Swearing at MotoristsTwin Cities alt-jazzbos take another
bite out of the rock canon: this time, with vocals
It’s a “your peanut butter’s in
my chocolate” musical conundrum: Are Minneapolis’ Bad Plus a jazz
combo with a healthy appreciation for modern pop, or a power trio
that just happens to have strong feelings for jazz? Both, as it
happens, and on the band’s fifth studio LP, For All I Care
(as in the Kurt Cobain lyric from “Lithium,” which the trio
covers here in typically skewed fashion), they add vocals to the mix
for the first time as if to put their confusing array of footprints
in cement, once and for all. Fellow Minnesotan Wendy Lewis serves as
the trio’s vocal muse on an album of cover songs spanning the rock
universe, as represented by a sorta-faithful rendition of Pink
Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”; a skeletal, bass-heavy reading of
Wilco’s “Radio Cure”; a McCoy Tyner-meets-Thelonious Monk spin
on Yes’ “Long Distance Runaround”; and idiosyncratic takes on
Stravinsky’s “Variation d’Apollon” and Liget’s “Fém.”
If this all sounds like a dog’s breakfast of sound, it is—the
tunes themselves only occasionally work, with a dark-hearted gem like
The Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love” followed by a strangely
mute iteration of Heart’s “Barracuda” as though the two were
meant to forever stand side-by-side as strange bedfellows. But for
all of The Bad Plus’ instrumental prowess and fearless exploration,
it’s Lewis’ voice that stars here, bending notes and emotion to
her will like so many coat hangers left outside in a tornado.
Listen to The Bad Plus on MySpace.