Boo-Wah
Two short reviews today. The length of my comments are in no way indicative of the worth of these albums, which are both excellent.
The Bad Plus: These Are the Vistas
After seeing Midwest-grown jazz trio The Bad Plus open for Garage À Trois last month, I’ve been aching for this album. They were by far the best opening band discovery we’ve made in quite a while; in my mind they are more than worthy of any “future of jazz” hyperbole that has been heaped upon them by music critics (who range from The New Yorker to Rolling Stone)....
Consisting of three long-time friends, Reid Anderson, David King, and Ethan Iverson, The Bad Plus uses the standard triad of piano/bass/drums to build on a classical jazz sound with less reliance on the groove-oriented lines of many of the “new jazz” acts and more nods to flat-out rock and roll.
As with their live performances, the album moves between elegant originals and inspired covers which include a gorgeous deconstruction of Aphex Twin’s “Flim” and a (according to the liner notes) “ruthless” deconstruction of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” It’s lovely to hear their live energy come through in these recorded versions. Anderson, King, and Iverson manage to be simultaneously exuberant and studied; anchored by their outstanding technical prowess, they cut loose and serve up a fun, funny, and truly beautiful album of outstanding modern jazz.
Vida Blue: The Illustrated Band
The second release from Phish keyboardist Page McConnell’s side project, Vida Blue, delivers exactly what you’d expect from the marriage of his groovy, spacey trio to a sextet of Afro-Cuban musicians called the Spam Allstars: an extended, layered, beat-driven jam session caught in all its spontaneous and sophisticated glory. Vida Blue’s Oteil Burbridge and Russell Batiste anchor The Illustrated Band with their solid bass and drum lines, allowing the Spam Allstars to drive the direction of the jams with their energetic horn sections and Latin soul. Page adds another layer with his keyboards, choosing to add texture rather than front the melodies, and DJ Le Spam blends hip samples and subtle scratching to complete the package.
It’s a rather inspired pairing, and makes for a record that’s hard to categorize and fun to listen to. Despite Page’s admitted reluctance to front a band, he continues to prove that he has a great ear for interesting musical combinations. As the two bands tour together for a short run after the New Year, it will be interesting to see if the Vida Blue catalog is reinterpreted, and how. My guess is that they’ll continue to prove the great truth of my friend Coki’s favorite saying: “Everything’s better with horns.”