The Bad Plus & Prog

The Bad Plus released their new album, Prog, on Tuesday and I’ve been pretty much blown away. Perhaps its my of-late distaste for most things guitar-driven-dance-rock, or perhaps its my love for percussion, but in either event, the avant jazz trio has released one of the most intriguing, challenging and innovative albums so far this year.

Prog follows the road that The Bad Plus have worn fairly well in the past: time signature nightmares and frenetic drumming combined with beautiful piano and bass. As in the past, they do a couple covers on the new album, including their versions of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (Tears for Fears), “Tom Sawyer” (Rush) and “Life on Mars” (Davide Bowie). As opposed to previous covers that attempted to follow the lead of songs written for guitar (Nirvana, Pixies tunes, among others), these songs have vocal or piano leads that make the process a lot easier, and a lot better. My favorite cover of theirs, however, is a version of Aphex Twin’s “Flim” (see the YouTube):

The album is their first since leaving Columbia and a welcome addition to the music library of anyone into piano-led jazz trios (they have me back listening to really old Bill Evans and Dave Brubeck stuff), as well as the more modern jazz outfits like Benevento/Russo Duo, Euphone and the like. Jazz isn’t dead after all, apparently.

The Bad Plus “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (mp3)

Yeah, that Aphex cover is pretty amazing. I loved the first BP album, and was kind of meh on the second one. Nice to see a good review here. I’ll have to check it out.

I’m a jazzhead, btw.