Jazz that rocks
The Bad Plus mixes up high and low culture
by Dave Kirby (buzz@boulderweekly.com)

You either hear a palpable militancy in the Bad Plus's re-invented jazz piano trio, or you think you hear it... or you're not listening. And whether you believe that the piano trio form is ripe for a little irreverence and muscular re-invention, or that, geez, can we leave just this one thing alone please, may be a good predictor as to where you come down on this outfit.

It's a good thing, we think, to be playing in a band with your hands untied and knowing that people are either nuts about you or madder than wet cats.

If Bad Plus drummer Dave King is tired of talking about this subject, he didn't display it last week when we caught up with him.

For instance, we were hoping to feed off some sinister conspiracy about the recent move off Sony onto indie label Heads Up — maybe some retribution here, or maybe the toxic indignance of uptown, East Coast jazz critics was just too much for the mega-label to bear. Something.

Nah.

"We've actually had a little bit of a luxury, kind of being the token 'art band' on our record label. I mean, we probably cost the label less in recording costs than J-Lo's perfume budget. They could afford to keep us — I think it helped to keep their credibility with people who appreciate a little eclecticism.

"But there was a great purge of people when Sony merged with BMG, and a lot of our longtime friends didn't survive the head chopping, so we didn't really know anyone anymore. Then the whole 'FBI warning label' thing happened, with that tracking spyware thing they were loading onto the discs, and I think we decided it was just time. For us, it was an integrity thing; it was hard to imagine continuing on after that. It wasn't nasty or anything — we shook hands. Everybody's OK."

So the band went back to the studio. The resulting CD Prog struck us admittedly sympathetic observers as a surprisingly buoyant release, somewhat freer of the heavy, chaotic aggressiveness that characterized their last couple of records. It sounded a bit more like King, Reid Anderson (bassist) and Ethan Iverson (pianist) were having — is this still allowed? — fun.

"Yeah, it was fun. I think it was kind of a cleansing experience for us — a new label, we were doing this ourselves. Plus, it's the way that Tony [Platt, producer] runs his sessions. Much different from Tchad [Blake]."

Prog is a masterwork of bewildering mood and compositional spasmodia. Iverson's "Mint" sounds like Monk scoring a double-speed cartoon/detective film, followed by the relaxed, bass hook sentimentality of Anderson's "Giant," and the lithe, scampering melodicism of King's "Thriftstore Jewelry."

And, naturally, there's the Bad Plus trademark — the covers. A curiously diffident, almost loungey take on Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" opens the CD, sounding like it wants to be ironic but dissolving into a kind of poised jazz classicism that the tune actually wears pretty well. Later comes Rush's "Tom Sawyer," busy and cramped, and Bachrach/David's "This Guy's In Love With You," played almost straight, again teetering on the highest form of flattery, Iverson substituting piano bar-lush with roiling chops and spontaneous duels with King's tomtoms. You just don't know what to make of the thing.

So, yeah, it may be the band's choice of covers that have landed them on precarious ground with some critics — but, really, just some.

"Most of the jazz community really digs us. We have a lot of the top critics in our camp; I think they accept us for what we do and who we are. Yeah, there are some writers out there who just hate us. And, I mean, that's OK — except I'm not sure that they've ever really listened to us. We are a jazz piano trio. We're jazz musicians."

Is there something sacrosanct about the piano trio, we asked.

"You know, that's a really good point. I've been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks. You're right, it's like there's something sacred about the piano trio. I mean, I really think if we were a trio consisting of guitar, bass and drums, we wouldn't take half the shit that we do from our detractors. No, we don't use electronics, but there's something evil about having rock influences, I guess."

Hey, it doesn't help to win over the cultural stalwarts — or to get them to take your originals as seriously as they should — if you're doing piano trio covers of Blondie, Tears For Fears, The Pixies and Black Sabbath.

"Right. We should be playing Monk covers — which, of course, we did for 15 years. I love that stuff as much as anyone. I mean, I always felt a little weird about playing it all in the first place, like I was disrespecting it or something...

"But I really think that it's hard for people today, young people, to relate to that stuff as a part of their lives: 60-year-old music. So what do we do? We play covers of tunes that had some relevance in our lives as we were growing up and becoming musicians ourselves. It was the pop music of our day. All those guys 50 years ago, 60 years ago, they were all playing the pop music of their day.

"We're jazz lovers, too. I like to think that we respect all those standards too much to just restate them all over again."

There are certainly other jazz artists who borrow from the rock medium. Pianist Brad Mehldau comes to mind, working most of the time in a trio setting and having elicited some skepticism for his liberal use of rock song remakes, as well — most notably Radiohead covers.

"Absolutely. Brad's a big supporter; he's said so in print. He's one of the guys who actually comes out to the shows."

King drew a breath, almost exhausted. We felt a little bad, as if we had prompted him to defend what the Bad Plus was doing, with its wild tempo changes, rock covers and New Subversive Swing. Hardly. That static is better left for the jazz critic Hannitys — the scolders and nags and picklers of trad jazz. This is a great record right now and maybe well into the future.

But King doesn't take it too seriously.

"We probably do have a screw loose in there somewhere," he chuckles. "If anything, you should feel sorry for us."

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