The famed piano, bass, and drums jazz trio return to their roots with a new album featuring amazing cover versions of songs make famous by an incredibly diverse group of musicians and bands. The album is available in stores as well at all leading digital retailers on August 26, 2016.
I have been a fan of the Bad Plus since their early days as a band. A recent album The Bad Plus Joshua Redman was in steady rotation for months. But I first became intrigued with the group because of their inventive rearrangements of songs like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” and Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.”
After several years recording original music, the band is back to doing covers. They have created what is bound to be an enduring album with songs by Prince, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Peter Gabriel, TV On The Radio, Kraftwerk, and Ornette Coleman among others.
Since I am a huge fan of Prince, I went straight to their version of “The Beautiful Ones,” which was coincidentally recorded a month before the legend’s untimely death. It is a potent tribute to a figure that loomed large in the lives of the three members of the “leaderless” trio. Pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer David King are all fellow musicians from Minnesota.
The melody is right up front and the band nails the pathos inherent in the song even though it is an instrumental version. The tune begins with several choice piano notes before Iverson teases the well-known melody; Anderson’s bass sticks the next line like a free thrower before the piano finishes the phrase. King drums a deceptively simple funk beat and then Iverson plays an intricate solo segment before ending the section on a fat chord. They bring it up and bring it down before ending on the same well-known melody. The Purple One would be proud.
Another favorite from back in the day that the band just tears up and tears apart is Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers.” It is recognizable as well, but I continually marvel at the band’s ability to keep songs in their original form, yet alter them considerably.
This quote from Anderson sums it up quite nicely, “We’ve always made it a point in our music to cut a wide swath, both stylistically and emotionally and the songs on It’s Hard are a reflection of that principal. Each song is an opportunity to try something unique, and every arrangement and performance represent the combined perspective of three very different personalities—which is the essence to the sound of The Bad Plus.”
