Ethan Iverson (pno); Reid Anderson (bs); David King (dms).(Review by Lance)
The Bad Plus are certainly one of the hottest acts around at the moment pulling in audiences around the globe and releasing this, their eighth studio album.
Not your average piano/bass/drums trio, TBP move in many directions as they discover and digest new dimensions. Taking a repetitive phrase, Iverson will gradually build it up increasing the tension with bass and drums doing similar things differently until, somehow, it all comes together in a glorious cascade of notes lighting up the musical horizon as if to say this is our way - The Way.
That they can do this at any tempo - slow and dreamy, fast and furious, a mix of both - doesn't matter. They're all heading for the Same Rainbow's End, albeit by different routes. But this is no Moon River, no Sea of Tranquility, but a raging torrent that tosses and turns the listener, threatening, frightening until, suddenly, when all seems to be lost, it reaches calmer waters - where listener and player relax, floating as if on air under a clear blue sky with golden sands but an arms length away. A vision appears, beckoning, perhaps it's a mermaid, but, before you get within her aura, the tempest returns sweeping you back into the maelstrom once more.
Up into the clouds you soar, strange figures flash by, was that Chopin? looked like him. I think, if he'd been alive today, he may have liked this.
The Bad Plus - Made Possible is released on October 22. They are live at Ronnie Scott's on October 23/24.
Lance.
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