January 4th - The Bad Plus: Heart of Glass

And continuing trying to catch up to the right day here....

Now for those that haven't heard of the avant-garde jazz group The Bad Plus, chances are you'll either love them or hate them. It's just a just trio of Reid Anderson on bass, Ethan Iverson on piano, and David Kind on drums, but man they can make some music. Throughout all of their songs they blend an incredibly unique jazz/rock/pop influence, and combine them to create an incredibly distinctive product that is The Bad Plus. Throughout a lot of their albums they cover some very famous rock/pop songs such as Tom Sawyer originally by Rush, Smells Like Teen Spirit originally by Nirvana, and Heart of Glass by Blondie.

Why it's important:

Somehow this group is able to combine incredibly complex meters, with unbelievable key structures, and a load of material with just three people! Some of the musical lines they create are incredibly hard to follow (such as with their version of the serialist composer Milton Babbit's Semi-Simple Variations). But somehow they manage to put a jazz influence to an original that hardly sounds structured.

But back to Heart of Glass. This time they take an original that's very simple and has great melodic material and transform it into something that couldn't contrast more from beginning to end. How they're able to transform the song beyond the original material is what grasps my attention the most. Especially with Ethan Iverson's piano playing, there's times in which he'll play the regular material in his right hand, and some unbelievable counter-melody (if you could really call it that0 in his right hand. To me all of the disarray throughout the song is worth the wait once they get to the final strain.

Fun Facts:

1. Although the group formed in 2000, the first time that they played together was 1989.

2. They released their first album after only playing three gigs as a group.

3. The group originated in Minnesota, but they got a lot of their publicity from playing in Chicago for which they seem to still be getting mixed reviews.

First I recommend you remind yourself of the original, then check out The Bad Plus version. I found a great music video for it but am still trying to find it again, I'll re-post when I find it...

To me this group represents a music that's much more fun to listen to the technical aspects of what they're doing. As a pure listening experience although it's hard to beet the build up and tension in Everywhere You Turn.

“It’s about as badass as highbrow gets.”
- Rolling Stone