they are surprisingly purist—like no electric instruments, synths or effects—even though it would seem to suit them. That is also at the same time one of the things that is so special. The sound they have is all from their own organically-based hands. Glad I went.
Oh, and I just found out Ethan Iverson has a blog called Doing The Math: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/
