The Bad Plus: Can't stop, 'Never Stop'

Here, via Rolling Stone, is my take on the new Bad Plus album, Never Stop II. The short version: I think it's goddamn great, and I've been playing it on repeat for the past week.

It's been a little weird watching the Bad Plus go public about their recent personnel shakeup. (In addition to these authoritative accounts from Nate Chinen and Giovanni Russonello, don't miss Pamela Espeland's equally vital feature for the Star Tribune, as well as the full transcripts of her conversations with the band members and some of their key Twin Cities allies, which live at her bebopified blog.) Weird because a) there simply aren't that many jazz bands out there who are stable and longstanding enough for their membership changes to qualify as noteworthy news and because b) it's not often that you read about behind-the-scenes interpersonal discord — or even interpersonal dynamics, period — in jazz. (One example that stands out, ironically, is departed TBP pianist Ethan Iverson's remarkable 2009 interview with Keith Jarrett, in which the latter discusses life on the road with his classic American Quartet in disarmingly candid fashion: "If I hadn’t had Paul [Motian] as an ally, I’d probably be in a mental institution," etc.)

And because c) for a long while, TBP seemed like a collective you could really rally behind, a true all-for-one band, both on and offstage. (I wrote in 2010 about how the Iverson/Anderson/King lineup's collective identity only made the music feel that much richer and more distinctive.) I was not an early adopter when it came to these guys, but once I really took notice, appropriately around the time of the first Never Stop, I was firmly On Board.

But, you know, things change, and it sounds like in this case, with Reid Anderson and Dave King continuing on in the group and Iverson setting out on his own, it's absolutely for the best. On a pure fan level, I was a little worried there for a second — not least re: what would become of the other fine projects new TBP recruit Orrin Evans is involved in, most prominently the outstanding Tarbaby — but having heard Never Stop II, the whole thing makes a lot more sense. And by that I mean, and I tried to get at this in my review, this is still the Bad Plus you know and love. (To an immediate and almost comically extreme degree — I fully agree, for example, with Nate Chinen's statement re: the album-opening Anderson composition "Hurricane Birds" that "...anyone who has followed The Bad Plus over the years would be able to identify it after hearing the first chord of the song." From where I'm sitting, Anderson's compositional voice is indeed the heart and soul of the group, and it's sounding sturdier than ever on this record.) And if Reid Anderson and Dave King are still deeply engaged with this aesthetic and Ethan Iverson isn't, then mazel tov to all of them to figuring that out before the whole enterprise derailed. As a fan, also, of Iverson's outside work — with Billy Hart, Albert "Tootie" Heath, etc. — I'll absolutely be keeping an eye/ear out for whatever he's got coming down the pike, not least that Mark Turner duo album on ECM.

As bright as the future looks, I'm really glad I got to see TBP Mark 1 one last time, last month at the Vanguard, just two nights before Iverson's final bow with the group. Honestly, despite any lingering background tensions, the set I caught played out like pretty much all the other Bad Plus gigs I'd seen at the Vanguard and elsewhere in recent years, which is a decent amount. The set, filled with classic (to me, at least) songs like "My Friend Metatron," "You Are" and "1979 Semi Finalist," reminded me that this band transcends "jazz" in the way that any great band transcends its context. You're there, hearing them, and all that matters are the songs. That I can envision hearing Orrin Evans, Reid Anderson and Dave King play the Never Stop II songs in that same room and feeling that same way is one happy notion.

Go see Bill McHenry

Bill McHenry is playing at the Village Vanguard tonight and tomorrow with Orrin Evans, Eric Revis and Andrew Cyrille. Having caught a set last night, I strongly recommend that you go.

I've been following McHenry for a few years. I think it was 2006 when I first heard him live, playing at the Vanguard with the same band on his ’07 record, Roses: Ben Monder on guitar, Reid Anderson on bass and Paul Motian on drums. (McHenry's new record, Ghosts of the Sun, features the same personnel, and I'm pretty sure it comes from the same sessions as Roses.) In ’09, I caught McHenry in a very different context—a freeform duo with Monder, which you can hear on the album Bloom.

The band he's playing with this week is extraordinary. You've got pianist Evans and bassist Revis—both hailing from Tarbaby, who blew my mind at this year's Undead Jazzfest—and Cyrille, longtime Cecil Taylor collaborator and all-around jazz-drumming badass, behind the kit. I guess what struck me overall is this group's versatility, its refusal to align itself with any particular jazz faction. The band has no "angle," no spin, no gimmick; its M.O. is simply to commit fully to whatever tune McHenry calls, to get deep into it, to execute. The set was beautifully constructed: It opened with a stirring free-time piece, and I also remember a midtempo swinger, a funky soul-jazz stroll, an easygoing ballad. There was no channel-changing vibe at play though; it was just smart pacing.

