Prog

by

The Bad Plus

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I'm not going to make proclamations like, "The Bad Plus is the future of jazz music," or anything like that. However, concerning their "covers," as you reviewers enjoy calling them so much, might I point out that there is a long-standing tradition in jazz to play tunes you like that you (or anyone else on the recording session for that matter) did not write yourself. And what do we now call those tunes? Standards. But the process by which a song becomes a standard is not that of a committee sitting in a room, deciding what goes in the Real Book and what doesn't. It's a process by which artists play tunes they enjoy playing, and after numerous artists have put their voice to a tune, maybe it becomes a standard. I see what the Bad Plus does with their interpretations of more contemporary rock songs as a continuation of that same tradition. The Bad Plus play tunes they enjoy, as far as I can tell, and they kill each and every one of them. Even if they play it faithfully to the original, they still kill it and give it their own Bad Plus stamp. Would you ever confuse the Rush version of Tom Sawyer with the Bad Plus Version? I doubt it.

It is somewhat regrettable that there aren't more original compositions by the band on this record, since they're all great composers with their own individual voices. But, might I also remind you, that the jazz player composes in the moment, even if they didn't write the song itself.

The Bad Plus is a great presence on the musical scene today, especially in the Jazz idiom. They bring joy, exuberance, and incredible musicality to everything they do. You don't judge their music. It judges you.

The Bad Plus return with another mixture of deconstructed covers and originals. "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" is done softly and less Bad-Plusy than covers on their other discs. Or, you could say it's done jazzier - the main sing-along melody doesn't appear until the end. It's a good start, and it's their best quiet song on this CD. "Physical Cities" is a thudder, which focuses on group improvisation. Cut from the same cloth as "Big Eater" (from "These Are The Vistas"), its ending is like being hit with a wooden mallet. "Life On Mars" burbles along for its first four minutes until Ethan Iverson starts playing the recognizable part of the song around David King's cymbal crashes. I don't get "Mint" -- both quiet and loud sections come and go without making much sense to me. "Giant" resolves into a pretty beginning, and is nice, though the same ostinato gets tiresome after a while. "Thriftstore Jewelry" is more nimble and dynamic, and might be my favorite original. "Tom Sawyer", unlike other Bad Plus covers, is done fairly straight and almost reverently. "This Guy's In Love With You" is a Bacharach-David cover, and "The World Is The Same" an original. Both are relatively quiet, neither reach me. You could summarize this CD by saying it's 60% quiet, and 40% loud, but the reason I give it three stars is I'm not crazy about the quiet ones. I just think they need to be played with more touch, more agility. The Bad Plus resolves its track & field cycle of "1972 Bronze Medalist" & "1979 Semi-Finalist" with the best one yet, "1980 World Champion". This is another in their strength; the fast, jagged songs. The Bad Plus would be boring if they made every song sound like "Physical Cities", so I'd like them to get better on the "Giant"-style songs.