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For All I Care

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The Bad Plus

 
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For All I Care
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Avg: 3.5 (139 ratings)

The Bad Plus' "pop record" — if only they all had this many ideas

  • We Say...

    Review by Peter Margasak

    Although the jazz trio Bad Plus have gained widespread attention for their inventive-yet-sincere treatments of rock and pop songs, their recordings have made plain that they have no interest in cheap novelty. And while the band — pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King — all come from a jazz background, what makes this group crackle is their nonchalant disregard for stylistic hierarchy. They dig into a Blondie tune like "Heart of Glass" with as much gusto and adventurousness as they do an Ornette Coleman classic.

    Past albums have mixed such radically revamped covers with sturdy, episodic original compositions, and while bracing improvisation has always been an important part of the mix, the real pleasure has been experience how the Bad Plus operate as an ensemble, with arrangements that see all three musicians trading functions, shifting gears, and assembling the compositions into meticulously calibrated sections, while leaving plenty of space for spontaneity. The core of this approach remains intact on the group's excellent new album For All I Care, but they've made a couple of significant changes; they didn't write any of the material and veteran Minneapolis alt-rock singer Wendy Lewis joins the group on most of the tracks (the first time they've recorded with an outsider).

    Lewis succeeds because she sings the melodies straight, without the affectations of a jazz singer; she doesn't scat and she doesn't spice up the phrasing in tunes like Nirvana's "Lithium" or Heart's "Barracuda." Her succinct, quietly soulful delivery reveals a deep respect and appreciation for those melodies and while the band has forged some dynamic arrangements — reharmonizing certain bits, shifting rhythmic accents, displacing simple figures with more tangled and frenetic ones — the rock covers opt for subtle variations instead of massive overhauls. Anderson and King contribute some nice harmony singing on tunes like Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" and Flaming Lips' "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate," and while the focus on vocals leaves less room for extended instrumental improvisation, the band is rarely static behind Lewis; every cycle through verse and chorus brings some new alteration.

    Lewis sits out on a handful of pieces by modern classical composers like Igor Stravinsky, Milton Babbitt and Gyorgy Ligeti, and it's on these pieces where the Bad Plus unleash their most rigorous reinventions and interactions. But it's the pop songs that dominate here, and while I don't think this collaboration with Lewis ultimately changes what the trio is all about, it could be seen as their "pop record." If only more pop records were packed with this many ideas.

  • They Say...

    Review by Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

    That the Bad Plus have recorded pop covers since their inception as a piano/bass/drums trio is a given in their M.O. The Minnesota-based trio has consistently added tunes by Blondie, Queen, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Ornette Coleman, and Burt Bacharach to their albums -- in addition to their own compositions -- as they've gone about reinventing the piano trio sound and dynamic in jazz (they have become the loudest, most hard rocking acoustic trio in the music's history). Some critics have accused them of camp, but this is simply a pronouncement of ignorance and prejudicial conservative and "preservationist" paranoia. After a decade of working together, the Bad Plus, following up their brilliant 2007 album Prog, have undergone some major changes: they left Sony and now record themselves independently. They've chosen Heads Up as their label/distributor in the United States and Universal in the rest of the world. For All I Care also marks their first recording entirely comprised of covers. The songs range from tunes by Nirvana (who they've covered before), Wilco, and Pink Floyd to Milton Babbitt, Igor Stravinsky, Yes, the Flaming Lips, and Gyorgy Ligeti, to Heart, Roger Miller, and the Bee Gees. There isn't an original on the set. Another first for the trio on For All I Care is the addition of Minneapolis rock vocalist Wendy Lewis. Perhaps the most compelling, shocking, and wonderful thing about this collaboration is how much Lewis' presence becomes part of the trio's landscape. Where before they've chosen tunes rich in irony for a jazz band to cover -- "Heart of Glass" and "Iron Man" come immediately to mind -- the emotional intensity and reverence Lewis offers the material only intensify their approach, especially "How Deep Is Your Love." On tracks like Heart's "Barracuda," Lewis becomes a real soloist despite deliberately downplaying her interpretive skill as a singer. In becoming a "member" of the band on this outing, she stands out as its singer. Her lack of vocal histrionics and acrobatics allows the melodic, harmonic embellishments and dimensional extensions by the band to roam free over the material. She grounds them but they still swing like mad. Check the reading of a "classic rock" nugget like "Long Distance Runaround" and you'll hear a fresh, brave, and utterly engaging song in its place -- despite the fact that the lyrics, and melody have been faithfully rendered. The same goes for Kurt Cobain's "Lithium" that opens the set. In the trio's able hands, the pathos in that lyric, and Cobain's melodic intricacy, can actually be heard. The dead space in Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" comes across as revealing the void at the heart of the song. The heartbreak in the Flaming Lips' "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" is devastating because of her dry delivery as accented by Reid Anderson's propulsive bass, Ethan Iverson's almost florid embellishing piano, and the in-the-cut breaks played by David King. On the modern classical material where vocals are absent, the trio look to interpret these works with deep concentration and bring out their improvisational possibilities as jazz tunes; they succeed in spades -- check the knotty contrapuntal bass and piano interaction on Ligeti's "Fém (Etude No. 8)" for example. This is one of the most compelling releases yet by one of the new jazz's finest bands to emerge in the 21st century.

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