"La Fuerza," a piece from Ghosts of the Sun, sticks out in particular. McHenry led the band through its floating theme—which for me paints a picture of a proud matador (as the title suggests, it's definitely got that Spanish flavor)—and then stepped aside to give Evans and later Revis some space. Each player built up from a misty cloud to a shuddering, super-physical climax. When those storms died down, Cyrille began an unaccompanied solo, constructed of little taps and clicks. Revis joined in, striking the wood frame of his bass; McHenry, sitting off to the side, started pressing down the keys of his horn, getting a percussive effect, and for a few minutes, the Vanguard stage became a makeshift drum circle.

Here and throughout the set, McHenry seemed delighted by the invention of his bandmates. After his solos, he'd retire to the bench at stage right and sit and listen, looking like a wide-eyed boy. There was a lot to hear. Evans was simply excellent: tasteful, minimal, bluesy at times, but breaking also into seismic, full-keyboard runs, episodes of zoned-out minimalism or full-on classical-styled romance. As he was when I heard him with Peter Brötzmann at this year's Vision Festival, Revis was both tough and songful, using his brief solo spots to advance the music rather than trot out technique. And Cyrille was a model of understated gravity; he swung and propelled with airy funkiness, the pulse sliding and gliding, and you felt no less buoyed by his out-of-meter colorations, which gave off a deep feeling of careful intent.

As so many have written, McHenry has this one-in-a-million tone, gauzy yet robust. It just sounds so classic, well-aged, the sonic equivalent of his tenor's tarnished gold finish. He sings through the horn with no agenda, assured rather than chopsy, no show-offiness. But like Evans, he has these sudden devilish impulses; he might let out a series of brief screeches, or a booming foghorn sound, or get caught up in a tic of fingering, a little OCD figure that he repeats and repeats.

This is that rare brand of jazz that has no name. No one seems to know where it came from. (Is is the Motian-Frisell-Lovano band, maybe?) It's the kind of jazz where the classic and the experimental bleed together and seem as one. Neither aspect feels perfunctory and both are heightened by exposure to the other; you listen harder to the "straight-ahead" swinging, sense more form in the open-ended blowing. It is not a noncommittal middle ground. It is an aesthetic of making calm, mature peace with the full spectrum of available materials. It does not draw attention to its own breadth and range. It is about using each strategy and sitting with it, making it genuine, so that it's not putting on a different hat for every tune, so that it all feels gracious and above board and non-intellectualized, non-"clever." Hear this band and you're not hearing a style of jazz; you're hearing players who take themselves out of the way of the music and just let the songs in, discovering on the spot what they want to sound like.

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*NPR graciously streamed Wednesday's 9pm set by this band. Check it out in archived form here.

*As a P.S., here's a 2003 All About Jazz profile I wrote on Andrew Cyrille. I have fond memories of interviewing him; aside from his patience and thoughtfulness, I recall that he was the one who put me in touch with the late, great Walt Dickerson.

*As a P.P.S., I should note that I sent a few live-Tweet dispatches from this show, as well as from a performance by the great Texan black-metal band Absu, which I also caught last night, via the Time Out New York Music Twitter page. I'm still getting the hang of this practice, but I encourage you to follow our channel to check out further on-the-spot concert impressions from me and my esteemed colleagues.

Mandance: Tarbaby at Undead Jazzfest

I spent the first couple hours of Undead Jazzfest 2011 channel-flipping. I took advantage of the staggered set times and jumped between venues to catch about 15 minutes of several different acts. I enjoyed watching Tyshawn Sorey deploy the gravity blast in his sparse, cryptic trio with Kris Davis and Ingrid Laubrock; hearing the often mercilessly abstract Nate Wooley play a straightforwardly beautiful solo with Harris Eisenstadt's Canada Day quintet; eavesdropping on Marc Ribot's ragged and poignant unaccompanied set. But then Tarbaby started playing and there was no need to think about OPTIONS, the blessing and the curse of the Jazzfest experience (whether Winter or Undead). I put the remote down.

I had heard this collective—pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Eric Revis (who sounded incredible alongside Peter Brötzmann at Vision Festival XVI) and drummer Nasheet Waits (for my money, one of the greatest living jazz drummers), augmented with various guests such as alto hero Oliver Lake, who fronted the group last night—on its 2010 sophomore album, The End of Fear. I'll admit to having initially been baffled by Tarbaby's conceptual/satirical slant (the record features a lot of overdubbed voices, speaking on the topic of jazz convention—and by extension, race— and creating a strange push-and-pull with the music); in short, it's the kind of record with a good deal of fuss and context, which tends to turn me off. As so often happens, I set the album aside intending to give it a second chance, but that chance never came about.

