Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
June 27, 2007 at 17:58
filed under rant, Vancouver
Tagged Vancouver
I had the chance last night to attend the Joshua Redman performance for the 22nd Vancouver Jazz Festival and I had not anticipated the opening act, which I knew nothing of before making it to The Center for Performing Arts, to steal the show. Turns out they were simply amazing. I don’t want to take anything away from the main act but as The Bad Plus was a surprise to me it made more of an impact. The trio is composed of David King on drums, Reid Anderson on the bass and Ethan Iverson on the piano. As All About Jazz puts it:
Since its appearance on the music scene in 2003, The Bad Plus has been at the forefront of numerous debates within the world of jazz and beyond. Questions of genre placement and definition terminology seem to plague this esoteric band. Its newest disc Prog certainly won’t answer these questions or solve these debates. In fact, it might just spur these arguments on. However, there is a solid truth to be found regardless: these three musicians make serious, ground-shaking music that is not to be overlooked.
Although they have shaped their earlier reputation by adapting for their jazz trio classics such as Sabbath’s “Iron Man” and Nirvana’s “Smell Like Teen Spirit” while playing around with versions of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and Bowie’s “Life on Mars”, it was some of their original compositions from their latest album, Prog, that really caught my attention. “Physical Cities” is a
badass prog-jazz crunch that rides on one of Anderson’s best basslines to date. The song switches back and forth between a rubbery “verse” section and harsher, staccato “chorus”, best differentiated by King’s drumming, which goes from typical jazz foreplay to 4/4 rock cymbal-crashing at the drop of a hat. The transitions between these sections can be a bit jarring at moments, but it the song’s nine-minutes fly by due to the Plus’ tight energy, which keeps the momentum rolling the whole time.
Here’s a portion of the song from a different concert:
“Giant” was another original composition that was simply hypnotic while their version of Ornette Coleman’s “Song X” was delightful as well.
The Joshua Redman trio was also very good although Mr. Redman himself didn’t quite connect with the audience as much as the previous act. Reuben Rodgers on bass was absolutely mind-blowing and Joshua Redman shined on his compositions (Back East) as well as on tributes, including Sonny Rollin’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” from “Way Out West”.
Comments are closed.
Daniel Julien
Great discovery! Thanks for the hook up I will mos def keep an ear open for more on the Bad +
Alex Merlin
J’adore the Bad Plus.
Je les ai vu deux fois en concert :
à Lyon (dans un petit bar) et à New York