T he acoustic jazz trio The Bad Plus have cultivated a bad-boy image. And guess what, attitude works. They have garnered critical attention and loads of rock and alternative music fans. Past the hype, though, The Bad Plus' inspired jazz shakes up the expectations of what an acoustic jazz trio can sound like. Like their electrified (but different-sounding) predecessors, Martin, Medeski and Wood, they have their own voice -- an authentic and youthful one.
For one thing, no other jazz group has recorded rock songs such as Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or Blondie's "Heart of Glass." Hearing Nirvana chopped up into free jazz or Blondie shredded with rhythmic furor is both disturbing and intriguing.
Their original compositions may have humorous titles ("Flim" and "Do Your Sums, Die Like A Dog, Play For Home" for starters), but they back up their playfulness with serious technique. What saves them from being trendily postmodern, though, is their weighty approach and musical unconventionality.
Unlike most piano-fronted trios, the drums and bass stand up and speak out as often as the piano. Combined with constantly unexpected shifts of direction and highly sophisticated dynamics, the trio genuinely opens up fresh musical vocabulary. Unbound by traditional jazz conventions, they have a lot to say.
The Bad Plus may appear a tad cerebral, but their recordings (particularly "These Are the Vistas" and "Blunt Object") hit with muscularity and straightforwardness. They disrupt even this, however, by intermixing songs of minimalist quietude.
All their playing with extremes may or may not recharge jazz's image of itself, but in the meantime, their "bad" attitude creates distinctive, high-energy and very, very good jazz.