I can see now that no matter how good the record was, it wasn't going to prepare me for the shock (I think that's a fair word) of seeing Tarbaby live. The combined power of these musicians was damn near scary: I felt like I was watching Led Zeppelin, where every player can detonate on their own, but together they were simply volcanic.

The first piece built slowly, with Evans worrying an impish high-register phrase while the rhythm section got its bearings. Lake strode to the mic and began zipping off his trademark turbo-avant-bebop lines, and the music swelled. The band was like a tiny creature drawing air into its lungs and doubling in size with each breath, until—by the middle of this initial number—it was a writhing, hulking beast.

I wish I could put before you the loudness and the weight these four gave off during the course of the set. It's that creeping feeling of "Wow, these players are obviously playing at about 1/10 their full strength right now—if they let it entirely off the leash, we're going to be in some serious trouble." And soon, we were, and it was glorious. This was classic inside-outside jazz, sliding in and out of swing time, always inviting the turbulence while courting the form. And all four players projecting such mightiness, just at the border of macho and yet imbued with so much soul and wit and graciousness. Postbop, I guess I'd call it, though a particularly boisterous and totally un-arty strain of it.

I remember Evans's whirlwind piano flourishes, delivered with classic showman's flair, thundering-herd-of-elephants solos from Waits, Revis's cathartic shout in the middle of what I think was the piece "Brews" (the band quickly fell in line, punctuating the end of every phrase with a collective vocal outburst). Energy-wise, the performance reminded me of any number of free-jazz blowouts I've witnessed, but the crucial difference was that there was a SHAPE and an architecture at play. The quartet worked with relatively brief pieces, a repertoire it knew cold—mostly originals, I believe, in addition to an awesome version of "Awake Nu" from Don Cherry's Where Is Brooklyn?—and as it pushed and pulled and pummeled and caressed these compositions, you felt a guiding logic underneath. A point to it all.

As recently as last week, Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus reiterated that "The future of jazz lies in bands." Tarbaby is definitely, definitely what he meant, and I really hope they get their due soon (someone please book them for a week at a club!) because they are every bit as impressive as TBP, the Bandwagon (of which Waits is also a member) or any of the other more high-profile collectives. That irreverent energy that left me cold on my initial brush with The End of Fear, as though the band were sharing a joke I didn't get, made perfect sense live; it translated as a rare camaraderie. Not the annoying in-jokeyness ("See what I did there?") that sometimes haunts outside-the-box jazz, but a very genuine sense of play—playing with fire really.

It's quite possible that Tarbaby is the most virile jazz band on earth. Again, that flirting with machoness, that cutting-contest mentality, but instead of just stringing solos together, these men were building something, sharing in their own gloves-off kind of way. What a joy to see Oliver Lake, a man who will turn 70 next year, romping around alongside three considerably younger players (their median age is about 40), and there being no sense of tedious reverence for the old guy. Everyone was scrapping together, trading blows. It's enough to make you sad that some older players don't test their mettle against younger generations, and the same goes with younger players who don't get in the ring with older ones. I've definitely written this before (I remember singling out the example of Darius Jones, who was brave enough to tap Cooper-Moore and Bob Moses for his Aum Fidelity debut), but it's such a crucial thing in jazz. It's risky, sure—for the old as much as the young—and not everyone is ready for it. But Oliver Lake is currently playing at an astonishingly high level. Make no mistake, he is a living master, and since he gigs in New York all the time—he'll be back at Undead on Sunday with his Organ Quartet—you are remiss if you don't go check him out. If at all possible, check him out with Tarbaby.

I hope someone makes a live record of this band, or better yet a live DVD. I'm frantically wanting to demonstrate to my friends who weren't at last night's show how great they are. I know I'm going to go back to The End of Fear with fresh ears, but when you get down to it, Tarbaby exists in an undocumentable realm. Regarding it on record is like playing with an action figure of a T-Rex. This is the kind of sweet, jovial thunder that you have to hear in nature.

P.S. Hypocritical as it may seem, here's a Tarbaby + Lake live clip that gives you a little taste of the wildness.

P.P.S. Here's Tarbaby's self-titled 2009 debut (which I haven't heard yet) on CD Baby.

Winter Jazzfest 2011: My top 5

Pictured (left to right): Loren Stillman, Nate Radley, Gary Versace and Ted Poor of Bad Touch.

Via The Volume, a list of the five best sets I caught at Winter Jazzfest 2011.