I love these guys! I'm listening to their new recording: Made Possible. They are so creative and I am always enthralled by their music making.
Pound for Pound - Quiet groove in 4. Simple melody in the piano. A quiet joy permeates the beginning of this track; a song of gratefulness. Melody is repeated with small counter melodies. Becoming more complex but still expressing a clear line of thankfulness. At the end simple chords ending this beautiful song.
Seven Minute Mind - And here come the irregular rhythms! Super groovy bass line with added repeated notes and polyrhythms abounding. There is an exhilaration to this music and a kind of craziness!
Re-Elect That - Poly-everything; key (what key!), tempo, rhythm. This is one of those tracks that almost sounds like they're playing without listening to each other ..... almost. After a rather subdued drum solo (in volume, not activity), they all come together a kind of strange Latin sounding, hand clapping dance.
Wolf Out - Well, this was a miss for me. Can you say monotonous? The amazing drumming of Dave King can't even save this one. There's too much repetition of a descending bass line and, for the most part, an uninteresting piano.
Sing For A Silver Dollar - This is much better. Nice pauses in the melody and square rhythm are very effective (what's going to happen next?). Middle section has spacy electric sounds with spare bass plucking and some drumming. Then back to the material of the beginning. Nice.
For My Eyes Only - Tempo is slow; stately comes to mind. Great middle section with the bass pizzicato tremolo-ing while the piano plays simple arpeggios. Really nice.
I want to Feel Good Pt. 2 - Listening to this upbeat number I do feel good! Love the way pianist Ethan Iverson goes out of key and then come right back. Wow! Around 1:40 a great change of tonality and feel (very modern jazz), then, of course, back to A section with some variation. Fantastic!
In Stiches - The first 12 minutes of this 14+ minute track is a slow crescendo on all counts. It starts off very spare, with no discernible pulse, lots of silence and then slowly builds in complexity to a furious extended climax before falling away and ending with a very groovy, fairly fast coda; all players coming together and then fading out with a syncopated bass line.
Victoria - A smoky ballad starting with a beautiful melancholy solo piano. Then Reid Anderson on bass taking a solo. Followed by all three playing in their inimitable free fashion. The major chord at the end comes as a surpise after such misty and reflective harmonies.
In sum; there's some really great stuff here and I will be coming back to Made Possible repeatedly. The Bad Plus continue to challenge the listener with their irregular rhythms, their tonality, and their improvisatory sound. They also entrance with their lyricism and astound with their virtuosity. They are all top flight players and I hope to see them live someday
